Raising 3 PPC Boys

[davegovols]

My three boys love my Ipaq. From the pictures you can see why. Every time we get in the car or go into a grocery store I get the following question: Can we watch a movie dad? I respond with, "which one" as I rattle off a list of 20+ movies which include: Disney, Blue's Clue's, and Veggie Tales. The comments from the other parents in the store range from What is that thing?, followed by "how did you do that?", followed by Cool!! One of the scariest things though is that my three year old already knows how to stop the movie and select another one, which baffled me the first time I noticed this since it is a five step process. We are getting ready to take a ten hour road trip to Williamsburg, which I would never do without my Ipaq and about 20+ kid movies queued and ready to go.
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[vovillamor]

My three boys love my Ipaq. From the pictures you can see why.

Nice pictures of your kids...but where's the iPAQ? And do your kids ever argue about who has it?

Nowadays, video entertainment systems in cars is becoming more and more common. But those systems can't easily leave the car like a PocketPC can.

I have a three year old son, and he can find his way to his games and programs on my PocketPC (without trampling over any other files or settings). I don't quite have all the hardware yet to easily transfer video onto a CF card and into my PocketPC, but that's next to the top of my PocketPC projects. Upgrading to a new PocketPC is at the top of that list, which will allow me to hand down my existing PocketPC to my son.

[davegovols]

The two year old and three year old used to argue over who would hold it. One day I noticed that my Ipaq fit quite nicely between the headrest and the car seat in front of them. Now neither of them argue because they can all three see it.

http://www.stilwill.com/IMG_4270.JPG


BTW isn't it scary, but cool how fast your kids can pick up on technology.

[Janak Parekh]

That's awesome. :mrgreen:

Is that an iPAQ with a PC Card Plus Expansion sleeve? I can't quite tell for sure from your picture.

--janak

[davegovols]

"Is that an iPAQ with a PC Card Plus Expansion sleeve? I can't quite tell for sure from your picture."

Yup, it's great for keeping little fingerprints off the Ipaq's screen. :D In the sleeve is a Toshiba 5gig PCMCIA drive.

[PetiteFlower]

Ah that explains how you can have so many movies on there :)

[Dave Beauvais]

What do you do for sound? Just use the iPAQ's internal speaker? I don't see a cord coming out of the headphone jack, so I assume this is the case. You could get a nifty FM transmitter and play audio through the car's stereo. It would sound much better but would have the unfortunate side effect of making it easier for you to hear the kids' programs, which tend to get rather annoying in my experience. :)

--Dave

[Steven Cedrone]

How is the view for your little one on the passenger side of the vehicle??? Looks like he has a tough viewing angle (and also some obstruction from the headrest support)...

Steve

[davegovols]

What do you do for sound? Just use the iPAQ's internal speaker? I don't see a cord coming out of the headphone jack, so I assume this is the case. You could get a nifty FM transmitter and play audio through the car's stereo. It would sound much better but would have the unfortunate side effect of making it easier for you to hear the kids' programs, which tend to get rather annoying in my experience. :)

--Dave

I just use the internal speaker, it's loud enough for them to hear all of their favs. I do have the IRock FM tranmitter, but it's pretty staticy on all four channels :( . and yes there is that unfortunate side effect of singing your kids' programs songs over and over. I get strange stares from my spouse and those around me when I realized that my inner monologue is not working :oops:

[JustinGTP]

He he, thats awesome. Now, Im trying to get a movie onto my ipaq. :D

[Janak Parekh]

I just use the internal speaker, it's loud enough for them to hear all of their favs. I do have the IRock FM tranmitter, but it's pretty staticy on all four channels :( . and yes there is that unfortunate side effect of singing your kids' programs songs over and over. I get strange stares from my spouse and those around me when I realized that my inner monologue is not working :oops:
I'd say get a cassette-to-headphone jack adapter then. Those work great, and it looks like you're running a cable to your cigarette lighter jack anyway...

--janak

p.s. I edited the title of your post, since [b][/b] don't render in the subject line.

[Dave Beauvais]

I'd say get a cassette-to-headphone jack adapter then. ...
Unless he's one'a them upper class folk who only has a CD player. ;)

--Dave

[JustinGTP]

But most upper class vehicles have both you know!

[maximus]

I have to agree with Dave. In my part of the world, expensive cars are only equipped with DVD/CD player. No more cassette.

[Dave Beauvais]

I was actually just joking around. CD players are quite common these days even in lower-end cars and cassette players are becoming increasingly rare. My dear old 1990 Nissan Stanza has a cassette player but almost everyone I know has a CD player only -- no cassette -- in their newer vehicles. So the comment about "upper-class" was meant to be funny because I seem to be one of the few people left without a CD player in my car.

--Dave

[davegovols]

I have a cassette adapter and used to use it with my laptop, but again there was that annoyng side of affect of singing "We just figured out Blue's Clue's, We just figured out Blue's Clue's, We just figured out Blue's Clue's, cause we're really smart" over and over again that drove my wife nuts :lol: She tells people all the time that she is raising 4 boys instead of 3.

