Posts (page 2)
When I talk about Twitter people think I'm crazy. Who would want to be bugged by hundreds of messages a day from your friends telling you what they're up to. Well, as it turns out, lots of us would. Twitter is positively addictive and everyone, including Mike Arrington at Techcrunch, seems to think it's going to be the next big thing. I'm really happy for Ev and the gang at Obvious. Ev jumpstarted the blogging revolution and tried to do the same with podcasting until Apple jumped into the ring and squashed all the competition. Twitter is his well deserved second home run.
But I'm leaving it.
The problem is the name. I wish to heck he'd named it Tweeter, or Tooter, or anything but Twitter. Twitter is so close to TWiT that I'm afraid it's really confusing. And it hasn't helped the confusion that I've been such a fan of Twitter. I'm sure half the people there think we have some sort of relationship. But we don't. And the proliferation of programs like Twitbox and sites like Twit This are not helping things much. So let me repeat...
Twitter has nothing to do with TWiT.
And, I'm afraid, I can't have anything to do with Twitter, either. It's just fueling the confusion. Fortunately, there are several similar services including Groovr, Dodgeball, and Jaiku. After a cursory glance at all three Jaiku seems to have the best mix of features for me (I'm too old to be groovy, or hooking up) so I'm moving to Jaiku. (In truth, it offers a much richer set of features than Twitter.) My handle is ChiefTWiT. Hope to see some of you there.
And I hope my Twitter friends will consider creating a Jaiku account and adding your Twitter feeds to it so I can still see what you're up to. If you do, please make sure to let me know!
(Of course the Jaiku server crashed the minute I mentioned that on Twitter. Twitter's powerful stuff. I'm gonna miss the mojo.)
OK I guess I was too subtle ;-). This is an April Fools joke folks! I haven't sold TWiT to anyone, least of all G4!!
I have some very exciting news. G4 Entertainment Inc has agreed to acquire TWiT in an exchange for stock and $1 cash.
We've been in extensive conversations for the past few months, but I've been reluctant to say anything until today. Here's an excerpt from the G4 press release which crossed the wires a few hours ago:
G4 CEO , Loof Slirpa, said about the merger, "The synergy between G4's smokin' babes and classic TV series, and the TWiTs high end tech knowledge will allow us to reach a vast audience of teenage boys and disaffected computer programmers."
Entrepreneur and media commentator Mike Arrington of Techcrunch.com said, "The dynamic synergy between the old web and the new makes this a win-win for everyone but the audience. I wish I had thought of it first."
Chief TWiT, Leo Laporte said, "I'm moving to Canada."
Ben Durbin ate fish. Wimp.
We decided to forgoe the cigars afterwards - to the great relief of our absent wives.
My new TV show, The Lab with Leo Laporte debuts in April, but I'm in Vancouver right now for rehearsals. Here's a short video of the new set we shot on Wednesday.
(Sorry about the interlacing - there's a better quality version on TWiT.)
Check out the on set live cam at labwithleo.com/webcam. Kate Abraham's behind the scenes blog (she's our call screener and chyron operator) is labwithleo.com/blog/kate and our Free File guy and chase Producer Ryan Yewell's blog is labwithleo.com/ryan/blog, and there are photos on Flickr.
The show will air on G4techTV Canada and the How To Channel in Australia. We'll be shopping it to US networks as soon as we have a few shows in the can.
I banged on my Nokia N93 (literally) until it was able to focus. It's still going out of focus spontaneously - something seems to be wrong with the autofocus mechanism - but the picture was clear long enough to take this shot. It hit the 80s today. Global warming is a bitch.
Great news. Not only is my Tech Guy radio show being picked up on numerous local radio stations, it's now also being heard on XM Satellite Radio.
Listen live on XM Channel 152, Saturday and Sunday from 2-5p Eastern time, or listen to the replay, weekends 8-11p.
I just ran out and bought my first satellite radio!
In coherence mode (as shown) both Windows and Mac programs run side by side - Windows isn't stuck inside the Parallels window any more - and the dock and Windows menu are both available. Very slick.
Dvorak calls me a "joiner." Someone who signs up for every new site he sees. True dat. But sometimes they're really worth signing up for, and how do you know until you do? I'll give you an example.
I've always wanted to do a Tumblelog, somewhere - not quite as formal as a blog - to stick all the random cool stuff I come across day to day. The coolest example out there is project.ioni.st (don't click that link just yet because you'll never return - it's that engaging), but there are several others like the original, Anarchaia.
The canonical way to do this is to install Ruby on Rails and Ozimodo. It's very easy unless you're using Apache. Then it gets a little harder. I just don't have the nerve to mess with either of my production servers (TWiT.tv or techguylabs.com), so my dream of creating a TWiT tumblelog has been thwarted. Until now.
tumblr.com makes it trivial to create a tumblelog. Merlin Mann did it first. He inspired me (in more ways than one) to use tumblr to create tumbléo.com. I'm not cheating on you Vox, honest. I can love two blogging engines at once. Hey, I've got six sites running on three different CMS systems and two different forum engines right now.
So now between Vox, Twitter, and Tumblr, there are no limits to my self-expression.
Ideally all this stuff would be collected into a single site. And someday I hope to do just that.
The first step is to move the the radio show site and my home page, both now in PMWiki, to Vox's sister platform, Moveable Type. Once that's done (hello Apperceptive, where are you?) I will merge all my old blog postings (now in Expression Engine format) into Vox and crosspost into MT.
Phase two will be to find a Tumblelog template for MT (got one?) and incorporate tumbléo into the site.
Twitter will just have to stay a widget on the site.
That's three sites reduced into one. What about the other three sites? I don't anticipate moving TWiT in at this point; Drupal is working so well for it. And the message boards for TWiT and Leoville will stay where they are, twit.tv/forums (running Vanilla) and leovilletownsquare.com (running FusionBB), respectively.
Meanwhile enough voxing around, I've got some cool stuff to post on tumbléo.
Spam can be fun. Got this email today (minus the promised Extrasoft Velour blanket, alas):
[PROMOTION]Extrasoft Velour blanket&cushion
Dear Sir
We, Anhui Light Industries International Co., Ltd, are one of biggest exporters
of kinds of blankets and cushion in China.
Attached pls find Extrasoft Velour blanket&cushion, some of our latest collections.
If they are interesting or you have your own enquiries, pls feel free to let me know.
Looking forward to your kindly reply!
best regards
Fairy
Sales Manager
Textile Dept
UPDATE: I must be in some blanket database somewhere. I just got another one...
Attached pls find Wrinkled blanket & cushion, some of our latest collections.
If they are interesting or you have your own enquiries, pls feel free to let me know.
Looking forward to your kindly reply!
best regards
June
Textile Dept
