Ciao Bambino Family Travels

REVIEWED BY: Ms. Cairo

MY RECOMMENDATION: YES

AMAZON SUBSCRIPTION LINK: Ciao Bambino Family Travel, by Ciao Bambino

WEB ADDRESS: http://www.ciaobambino.com/ciaobambinoblog/index.php

BLOG DESCRIPTION: Ciao Bambino is a worldwide family travel resource providing tips and advice on traveling with kids and comprehensive reviews of the best kid-friendly hotels and resorts.

MY REVIEW:Traveling with kids is perhaps the most difficult form of travel there is (second only to being a location that has to provide things-to-do for people traveling with kids.

How much kids "get" out of travel is debatable. For the last few decades I've loved travelling and wished I spoke the language of each place I visited... I was a military brat as a kid and *know* I had the opportunity to learn these languages, and scorned to do so. I've regretted that ever since. But when I tried to advise my 7-year-old nephew to take advantage of the opportunity and learn German while he lived in Germany "on the economy" (his parents were in the US AF and stationed htere) he waived me off contemptuously. I doubt now that he remembers anything about the countries he visited as a child, and while his parents occasionally took photos, they are all still in the little metallic rolls of film, yet to be developed - after 10 years.

So basically I'm saying is that people waste their opportunities, and it is such a pity.

Ciao Bambino is a travel blog that talks about "child friendly" visit locations, as well as other, interesting locations suitable for children. They talk about world travel...and there's so much of the world that I don't see how they can cover it all, but I believe they have guest-writers who have been to all of the locations mentioned.

Well written, informative. Give it a look.

Sample post:

Teaching Kids to Be Global Citizens Through Travel
May 20th, 2010
Jessie of Wandering Educators

This is a guest post from Dr. Jessie Voigts, the publisher of Wandering Educators, a travel resource for global educators. Her daughter Lillie (7) loves to travel and write about her experiences. When traveling together, they’ve found ways to contribute meaningfully to the communities they visit. Jessie provides some great tips and ideas for ways to use travel as an opportunity to teach kids to be global citizens.

There are a myriad of ways to explore the world with your kids. You can share travel, friends, music, culture, food, photos, books, videos, games, and more in order to teach about the world. But when you think of raising a global citizen, there are also other factors to consider. One of the most important facets of being a global citizen is CARING about others. On Good Global Citizen, you can learn many different people’s ideas about being a good global citizen. From famous stars and athletes to kids, there are a million definitions. Mine? “Learning about others, practicing intercultural sensitivity, and trying to make the world a better place.”

One of the ways that kids can be a good global citizen is to interact with local communities in a meaningful way. In trying to make the world a better place, you can start at home. It will become second nature to you, and you will automatically want to help others, wherever you go. You can become inspired by others’ journeys and how helping others have changed their lives or read up on volunteering as a way of life. We live on a lake and kayak almost every day. When we kayak, we always clean up any trash we see. Another way we love to interact in our community is to be good neighbors.

When we travel, we also try to carry the spirit of interacting with locals with us. We do our research beforehand, and follow our interests. Because we are so involved with reading and education, we try to bring books to donate to local libraries. Lillie brings a few copies of her favorite books, especially ones about Michigan, where we are from. Ed is a published author – he brings copies of his books. We often talk to the local librarian and see if they’d like guest speakers from another country for a short program. We are also committed to the environment – so finding out local cleanups, or plantings, can also be a great way to both help the community and make new friends.

We love arts and theater – and try to catch as many performances as possible while we’re in a new place. Visiting the theater beforehand – and seeing if there are ways we can help, such as passing out programs at a free concert – can help involve your family in a new milieu. Meeting the performers or artists can help your children learn about different cultural traditions in a new way. We’ve helped at street fairs, and made tons of new friends while interacting with locals.

Listening to music and watching videos from a new place can serve to reduce the newness of a place. If you’re familiar with the books, history, and culture of a place, it seems like you’re just exploring a place you know but haven’t been before. Our daughter prefers to know as much as possible about a place before we go – so we research the music, artists, history, books, what kids do, geography, and activities that we can explore. If Lillie has a hand in planning what we’ll do, she’s much more open to learning about a place and meeting new friends. She’s made friends at an outdoor sculpture garden in Minneapolis, read books together in the Seattle Public Library, and is currently lining up activities and friends in Ireland and Scotland, as we’re heading there in September.

Finding pen pals before you travel is a great way to get involved with communities while you travel. Especially if you are staying in one place for more than a few days, making friends beforehand, or at local markets, restaurants, libraries, or parks can open a new world to your family. Be friendly, outgoing, and ready to get involved. You never know – there might be a community project that weekend that wasn’t publicized, that would be a perfect fit for your family. Interacting with locals is more than just saying thank you at the grocery store. It is all about learning of a place and the people who live there.