My dear old 1990 Nissan Stanza --Dave

I drive an old 1990 Nissan Stanza also. :D The tape player is broken though, thus the reason I bought the IRock FM transmitter to listen to MP3s on my Ipaq.

[Dave Beauvais]

I drive an old 1990 Nissan Stanza also. :D The tape player is broken though, thus the reason I bought the IRock FM transmitter to listen to MP3s on my Ipaq.
I bought an iRock also but found that it doesn't work well with my car's stereo unless I'm actually holding the transmitter in my hand, using myself as an antenna. I guess the stereo's receiver isn't sensitive enough to pick up such low-wattage transmissions. I was really disappointed because it works perfectly in every other car I've used it in. I've been forced to use the cassette adapter.

Aside from what I hope is only a minor transmission problem, some serious rust damage around the bottom of the rear right door, and the fact that half my dashboard lights have burned out, she's hangin' in there pretty well for such an old lady. :D I hope she makes it though another winter, though, as I certainly can't afford a new car right now. Only has about 109,000 miles, which isn't bad for an almost fourteen-year-old car.

--Dave

[David Prahl]

Wow! Great use of PPCs!

Here's a classic example of "Can your Palm© do that?" :mrgreen:

[davegovols]

I drive an old 1990 Nissan Stanza also. :D The tape player is broken though, thus the reason I bought the IRock FM transmitter to listen to MP3s on my Ipaq.
I bought an iRock also but found that it doesn't work well with my car's stereo unless I'm actually holding the transmitter in my hand, using myself as an antenna. I guess the stereo's receiver isn't sensitive enough to pick up such low-wattage transmissions. I was really disappointed because it works perfectly in every other car I've used it in. I've been forced to use the cassette adapter.

Aside from what I hope is only a minor transmission problem, some serious rust damage around the bottom of the rear right door, and the fact that half my dashboard lights have burned out, she's hangin' in there pretty well for such an old lady. :D I hope she makes it though another winter, though, as I certainly can't afford a new car right now. Only has about 109,000 miles, which isn't bad for an almost fourteen-year-old car.

--Dave

I have to do the same thing with my IRock or else I get static. It sounds like your Stanza looks just like mine except that my damage was caused by me bouncing off the guardrail after I had fallen asleep with the cruise set on 80mph. 8O. I have about 140,000, but I had to have the engine rebuilt because the timing chain came off and took all the valves with it. :( . You might want to have that checked on yours because mine happen around 100,000 miles.

[slothdog]

My kids love the NES emulator on my Axim. Whenever they start to get bored the first thing I hear is, "Can we play on your Axim?" At which point I close down BookWorm and remind them that it's not a toy. ;)

Here's some pics of my kids playing on my axim. (http://www.slothradio.com/gallery/axim?page=1)

[The Yaz]

Great use of Pocket PC!

My two oldest kids love passing the time in my car with the Pocket PC's my 7yr old uses my Maestro and my 4yr old uses the Casio E125. They both have no problem using the games installed. The only complaint is when the older child switches to Pocket TV and starts playing video (the E125 only has a 32mg CF card) and the younger one wants to see it too.

The best part is that the two of them are very good at monitoring the battery levels. They know to ask for the battery extender when the low battery warning pops up...

You know you're in trouble when your kids ask their mom to get dad a new pocket pc just so they can get a hold of his current one!

(Like Dad has a problem with that marketing strategy. Heh Heh Heh!)

Steve 8)

[jkendrick]

Great story! What video player do you use and what video format (mpeg, DIVX, etc).

[Chingyul]

I find that I have to use a program and resize my divx movies in order to make them play well. Otherwise, it always jams up and is really really choppy.
I've got an IPAQ 3835 running ppc2002.

[prismejon]

My kids love the NES emulator on my Axim. Whenever they start to get bored the first thing I hear is, "Can we play on your Axim?" At which point I close down BookWorm and remind them that it's not a toy. ;)

Here's some pics of my kids playing on my axim. (http://www.slothradio.com/gallery/axim?page=1)

Hehe, I've heard that the Axim is BIG, but this (http://www.slothradio.com/albums/axim/res46941.sized.jpg) is ridiculous :wink:

[davegovols]

Great story! What video player do you use and what video format (mpeg, DIVX, etc).

I use PocketMVP(formerly known as PocketDivx) and the video format is Divx.

[Janak Parekh]

(Like Dad has a problem with that marketing strategy. Heh Heh Heh!)
Genius! Sheer genius! You've found the answer to the timeless question. You don't do the pestering for a new device, you let the kids do it. :lol:

--janak

[slothdog]

Hehe, I've heard that the Axim is BIG, but this (http://www.slothradio.com/albums/axim/res46941.sized.jpg) is ridiculous :wink:

Perspective is everything.... :D

[szamot]

WOW, I consider myself luck as I can still get away with only one PPC. Like any other 4 year old repetition = enjoyment. I think I can recite Piglet’s big movie back and forward with my eyes closed - that's truly sad. I mostly rip then into WMV and use Windows Media to play my movies in full screen. Oh, the joy of PPC and little kids!