Does your kid have an iPhone?  My nine-year old nephew has one - a hand-me-down from his mom when she got her shiny new 3GS.  While kids will most likely use it to play games, you have to keep in mind that they can also use it to surf the web.

As on the PC, you'd like to keep them off from objectionable areas of the internet.  Problem is, Safari offers zero parental controls on that end.  As such, they're pretty much free to wander about cyberspace unrestricted.

The Mobicip Safe Browser fills this gap, giving you options to block out unsavory websites from being accessed on your kids' iPhones.  Yep, it's an alternative browser that's actually approved by the App Store, because it does offer something that the native Safari client doesn't - a child-safe surfing environment.

Before you can force your kid to use it instead of Safari, you'll have to disable the latter manually: Settings -> General -> Restrictions.  It would have been better if this could be handled right from the app itself, although being a one-time change, it's no biggie.

Its main strength is that it functions and looks nearly like Safari, making the transition from using one to the other seamless, with no required learning curve.  The lack of a facility to import bookmarks is  bit of a letdown, though.

Mobicip itself costs $4.99, which gets you the child-safe browser plus a free account for their filtering service.  Any URL accessed from the app gets filtered through the company's servers, which decides whether to either allow or block it.  Free accounts get three levels of filtering: elementary, middle and high school.

If you want more detailed control of your child's surfing habits, you can also sign up for a Premium account for $9.99 per year.  This gets you plenty of latitude, including the ability to blacklist and whitelist specific pages and categories, download activity reports and manage multiple devices from a single dashboard.

[Mobicip for iPhone]

Aspiring guitar players can now get a new free Gibson app on their iPhone.  No, it won't turn your handset into a Les Paul as other apps are inclined to do.  Instead, it just bundles a number of free tools that six-string instrumentalists of all levels may find of value.

It comes with five different sections - tuner, metronome, chords, lessons and Gibson.com.  The tuner is a chromatic software that can track whatever note you're currently playing (which it receives via your iPhone's mic) and indicates whether you're flat, sharp or in tune.  It starts in "All Notes" mode, but gives options to allow for alternate tunings.  Very useful, especially if you've got a bad ear for sound.

The metronome is just a regular metronome app, which allows you to choose a specific BPM rate.   Tapping the screen three times will adjust the tempo according to your speed.   The chord area, on the other hand, gives you access to 30 chord charts, a great resource if you need help figuring out which finger goes where on the fretboard.

Need guitar lessons?  The app comes with very useful ones, drawn off the award-winning Learn and Master series from Legacy Learning Systems.  It comes with a variety of instructions for new licks, riffs and sequences - a definite value for new and struggling players.  Gibson also promises plenty of updates for this section, with more video lessons slated to come.  Finally, Gibson.com is the app's news area, where they list Gibson-related products and special events.

Overall, the free Gibson app is a definite download if you're at all planning to learn the guitar.  Even intermediate and slightly more advanced players might find it of value, too.

[Gibson App]

Less than one month after their latest firmware upgrade, Palm rolled out another change for the Palm Pre. This time, it updates webOS to version 1.1.0, bringing with it a number of notable changes, including restoring the handset's ability to sync with iTunes.

You heard that right. Palm is officially going head-to-head with Apple on the iTunes issue, potentially triggering a tug-of-war with the iPhone's parent company on the syncing debacle. They make that all too clear on the official announcement, declaring, "That's right — you once again can have seamless access to your music, photos and videos from the current version of iTunes (8.2.1)." How this all plays out, of course, will be something to watch closely.

Apart from "fixing" the iTunes compatibility, version 1.1.0 brings with it a number of feature changes, including:

• enhanced support for Exchange ActiveSync (EAS)
• IP-based mail server support
• self-signed certificates support
• NFL Mobile Live
• faster performance for Photos application
• improved clock that now appears in the notification area
• emoticons support (for messages) and improved handling of IM accounts
• various browser enhancements, including using Palm's system font
• some minor usability improvements

Aside from the official change log above (as released by Palm), Pre Central also found a number of undocumented updates.

Apple's recently-released iTunes 8.2.1 update, which the company says “addresses an issue with verifying Apple devices,” actually does something a little more specific than that. In particular, it draws up a list of hardware units that are allowed to sync with iTunes, barring those that are merely masquerading as Apple devices.

The prime target of the update, of course, is the Palm Pre, which has used the fact that it syncs seamlessly with iTunes (identifying itself as an iPod) as one of its selling points. While the Pre did manage that capably, pulling down songs, videos and podcasts like a natively-supported gadget, Apple wasn't so keen on the idea. In fact, the iPod-makers already dropped a hint about its plans for "unsupported third-party digital media players" with a knowledge base article last month.

With iTunes 8.2.1, Apple made good on its threat, dropping the ability to sync with the erstwhile iPhone 3GS competitor. Palm confirmed this with Down Jones, even going so far as to suggest that Pre users not upgrade to the latest iTunes update. Of course, that's as terrible a solution as you can think up, considering all future updates will likely come with the same facility anyway.

All is not lost, of course, for Pre users, who have a number of syncing options available at their disposal, albeit none of which are as convenient as iTunes. Users can copy files to the Pre, after all, much like a USB drive, although that's undoubtedly a more laborious process. There are also various third-party apps that can do the job, including The Missing Sync and DoubleTwist. If anything, I'll bet we'll see a few more pop up in the next couple of weeks, trying to bridge the gap the latest move by Apple creates.