Best Damn Tech Show, Period.

We’ve talked about AdaptiveBlue’s BlueOrganizer for some time now. I caught them out at DEMOfall last year, and their Firefox/Flock extension is so full of features, it’s impossible to talk about them all here. You really have to give it a try.

At its simplest, BlueOrganizer allows you to bookmark/rate/share things online. Podcasts, Movies or CD’s on Amazon, or websites. Basically everything on the net becomes an item that you can organize and share. One great application is to create a wish list. When you add an item, you can say that you “want it”, and now with the new upgrade, you can easily create a flash widget to put on your MySpace or Blog and allow people to click them and such.

Seems pretty simple eh? Well there’s more to it. Right click on any link to bring up the “BlueMenu” which lets you dig further into a subject or item.

Seriously, you really just have to give it a try to see all of the features. Everything is gathered offline so you can track your stuff even when you have no interwebs.

Check it out and share your widgets with us:

http://www.adaptiveblue.com/

technorati tags:blueorganizer, adaptiveblue

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So Nintendo released the Wii and so far it has been a great success! I had the privilege to try out the Wii when I went to Opera HQ last week. I played some games and used the Wii browser (powered by Opera Software). If I was honest, it took some getting used to! I’m not used to so much motion when playing a video game and I was quite concious of what an idiot I looked! It was obvious though that the people at the Opera offices had got used to the commotion as they didn’t seem to even notice.

Once I had worn myself out, I moved on to the browser. Now this I liked! It would be a lot easier if there was some kind of keyboard hardware as opposed to the on-screen keyboard though. I have never been a fan of on-screen keyboards on devices, however on gaming machines such as the DS Lite, there isn’t much choice and you do eventually get used to using them.

The Browser itself is surprisingly advanced. There isn’t a great deal that’s different from using a normal browser. It has an impressive zoom in, zoom out feature which I had a lot of fun with. The Wii browser also supports flash, Ajax and CSS.

You can currently use the free beta until the endof June 2007, the final version should be available at the end of March 2007. After June 2007, the price will be 500 Wii Points (about $5).

_Leila

technorati tags:wii, opera, nintendo, leila

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Photowalking is a new thing. A bunch of photo lovin’ geeks get together, walk around, talk, and shoot photos. I love it and I want to do one. Maybe I can get a Seattle Photowalk going. Until then, check out Scoble Show with Thomas Hawk.

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So it’s no secret that I loves me macs. Todays keynote address has left me pretty giddy. Here’s a brief summary…

iTunes Store
Jobsy reminded us how popular iTunes is with additional TV Shows and movies. He announced a partnership with Paramount.

Zune
Speaking candidly on the newest iPod competitor, th Zune Jobsy simply stated that the Zune could only manage a 2% market share.

AppleTV
Previously dubbed the iTV, Jobsy announced that this product will go by the name AppleTV. With some impressive specs including built-in wireless, HDMI, 720p HD video, 40GB hard drive, Intel, and network capabilities for up to 5 computers. He demonstrated the product, revealing an iTunes interface, connectivity with a MacBook and a nice price point of $299. Look for it in Feb.

iPhone
Jobsy hyped this one big time, “This is the day I’ve been looking forward to for two and a half years. Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything.”
Apparently Apple is reinventing the phone. Using multitouch, running OSX, iTunes sync, Wifi, Bluetooth…you name it, it seems to have it, they’re teaming up with Cingular and are looking towards grabbing a 1% market share in 2008.

Apple Inc.
Jobsy finished off by announcing that they’re changing their name from Apple Computers Inc. to Apple Inc. after realising the immense popularity of their peripheral products like the iPod (and plan on doing the same with the iPhone). John Mayer joined him on stage to finish the keynote with a couple of songs that one assumes will be DRM-enabled.

Jobsy never fails to disappoint. I’m sure they’ll have the keynote up soon enough on the Apple website. Phew, was it good for you?

_flemo.

L0L. Love it.

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Thanks to our homie Chris Brogan for this great advice and heads up.

Handsome Om Malik has officially scared the bejeesus
out of me with his post about Gmail suffering some kind of problem
resulting in deleted accounts, missing archives, etc. Story link is here.

Back Up Your Gmail

I took Om’s advice and backed my gmail account up. Here’s the steps I took.

1. Read Google’s Help document on POP access to your Gmail account.
2. Configure an account on your mail client for your gmail
   account. - IMPORTANT- Build a separate account. If you’re using
   Outlook, make sure this is a standalone PST file. If you’re using
   mail.app or Thunderbird, make sure this is a standalone account.
3. Do the sync between gmail and your client. NOTE: This will probably take a while.
   If you’ve got a fairly healthy gmail account with lots of archived
   mail, you will be at this step for hours. So, disable your computer’s
   sleep setting, but enable the screensaver if you want, and let it do
   its thing.
4. When it’s all there, turn off your mail client.
5. Locate your mail client’s file for the gmail mails.
6. Consider moving these (or making a copy) offline to a backup
   drive. In my case, I’m going to clip off a current update from today,
   and toss that entire file to my backup drive. Then, I’ll delete the
   account on my POP mail client, and go about my business.
7. Schedule your updates periodically with Google Calendar (provided THAT doesn’t encounter a whoops).

I am a *huge* supporter of web-side applications. I use Google mail,
calendar, docs, maps, and search every day. But an experience like what
Om points out at GigaOm is a great reminder that it’s still my job to
make appropriate backups of my records and not trust Google (or any
other company) to keep my data safe for me.

If you’re a gmail user, consider doing this within the next 24 hours
(provided you haven’t been doing this all along). External hard drives
are cheap (I just got a 200GB external drive for $99). Give your online
data a life vest.

technorati tags:chrisbrogan, gmail, google, bestdamntech, advice, backup

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The Best Damn Micki Tech Show, Period., originally uploaded by bestdamntech.

Next weeks show has a special guest. Micki Krimmel blew the roof off of that mother.

As we’ll cover on next weeks show, digg has made some major upgrades.  One of them?  A listing of podcasts.

So if you like us, please go digg us

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When Your SysAdmin Is Bored.jpg (JPEG Image, 500×375 pixels)

Submit your funny captions and win a Flock shirt!!!!  Shiny, yours is on the way bro.

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Tonight, Tim Westergren (founder and CSO of Pandora.com) hung out with the Best Damn Tech Show, Period. and taped next weeks show. I won’t give anything away, but be sure to check out next weeks show on Tuesday. Tim came along with Michele, who also works for Pandora and they were awesome.

After the taping, we went on over to the Upenn bookstore in Philly for a town hall style meeting. There was an awesome turnout, and Tim did a great job talking about the roots of Pandora and the Music Genome project.