Own Brand Reviews

Having a look back at some own brand products we've tried, here's a round up on my thoughts:

Nappies

BJ's - These were great value for money. Pretty basic nappy, but a good fit, easy to slide on/off and worked very well.

Target - These were probably the best own brand nappy we tried, they worked great and felt the nicest.

BabiesRUS - This was a surprise as they were the worst. They felt pretty horrid, were very thin but they were easy to put on.

Bath Stuff

We tried a variety of bathing products from Target, the sleep time body wash, shampoo and hair detangler, equivalents to the Johnson and Johnson line of products. We found these to be just as effective and pleasant to use and certainly worth the savings offered.

Misc Stuff

Own brand food. BJ's formula was significantly cheaper than the branded stuff and because all formula goes through the FDA, they're all essentially the same and as healthy so you might as well get the cheapest. Target, Hannafords and other stores now carry their own brands which is great, but BJ's is still the cheapest we found.

Snack foods, those cheese puffs and crackers etc. Hannafords have a good line, but so do Target and they are often more cheaper, especially when they are doing their deals. The food is pretty good too, including the little lunch pots and food trays for when the kids are a little older. BJ's are now carrying the branded stuff in bulk though and often have coupons for added savings.

Breast Pads. Many were tried, Avent, they were okay but a little thin, but they also have a 100 count for $11 which is the best value for money. Lansinoh, they were pretty good, but probably not the best value for money as they were quite expensive. Medela, were also expensive and not worth the extra cost. The biggest surprise was BabiesRUS, their own brand pads worked out to be almost the cheapest option, but they were great quality pads. The re-usable ones mostly ended up in the bin as they never ended up being practical and being quite expensive to maintain considering the cost and how many you'd need so that you'd have a supply with you while washing a set etc.

PAX East - Party

10th March 7-10pm at the MS NERD Centre - http://paxeast031011.eventbrite.com/

For anyone in the area and especially those going to PAX East, it's a great party event to network with people.

It's a freebie event, get in touch for the discount code, it's there to keep those not in the industry off with the entry cost.

Pass it on to your friends.

http://blog.masstlc.org/2010/03/masstlc-pax-party-maxes-out-microsoft.html That's a link to some info of the party last year!

Best Lens and Screen Cleaner?

Having tried a whole bunch after randomly getting quite a few as Christmas Stocking stuffers the one I keep going back to using with best results is the: - Spudz

It's really weird how much better it is than the other clothes, it does actually make your glass lens that much shinier and clearer and it does work great on your monitors, DS screens etc and with the added bonus that it can be tidied away into its own little pouch and clipped to whatever you fancy, in my key as a keyring so I've always got it.

Pampers v Huggies Pull Up Nappy Review

Starting to potty train?

A look at a couple of the training pants, the Pull Ups.

Pampers v Huggies As the main two contenders, this is what I've found from using both for a while each.

Pampers - What I liked about these, they had plenty of blue "wet" indicators on the front of them and also they were slightly more roomy, so easier to actually pull up like a pair of pants. That was it and both of those had flaws to them.

The blue wet patch indicators never actually disappeared to show the nappy was wet, which they were supposed to do. Being a bit more roomy meant that the pants came off with the trousers very easily, which is not what you want if you've got a poop to deal with.

The biggest problem with Pampers though, the tear away sides didn't have a velcro like fixer to them, so if you had to change them in public it became a major hassle as you'd have to take the shoes and trousers off, you couldn't simply whip on a new pair like a regular nappy.

Huggies - The best thing about these were the velcro like sides, they came apart and stuck back together really firmly, making them very convenient to change when on the go.

Personal preference was the Disney characters as well, though that's no reflection on the quality of the nappy, but the wet indicators did actually work on these so you wouldn't find a bowling ball size nappy all of a sudden. These nappies were a little tighter than the Pampers, so were a little tougher for the little one to pull them up on her own, but it did mean they stayed up when you pulled the trousers down which was nice.

Over all, having loved Pampers for nappies in general and not liking Huggies, Huggies were the big winner this time, being much better product. The major flaw to both of them though, as they aren't nappies, they don't have proper side stickies to wrap the nappy up in case of a smelly poo disposal, which isn't quite so fun and also the gussets aren't quite as large as in regular nappies so they might spill a bit of baggage if the kid is moving around vigorously with a large load in their pants. You also do not get as many in a packet as you do for regular nappies, about 60 for $20.

Because of that I really do think they are a waste of time to use when your toddler is first starting out on the path to potty training and you might as well stick to regular nappies until they are well on their way to being able to use the potty or the toilet because once they start on these they probably won't want to go back to nappies either.

Toddler Birthday Party at the "My Gym"

My Gym

This is a nationwide kids gym franchise aimed at 6 weeks to 13 years of age.

They offer a whole range of activities for kids, from arts and crafts, to sporting activities and general play.

Membership can be a little expensive, so that's up to you, but the party service they offer was superb. We were invited to a friends toddler party, for mostly 2-3 year olds.

The whole party went really smoothly, from story time to running around using various equipment such as a ball filled pit, to jumping around various padded blocks, to swinging around on huge rocket shaped swings. The activities were great fun and even though the whole thing was very laid back, it was nicely structured, to get the kids doing something different very quickly leading up to singing before the cake, which they were great about preparing and serving. A great couple of hours entertainment for a huge number of kids.

Sing-a-ma-Jigs The Hot Toy?

The Sing-A-Ma-Jig

It is supposed to be the big hot toy this Christmas. Little furry plushie toys who sing and jibber when you squeeze them.

You will end up killing anyone who gives your kid one. They are insanely annoying and they're shit. You need a whole group of them to make any decent rhythmical tunes but unlike other toys who are meant to interact with each other like the Dino's, these chaps you have to press them each and every time and timing is what counts to make the tune sound anything but a drowning cat.

Not a fan and not sure why so many other parents seem to like them, but there you go.

Boston Unity Group - The Winter Showdown

The Winter Showdown was the third meeting of BUG at the Microsoft NERD Centre, held last night, 30th November.

The presentation was held by, Trevor Stricker, of QuickHit, talking about their NFL licensed game and the combination of using Flash and Unity3D as well as looking a little into their monitisation routes of micro transactions and adware.

Following the presentation, their were a handful of demonstrations by people, many of these were updated demo's that had previously been shown so they were not recorded, but one that was new I will mention as I thought it was brilliant, a cloud based asset server.

But first, here is the presentation, the intro followed by 5 parts, the last two parts were from the Q&A session which was especially interesting and well worth watching.

Intro -

Part 1 -

Part 2 -

Part 3 -

Part 4 -

Part 5 -

The cloud based asset server was created by Defective Studios. The website doesn't contain very much information about the asset server, which is a big shame, but they are offering beta testing for free, email Matt Schoen for details at schoen@defectivestudios.com

What made this really interesting was the simplicity and cost, they were planning on offering a monthly subscription to the service at $10 and the cloud being run from Amazon, but if you wanted to run your own servers they were working on another license fee for that.

This platform is a cheap alternative to the Unity Asset Server, much simplified and something that works very well across platforms via a web interface with no real learning curve. Meshes and textures are uploaded to the cloud and people can sync the whole build or specific items and can get them running in Unity immediately, meshes and textures being very robust with all scaler and modifier information remaining intact.