Listening, learning, and helping others can exponentially expand your child’s world. It is important to explore the world and understand people and cultures. Whether at home or when you’re traveling, interacting with local communities in meaningful ways is an excellent way to be a good global citizen.

RECENT POSTS:
--Rome and Florence Car Rental Tips
--Highs of the Scottish Highlands
--Finding the Best Family-Friendly Vacation Rental
--Photo Friday: Add Idaho to the Great Outdoors Vacation List
--Teaching Kids to Be Global Citizens Through Travel

_______________________
Ms. Cairo writes several blogs including:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Topical Murder and Dated Death

Kesler Woodward - Painting in the North (art)

REVIEWED BY: Ms. Cairo

MY RECOMMENDATION: NO

AMAZON SUBSCRIPTION LINK: Kesler Woodward

WEB ADDRESS: keslerwoodward.typepad.com/

BLOG DESCRIPTION: Alaska artist Kesler Woodward's paintings of Alaska, the Circumpolar North, and beyond.

MY REVIEW: I'd like to give this blog a thumb's up, but I can't. First off, he's an artist, and shares lots of photo of his work. Which is in color. Which doesn't translate well to the Kindle, which shows everything in greyscale.

In addition, he doesn't post very often. He's posted a couple of times in May, and a couple of times in April. Prior to that he hadn't posted since January.

Check this one out only on the web.

RECENT POSTS:
--Birch Woods for Denali
--Different Kinds of Portraits
--New Birch Portraits
--Smith Lake Sky

_______________________
Ms. Cairo writes several blogs including:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Topical Murder and Dated Death

From the Desk of Mrs. Wizard (Kindle technology)

REVIEWED BY: Ms. Cairo

MY RECOMMENDATION: YES

AMAZON SUBSCRIPTION LINK: From The Desk of Mrs. Wizard

WEB ADDRESS: http://mrswizard.blogspot.com/

BLOG DESCRIPTION: Short and sweet Tips and Tricks for folks who love their Kindle and want to learn more about what it can do (and how), from a fellow Kindle reader. Mrs. Wizard also shares links to free ebooks, as she finds them, and occasional opinions and commentary on the Kindle and the e-reader technology.
Mrs. Wizard has been helping friends make friends with their computers for years. Now she wants to share her fun with the Kindle!

MY REVIEW: There are a few blogs that share info on free books available on Kindle. This one does that, but it also gives tips on how to use the Kindle (although she apparently has Kindle system 2.5, something *I* have yet to recieve!). There are plenty of tips for using your Kindle that will make it more enjoyable, once you find out what they are.

Check it out.

RECENT POSTS:
--Free on Amazon Today
--Summer Murders
--Kindle Skills - pdf files
--Amazon Best Seller
--Free on Amazon Today
--Manybooks.net additions for your Kindle library
--Amazon Skills
--Manybooks.net additions for your Kindle library
--Kindle Skills
--Kindle Skills - Archived Items
--Free on Amazon Today

_______________________
Ms. Cairo writes several blogs including:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Topical Murder and Dated Death

Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020 (publishing industry)

REVIEWED BY: Ms. Cairo

MY RECOMMENDATION: YES

AMAZON SUBSCRIPTION LINK: Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020

WEB ADDRESS: http://jwikert.typepad.com/the_average_joe/

BLOG DESCRIPTION: Writing, Publishing, eContent and Technology Perspectives.

MY REVIEW: If you're a writer or a publisher, this is an excellent blog for you. The only flaw is its only updated once a week, but that delves deeply into its subject matter and is informative - and of course, well, written!

Recommended.

Sample post

Reaching New Audiences
After 5 weeks of iPad use one thing has become crystal clear to me: Magazine, newspaper and book publishers are too focused on applying the same old, tired business rules.

Maintaining your current customer base is critical to any business, but the number of existing customers is generally a fraction of the total potential base. We're somewhere in the midst of an inflection point in the content business. This is a stage where existing models are challenged, new ones are created, leaders can be toppled and the proverbial "guy in a garage" can completely reinvent things. So why are so many publishers trying to apply all the old rules? Here are a few examples:

Magazines at $4.99 an issue. This one's just too easy to pick on. Are you kidding me? The product is nothing more than a quick-and-dirty print-to-e conversion. Were these guys not paying attention to the book industry when they saw nobody could sell their quickie p-to-e books at the print price? Curiosity is driving some sales now, but that's not a long-term strategy. Look at some of the comments about Time's app:

Only $260/year to get content freely available on the web or delivered to your door in print for a fifth of that. Idiots.

If each issue was a dollar I'm sure more people would buy this mag. $5 is silly.

