Spell Quizzer

This came in the mail earlier, just after my previous post (below). That's fast.

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I read your review of Spelling City today in your blog. I've also developed an educational program for Windows called SpellQuizzer that helps children learn their spelling and vocabulary words. It really helped my children with their weekly spelling lists.

I see that you blogged about SpellingCity.com today. SpellingCity is indeed an excellent free tool for teachers and parents. But there are some advantages that SpellQuizzer offers over SpellingCity.com:

• SpellQuizzer doesn't require an open Internet connection. Many homeschoolers prefer not to have their young children working on a computer with an open Internet connection due to all the undesirable material that is on the Internet. With SpellQuizzer there is no need to expose children to the world wide web.
  
  
• SpellingCity.com doesn't have recordings of all the words one might wish to practice. For those it does have the sentences used aren't personalized. With SpellQuizzer you can make spelling lists for literally any words (or even facts) you wish your child to practice with. The recordings you make are in your voice rather than a stranger's. And you can personalize the recordings and even make them funny with an amusing sentence or funny voice. I always try to throw in some funny ones for my daughters such as "Handsome: Your daddy is the most handsome man on earth." That one got snickers. :-)
  
  
• Spelling City has annual fees while SpellQuizzer is a one-time payment of $29.95. You can use it for life after that and never spend a penny more.
  
  
• SpellingCity.com may well be around for ever. Or it may go down for good tomorrow. There's no way to know for certain. A person who purchases a license for SpellQuizzer has the software for life whether I stay in business or not.

As I said, SpellingCity.com is an excellent free resource and I don't mean to attack it in any way with what I've said above. I'm only pointing out reasons one might prefer a product like SpellQuizzer. I would appreciate your reviewing or posting about SpellQuizzer in the Top of Texas Gazette. If you would like to host a giveaway for one of your readers I'd be happy to provide a free license to the winner. You can learn more about the program at

http://www.SpellQuizzer.com.

There's a video demo you can watch at Demo and a community site where SpellQuizzer users can share their spelling lists with one another. I'd be happy to send you a complimentary license for the software. Please let me know if you are interested.

Thank you very much!
Dan Hite
TedCo Software
http://www.SpellQuizzer.com

Spelling City

SpellingCity is a fun online spelling program.

SpellingCity.com has:

- Over 42,000 spelling words and ten learning games!

- A REAL person who says each word and sentence.

- Free home pages for teachers and parents to save lists.

- How To Videos to explain to teachers and parents how to use SpellingCity.com.

- A free forum and newsletter with more vocabulary and spelling resources!
- Ten spelling and vocabulary games to play online or to print.

- Free printables for handwriting practice with your saved lists.

- A Resources Section which highlights features and existing lists for Dolch words, compound words, sound-alikes (their, there, they're), contractions, possessives, and more.

Why dogs and cats are better than kids

From Bits & Pieces:

Remember, dogs and cats are better than kids because they:

(1) eat less,

(2) don’t ask for money all the time,

(3) are easier to train,

(4) normally come when called,

(5) never ask to drive the car,

(6) don’t hang out with drug-using people;

(7) don’t smoke or drink,

(8) don’t want to wear your clothes,

(9) don’t have to buy the latest fashions,

(10) don’t need a gazillion dollars for college and

(11) if they get pregnant, you can sell their children …

esurient

esurient \ih-SUR-ee-uhnt; -ZUR-\ , adjective:
1. Hungry; greedy.

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I normally don't listen to the audio pronunciation, but this time I did; the voice said "enwind", nothing like "esurient".

It's a good word, "esurient", to describe someone both hungry and greedy; however, it's a poor combination to be.

The Heart of Darkness

From NASA:

Some of the coldest and darkest dust in space shines brightly in this infrared image from the Herschel Observatory, a European Space Agency mission with important participation from NASA. The image is a composite of light captured simultaneously by two of Herschel's three instruments -- the photodetector array camera and spectrometer with its spectral and photometric imaging receiver.

The image reveals a cold and turbulent region where material is just beginning to condense into new stars. It is located in the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, 60 degrees from the center. Blue shows warmer material, red the coolest, while green represents intermediate temperatures. The red filaments are made up of the coldest material pictured here -- material that is slightly warmer than the coldest temperature theoretically attainable in the universe.

Image Credit: ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech

Download Image