My love of Halloween begins and ends with the candy. I have a mean sweet tooth and Halloween candy is just perfect packages of bite-sized sugar. Yes, I could go buy packs of candy, but then I wouldn’t get the variety that I got when I was a kid through trick or treating. And yes, I do blame trick or treating for this sweet tooth of mine.

I’ve heard that eating as much Halloween candy as I can might not be the healthiest idea. Supposedly. So this year, in the spirit of health, I’m going to try and shift my love of Halloween candy to a broader, more general love of Halloween with the game Halloween Pumpkin Juggling. There’s no getting around it— this is a fun, silly game. Pumpkins are falling from the trees and I’ve got to keep them up in the air. You compete for the highest score—in other words, he who juggles the best wins. No, pumpkins don’t live in trees. But that doesn’t stop me from juggling pumpkins instead of focusing on the finer points of a Mr. Goodbar vs. a plain old Hershey’s.

Download Halloween Pumpkin Juggling to get into the Halloween spirit. And if you’re still shopping for Halloween candy, remember lollipops and packets of carrots are not the reason for the holiday. Butterfingers are. You’re welcome.

A brand new Ultrabook™ with touch capabilities and sticky, flying fruit juice, what could possibly go wrong? Nothing actually— this is digital fruit juice in Fruit Ninja Lite in the Intel AppUp® center.

Fruit Ninja Lite is all about the Ultrabook. It’s optimized for touch, so you can swipe at the fruit on your screen and not get your fingers dirty. I’ve been a Fruit Ninja–ninja for a while now. My favorite fruit to swipe is watermelon. There’s just something therapeutic about crushing digital fruit with the tip of my finger. I’ve been known to accidentally-on-purpose swipe at bombs too. I can’t help it, Fruit Ninja brings out my destructive side.

Fruit Ninja Lite is in the Intel AppUp center now, and I recommend you try it out, especially if you have an Ultrabook, or a tablet PC. There’s nothing that will make you appreciate touch capabilities quite like Fruit Ninja. The Lite version is free and it supports both mouse and Windows 7* Touch controls to work on anything from netbooks or desktops to tablet PCs.

Don’t worry about getting fruit juice all over your shiny new Ultrabook, either. The mess is easily cleaned with a single swipe.

Are you a Fruit Ninja-ninja? What are your fruit swiping secrets?

When I was a boy, there were LEGO sets and there were Star Wars. Two excellent things, like chocolate and peanut butter. Now, I don’t know why it didn’t ever occur to me and my friends to put them together, but we didn’t  Maybe because the two sets of toys were incompatible. The Millennium Falcon and our AT-ATs would, of course, blow up LEGO landscapes and occasionally, we’d need to use some Star Wars figures to inhabit our LEGO garages and airports. But when I was a kid, there weren’t specific Star Wars LEGO blocks. This is my “I walked to school in the snow up hill … both ways” story of my childhood, by the way.

Kids these days have it easy! (Get off my lawn, too.) They have LEGO Star Wars Space Runner. LEGO Star Wars is like chocolate peanut butter ice cream – it combines everything good in the world into something even more wonderful. When you play Star Wars Space Runner, you use LEGO blocks to build an awesome spaceship that will save the universe for sure. Keep building your ship in any way you want and try new combinations as you see fit.

I haven’t quite saved this universe yet, but it’s not for lack of trying. I chalk up my ineffectual universe-saving skills to the fact that I didn’t grow up with Star Wars-specific LEGO blocks. I’m learning as I go, so look out you whippersnappers!

What are your top tips for LEGO Star Wars? Tell us on Twitter @IntelAppUp.

It’s been a long time since high school, but I still remember my literature teacher having us read Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. This book reignited my imagination of what it would be like as a pirate. Its characters have seen their share of adaptations and reboots. Some are good, some are bad – and some are just plain ugly. No matter what, I’m drawn to the swashbucklin’ pirates, buried gold and a promise of adventure – regardless of how many times I have seen the story played out.

Just the other day, when I heard the call of the seven seas, I opened my Ultrabook™ and played Destination: Treasure Island (for work of course, more specifically for you – checking out the app). Picking up four years after the end of the adventure recounted in Stevenson’s novel, Jim Hawkings, now a strong, adventurous lad, receives a message from the dead Capt. Flint. But of course, a band of pirates is right on his tail! (Oh, and how did that message arrive from beyond the dead? Capt. Flint’s oldest companion – his talking parrot!) Typical pirates.

