Great Adventures Pirate Ship, Kid Phonics 2 and a Hacker Alert
Great Adventures Pirate Ship from Fisher-Price
Great Adventures Pirate Ship from Fisher-Price and Davidson offers hours of fun and learning for kids ages 4 to 8. The goal is to find the missing pieces to the treasure map, then head to Pirate Island to recover the buried treasure at X marks the spot. In the search, your child will meet friendly pirates, play pirate games and sing pirate songs. Once you see the graphics, hear the sounds of the seas and more, you'll know you made the right choice buying this CD.
After a brief introduction by Captain Stubbs, with a catchy pirate tune in the background (reminiscent of music from Disney's The Little Mermaid) you'll sign in as part of the crew. Then you're on your own to roam the ship in search of games and map pieces (10 different maps are included) and interact with all aboard. Activities include designing flags, firing the cannon (with unusual projectiles and results), collecting cards, singing songs, looking through the telescope and building a ship in a bottle (which may be printed).
Great Adventures Pirate Ship will run on any 486/33 MHz or faster IBM compatible multimedia computer with 8 megabytes of RAM and Apple Macintosh Centris, Performa, Power Macintosh or higher multimedia computer with 8 megabytes of RAM. The computers require double-speed CD-ROM drives or faster. Although it retails for $24.95, you should be able to find it at the street price of $19.95.
For more information on this educational adventure call Davidson & Associates at 1-800-545-7677.
Kid Phonics 2 from Davidson & Associates
If you'd like to help your kids learn to read before they're taught in school, I suggest trying Kids Phonics 2 from Davidson & Associates. My daughter, Sarah, now 5-years-old, has learned to read, sounding out words with two excellent educational CDs: Reading Blaster Jr. and Kid Phonics 2 (Reading Blaster Jr. was given a rave review in my September 1996 column). Although the software is suggested for kids ages 6 to 9, Sarah has done quite well on her own and with a little help from her parents.
The game offers a Wild West theme (something that my daughter just loved because she's now a deputy for her boss Woody from Disney's Toy Story) where you'll meet the Sound Busters for some rootin'-tootin' cowboy fun. After signing in, kids will get their first virtual stagecoach ride to Phonics Flats. There, they'll learn new words and improve reading skills with seven activity areas accessed by a click of the mouse.
In the General Store, you can select items to take to Word Builder Ranch, where you'll build words and sentences. At the Wild West Times you can design a newspaper with the sentences you built, add graphics, and then print it. Other activities include the Jailhouse Decoder where words are displayed, scrambled, and must be unscrambled by moving the phonic sound cards to the correct position, Word Rodeo to build compound words, Dance Hall to see and hear the Sound Busters perform, Silent Letter Stagecoach and Homonym Hotel. There's even a record of your child's progress accessed in The Control Panel for Word Builder, Word Rodeo, Silent Letter Stagecoach and Jailhouse Decoder.
Kid Phonics 2 will run on any 486/33 MHz or faster IBM compatible multimedia computer with 8 megabytes of RAM and Apple Macintosh Centris, Performa, Power Macintosh or higher multimedia computer with 8 megabytes of RAM. The computers require double-speed CD-ROM drives or faster.
I've seen Kid Phonics 2 at the street price of $39.95. For more information call Davidson & Associates at 1-800-545-7677.
Hacker Alert from White Pine Software
I was concerned and disturbed after receiving a note from Tracy Specht, Director Corporate Communications at White Pine Software (makers of Enhanced CU-SeeMe video conferencing software), regarding a hacker site at MIT cracking serial numbers for Enhanced CU-SeeMe and other popular Internet software, including Iphone and RealAudio. This is quite illegal, and to make matters worse, the hackers would not respond to White Pine's request to cease and desist. Fortunately, once MIT was altered to this problem they immediately pulled the plug, and the site no longer exists, at least at MIT.
Specht said, "I'm sure there are many sites all over the world, and perhaps these hackers will return on another site, but it's good to know the Internet/technology community responded in such a way that provided results." If this happens again White Pine will be ready to respond. "Cracking serial numbers continues to be an issue for White Pine and other leading Internet software developers to face," said Specht. "We are already taking additional steps to provide solutions for these problems."
Companies Mentioned
Davidson & Associates, Inc.
P.O. Box 2961
Torrance, CA 90509
Phone: 1-800-545-7677
White Pine Software, Inc.
542 Amherst Street
Nashua, NH 03060
CU-SeeMe: 192.80.72.25