Time notes that they're only selling single issues right now and that a subscription model is coming. Fine, but in the mean time how about doing something more creative? If not a dollar an issue how about giving me the last 5 issues for $5. Just because you can sell print copies at a newsstand for $5 each doesn't mean you should charge the same for single digital issues, especially when there's little to no value added.

I really want these guys to succeed and I'm more than willing to pay a reasonable amount for an issue or a subscription. They should use this opportunity to come up with models that help them reach new customers, not just squeeze the early adopters because they know they have more disposable income.

P.S. -- It seems so obvious but I can't help think these guys have forgotten that they make a good deal of money on advertising, so if they go with lower prices and expand their audience they'll increase their reach...without the cost of printing and mailing.

Newspapers are still asleep at the wheel. The New York Times seems afraid to commit. Their Editor's Choice iPad app is OK but it's more of a teaser than a viable, long-term product strategy. As I mentioned in this earlier post, these guys are just training me to find workarounds to get the content I want. And although I'd love to pay for a subscription they don't even offer one.

USA Today is doing a better job but only going half way to a total solution. Their iPad app is nice and it's even free. I only read USA Today when I'm on the road but I'm starting to read it more thanks to this app. That said, they need a model that pushes the content to me every day, not one that forces me to open the app for updates. Go ahead and charge...it's OK!

My local newspaper is more typical of the larger problem though. We've been paying subscribers for almost 20 years and every month we're one step closer to canceling. Want to know how they could keep me on board? Offer an iPad app version of the paper for free with my print subscription. And please, make sure it includes every bit of content that's in the print version.

The focus there is on customer retention, not reaching new ones. To solve that problem, how about forging alliances with other newspapers so that the app provides much broader access? So if I'm heading to Seattle today I can open my app on the flight west to catch up on all the local news. Sure, you can accomplish all this in a browser for free...if you're willing to grab the pages in advance. But we're talking about convenience, which often comes at a price. And don't forget about the additional advertising reach for all those non-subscribers today who could become customers tomorrow.

Lemmings waiting for the next channel to open. Why does it seem like publishers are all sitting around waiting for channel equilibrium to happen on its own? I have two words for everyone: Go direct! Sure, you'll want your products in iTunes, the iBookstore, etc., but why is everyone so leery of creating a direct relationship with their customers? Yes, some existing accounts will complain, but if you're not building a direct strategy you'll lose in the long run. Despite Apple's "closed" model it's remarkably easy to add epub books bought elsewhere to your iBooks library. And look at Amazon. Even though they have a Kindle app for the iPad, any purchases you make for it are untouched (and untaxed) by Apple. Why wouldn't you want to capture 100% of the transaction by building a direct channel, especially since the choices aren't mutually exclusive? The more storefronts your products are in, including a storefront of your own, the better!

Here's an example of how we should all be thinking: The Elements, from Touch Press. Why would a tightwad like me spend $14 on a subject I dreaded in high school and has nothing to do with my job or personal interests? Because it encourages discovery. I don't know the difference between Dysprosium and Holmium but this crazy app makes me want to learn more about both. So while most chemistry publishers would have done quick-and-dirty p-to-e conversions, these guys took the time to make the topic fun and interesting. As a result, they're reaching far more new customers than a dusty old periodic table ever would have.

So if the periodic table can be completely rethought to encourage discovery and reach a totally new audience, what about the topics you specialize in? How can The Elements inspire you to approach your business differently?

RECENT POSTS:
--Amazon's iPad App(s)
--When Less is More
--Reaching New Audiences
--eReaders and Digital Bookstores

_______________________
Ms. Cairo writes several blogs including:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Topical Murder and Dated Death

Esperanto (language learning)

REVIEWED BY: Ms. Cairo

MY RECOMMENDATION: YES!

AMAZON SUBSCRIPTION LINK: Esperanto

WEB ADDRESS: http://www.transparent.com/esperanto/

BLOG DESCRIPTION: Learn about the language of the Esperanto-speaking world. Enjoy posts on entertainment, language, literature, pronunciation, Esperanto language and vocabulary.

MY REVIEW: Now - THIS is how a language learning blog/website should be set up. Plenty of posts tackling various aspects of the language, plus posts featuring side by side translations of text. So on one column is English (the actual language of the blog) and the other column is Esperanto, so the reader can compare the two languages and learn, quite quickly, what's what.

Seeing this blog reminded me of the old magazine Quinto Lingo, which I loved, as it would translate the same story or article into five different languagues. It went out of print, and apparently an attempt to revive it as an online magazine in 2006 failed. Too bad.

I highly recommend this blog if you want to learn Esperanto - and if you're someone who teaches languagues via a website, I recommend this blog also, as a how-to manual.