I play it under the auspices of showing my son the 3D graphics (yes, I played the work card again with him) and teaching him the pirate vocabulary.  My wife and I only hope our son doesn’t want a talking parrot for a pet. But, I think it may be worth it. With Destination: Treasure Island I am able to take a 21^st century approach to introduce my son to a classic novel.

So if you like to live vicariously through pirates , download Destination: Treasure Island from the Intel AppUp® center. If you’ve already downloaded the app, how well do you feel it evokes the original characters from the Treasure Island novel?

Prep the burger, cook the burger, serve the burger, eat the burger. Prep the burger, cook the burger, serve the burger, eat the burger. Eat the burger, prep the burger, serve the burger, cook the burger. And thus begins my frantic dash in Cooking Dash from the Dozen Dash pack from the Intel AppUp® center. Burgers pile up, people want milk shakes. What is happening with the chicken?!!? I try to keep my cool so my coworkers have no idea that I’m actually slinging burgers on my PC… and doing a very, very bad job at it.

I love time management games like Cooking Dash, even though I’m terrible at them. The time management apps in the Dozen Dash pack are satisfying because they’re close enough to a real world experience—working in a diner, parking the car, exercising – that users can get really into the game. It’s amazing how interesting games that replicate real world activities are; I’m hooked.

If you’re better than I am at time management games, or if you’re worse than me and want to improve your skills, head over to the Intel AppUp center and download the Dozen Dash pack. The Dash franchise has been called the gold standard of time management games. The Dozen Dash pack has 12 Dash games including Cooking Dash, Wedding Dash, Fitness Dash, and Parking Dash. 12 Dozen Dash games are a great way to get your level up your focus.

If you’re already running amok with the Dozen Dash pack, which game is your favorite?

Technology is getting smaller (phones excluded – their screens are getting bigger), and more importantly for readers like my wife and me, it’s getting lighter. There’s nothing quite like packing for travel and realizing you’re not going to snap your shoulder in half in order to bring your current book, your backup book and your backup backup book on your travels. Yes, three books minimum (it’s a long flight from CA to NY). What if I don’t like the book I have? Or what if I lose it? Or what if it spontaneously combusts? You need backups and backups to your backups.  No I am not a hoarder.

With the NOOK for PC app, my family and I carry our library in our laptops. We download books for us, and books for our son, and books for our books. I exaggerate. Maybe. I’m able to share my favorite titles with friends, and even highlight my favorite passages and add personal notes.

My wife is all about non-fiction. I go for anything with an adventure in it. My son can’t get enough of the Little Golden Books*; and yes, the app has the same titles I read as a kid. I recommend downloading this app, especially as the colder weather begins to creep in and holiday travel looms. And please, let me know your recommended e-book titles – especially for kids!

Did you tune in to the Ultrabook Race? Four people raced around two countries and used the Ultrabook to find clues and meet challenges that led to one of them winning $10,000. Did I mention they were running around with an Ultrabook? Most of the time they had it open and were completing the challenges while on the move. Yes, the Ultrabook is that light — you can have it open and leap aboard a ferry or navigate pitch-black tunnels no problem.

Catch up on the race by checking out the Intel Facebook page, or you can watch my favorite episode below. In episode four, the challengers need to draw something. Guess what app they use – Glow. I love this app. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to use Glow for a chance to win $10,000, but I do use it with my son when we want to do some digital finger painting.

Watch the video below and download Glow. And no, I’m not telling who won.

Thanks to mobile devices, we’re never lost. We can also track our routes, customize our directions to our mode of transportation, and we can see who’s near us. We can pinpoint our location on this great big earth no matter which stars are out.

Developers are excited about the possibilities of location-based services. They’re experimenting and innovating with new location tools while users are benefiting by exploring their physical and digital communities in a different way.

Next week, location-based services are going to be the talk of London at Apps World, October 2-3. Telmap, an Intel company and a world leader in mobile location-based services, is presenting in an Apps World panel titled “Geo-Location: Where Are You Now? Integrating Location-Based Features into Apps.” Telmap is a world leader in mobile location-based services. The Telmap folks are also hosting their own session called, “Your Local M8 – User Experience in Your LBS Mobile App.”

The topics at this event will likely find their way into our mobile devices in the future. My favorite location-based services are the ones that let me connect with new people based on location. I hope there will be more services that help me connect with others IRL.

If you’re attending Apps World, put a bug in a few of the developers’ ears for me on this one. And, of course, attend the Telmap presentations. Details below.

