Dot to Dot - the daily 5min Alexa demo show

Covered over 900 episodes ago (and now with sweet, sweet sound-effects), this one's well worth revisiting for all of you listening who like daring do, dungeons and dictating dozens and dozens of detailed directions to a dilligent and devoted digital device.

Available in the UK, US, Canada, Ireland and Germany. Whenever you see a brand featuring the Send Me a Sample logo, just say “Alexa, ask Send Me a Sample” and your product sample of choice will be delivered straight to your door, completely free. Send Me a Sample is the voice destination for the latest brand samples. Make sure to check out sendmeasample.net or our Facebook page to find out what samples are currently available. To get started, create and link your Send Me a Sample account. You’ll only need to do this once and we’ll only send you the samples and vouchers that you’ve asked for. Any problems? Get in touch with the team at [email protected]. Please allow 14 days for your samples to arrive.

Yes, she's back. Tiffany Black (@1modernmonster on the Twitters) is back with a quick 3 minute demo of a sweet skill called Quick 3. OK - it's a just over 2 minute demo but, hey, unless you're a school nurse it's probs not your job to go about picking positively insignificant nits like that.

Opened simply with 'Healing Sounds', this one's broadly what you'd expect - some nice, new age music with which to chill out and relax. We also look at how you can now ask the A-lady what recent skills you've used.

To bong or not to bong… That's the resounding question resolved by David Woodbridge (@dwoodbridge on the Twitters) in today's skill. When Whisper Mode is on, you may want to turn the A-lady's request sounds off (Settings > Devices > Sounds) or else all the whispering in the world will be for nought and there may well be some truly disturbing consequences.

Today we briefly look at some built-in goodness. Shopping's better than ever, reminders are now a bit more flexible (in the US, at least) and you can now ask the A-lady what's new that she can do.

Tiffany Black (@1modernmonster on the Twitters) is in the driving seat today, bringing us a brilliant demo of a brilliant crossword-related skill. I think it's; 9 letters, meaning luminescent like a star. That's right; brilliant.

Opened with 'Premier League Quiz', this skill quickly illustrates how little I know about the beautiful game. I was a member of the Tiddly-Winks Society at university, you know, but we were asked to leave as we weren't taking it seriously enough. True. Was also into rowing and ballroom dancing at uni, as was Judith - but at a completely different uni. That's true too.

Thanks to friend of the show Patrick Steggle, I now know about the excellent online community that enables one to flag questions the A-lady currently doesn't know answers to, as well as providing those answers for others to access. Let's all help make Alexa smarter and more useful day by day. Check out Alexa Answers at https://alexaanswers.amazon.com/about.

Two skills today; 'Fireworks' gives us a choice of several 20-minute displays (sound only) and 'Fireworks display (Audio & Video)' (that's actually it's name) provides the visuals too. Funnily enough, both are recommended by reviewers for desensitising their pets.