What is Esperanto, you're asking?

Esperanto is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language.[1] Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto, the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887. The word esperanto means "one who hopes" in the language itself. The language's original name was "La Internacia Lingvo."[2] Zamenhof's goal was to create an easy to learn and politically neutral language that would serve as a universal second language to foster peace and international understanding.[3] Esperanto has approximately one thousand native speakers,[4] i.e. people who learned Esperanto as one of their native languages from their parents. There is controversy over the number of people who are fluent in Esperanto. The estimates range from 10,000 to as high as two million. The users are spread in about 115 countries.[5] This diverse and international community is evidence to most Esperanto speakers that the language is usable by people from all over the world and that it can establish communication between them.

Sample post:

What’s a Conlang?
Posted by Quintus Mar
10
2010In many fiction books, such as J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings*, and countless movies, such as James Cameron’s “Avatar”, you will read (or in Avatar’s case, hear) languages meant not to be understood, but to add to the depth of the culture of the characters: languages created to be unique to the setting. These are called conlangs, or constructed languages*. Time and again, you will find confusing vocabulary and grammar, as well as very native-looking words, sentence structures, unique sounds, and other interesting language features distinct to the languages themselves. It’s a great way to occupy space in a book, and to make the reader with a book, or the viewer with a movie, feel alienated from a group of characters. Which, in many cases, is a good, strong feeling to convey to an innocent consumer.

Many people, such as those neat folks from learnnavi.org and realelvish.net (thanks to Faith for the correction), learning Elvish and Na’vi, respectively, are created for the purpose of understanding and speaking these languages. However, when a vocabulary is 100% invented, with no similarities to English, French, German, Latin, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Esperanto, or any other vocabularies, it becomes increasingly difficult to memorize, and thus another barrier, along with grammar, to understanding the language. Although grammar is an increasingly confusing part of any language, once you learn it, it all comes down to the vocabulary. Further, inventing an entire vocabulary isn’t an easy task, and far less fun than inventing a grammar system.

For this reason, Esperanto makes a wonderful vocabulary background for constructed languages, or conlangs.

Caution—Grammar Below:

For example, let’s say we needed a language for a book about a civilization of cloud-people with very fluid, unique speech. Let’s use the Esperanto knab’, the stem for boy, as our basis for a word in our new language. Our noun-marker could be R instead of the esperanto O, and it could come before, rather than after, the word, producing rknab. That looks a lot like the word in esperanto for boy, knabo, as well as being completely unpronounceable. So let’s apply a few more grammar rules. Let’s add a vowel between r and knab, to make it more pronounceable and to give the word more meaning. For example, an A could mean a singular word, and an E could denote a plural word. That would give us raknab for boy, and reknab for boys. Another strategy could be to use the same A or E to denote feminine and masculine gender, respectively, giving us raknab for girl, and reknab for boy. In a real constructed language, many rules would be created to obscure the original Esperanto word, while retaining its ability to be recognized. For example, in the language in my book, which I’m co-authoring with a good friend of mine, the specifics of the grammar are still being hammered out, and will continue to be for about another month. Grammar is very complex, and is a very useful tool, as well as the only tool, to make vocabulary understandable. And with Esperanto vocabulary stems, it leaves a language creator to focus on the complexities of grammar.

So, as you can see, the grammatical systems of many constructed languages (think Klingon) can get very, very confusing. But maybe the vocabulary doesn’t have to be. But what do you think? Is applying Esperanto vocabulary to unrelated words to be looked down upon? Does it generalize languages into a common framework? Is Esperanto vocabulary too centered on its grammar? Let me know in the comments below this post. (All of the authors read them, I promise!)

*I would like to note that Esperanto is a conlang, but different than the ones detailed in this entry. Although it was constructed, it was not meant to simply be something to add to the plot of a book or movie; it was meant to be a fully-bodied language, and thus was meant to be as simple as possible, rather than to give fictional characters something with which to speak. Thanks to Christophe and Tony for this correction

*I also would like to make note that Elvish, by J.R.R. Tolkin was created to be a true and speakable language. The books came afterward. Thanks to Christophe for this correction

RECENT POSTS:
--Bertilo’s web site of wonders / La mirinda TTT-ejo de Bertilo
--Mood in Esperanto
--In times of crisis (1): Finance / Dum krizaj tempoj (1): Financo
--Linguistics: where is the off button? / Lingvistiko: kie estas la malŝaltilo?
--What’s a Conlang?

William Shatner, Star Trek's Captain Kirk, starred in Incubus, a horror movie in Esperanto. It can be watched at Youtube.




(see the rest at YouTube)

_______________________
Ms. Cairo writes several blogs including:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Topical Murder and Dated Death