Telmap at Apps World

Visit the Telmap booth: #139

October 2, 16:00, Developer Zone track, panel presentation:

 Geo-Location: Where Are You Now? Integrating Location-Based Features into Apps

October 2, 16:30, Developer Zone track, solo presentation:

Your Local M8 – User Experience in Your LBS Mobile App

You know when you have two kids you simply become totally uncool and moderately uncommunicative. It’s not really the lack of sleep thanks to life with an infant, but more like time and pop culture and the Internet are just speeding past while you’re there simply trying to get your stubborn 6-year-old to try salad. Sometimes when I look up from work and family and turn on the television, I’m shocked at what I’ve missed. Is Toby McGuire no longer Spiderman? What? Is Ice Age already on the fourth installment? What happened to 2 and 3?

Nevermind the television shows that everyone’s talking about. Whole Internet memes pass me by. It makes my office conversation a bit dull. Okay, a lot dull.

Hello Mashable app from the Intel AppUp® center. I downloaded the app and now I can check in on the latest tech and culture news and stay up-to-date on memes. The newsreader itself is very simple and the design is clean so it takes me just a few minutes to browse the top stories. I can always click through to see an article that’s particularly interesting.

I spend a few minutes each day getting caught up and then when my coworkers are sharing some particular bit of current culture, instead of staring at them blankly and then nodding my head in agreement at what I don’t know, I can participate in the conversation! I can even start a conversation!

Thank you Mashable app for making me cool again and keeping me in the loop. Somewhat. A little bit cool.

You know what’s heavy? Old technology. We were at IDF this week with an Atari 2600* system and about 15 games and it occurred to me that we must have had to be weightlifters to use old technology!  I know I was there to talk about the Intel AppUp® center but that sweet Atari 2600 was calling my name. So I played it. Maybe play is not the right word. I think I got a whole upper body workout just getting PAC-MAN* to make his way around that little maze.

I watched others mangling that joystick in an effort to avoid/eat ghosts and I thought that Wii* fitness games have nothing on a rigorous game of PAC-MAN on an old Atari system. And then I stepped away from the conference floor for sessions, practically skipping because the Ultrabook™ is so light. And then I remembered the darker days of conferences when I’d leave with a crick in my neck and a distinctly Hunchback of Notre Dame gait. At the end of IDF? Well, my feet are still store, but I’m not in need of the first massage therapist I can book.

Wait a second. I think I have may uncovered the only drawback to the Ultrabook – I have no excuse to get a post-conference massage. My shoulders don’t actually hurt. Oh Ultrabook–you are so cruel. So fast, and light, and cruel.

But wait–my ­arms hurt terribly after three days of playing PAC-MAN on an old system. I really do need a massage!

And yes, we do have PAC-MAN for people not interested in what amounts to video game boot camp. You can download it from the Intel AppUp® center and put it on your Ultrabook. No massage required.

Oh September! I know April gets to be the cruelest month, but surely the person who came up with that didn’t organize and attend events for a living. September is the kickoff to the fall event season, and often I’m booked to attend one event when suddenly there’s another excellent event happening at the very same time.

This is (almost) the case on September 10. That is the first (and only) day of Mobile Future Forward in Seattle. The top thought leaders in mobile development will gather to give their insights on where the industry is going. Speakers include Marianne Marck, vice president of Starbucks, Kevin Packingham, senior vice president of Samsung and our very own Renee James, senior vice president and general manager of the Software and Services Group at Intel. Just to name a few.

These are the people who are creating the mobile technology we’ll use for years to come. But! September 11 is the start of Intel Developer Forum, where I’ll be rocking PAC-MAN on Ultrabooks™. Do you see how September is so cruel? Two amazing events at (almost) the same time.

At Mobile Future Forward, Renee James will host a one-on-one session about driving a multidimensional strategy to positively impact the ecosystem. Dave Whalen, vice president and general manager of the Intel Services Division will moderate the panel “Mobile Enterprise and the Cloud,” which promises to be a great discussion.  Also, Hank Skorny, vice president and general manager of the Intel Services Division will add his expertise during the panel, “N-Screen Era– Consumer Behavior, Engagement, and Commerce.”

With a lineup like that, no one who is interested in mobile or the future of mobile should miss Mobile Future Forward. If you’re one of the lucky 300 or so who has tickets, could you send me your conference notes? I’ll be on a plane to Intel Developer Forum …