Best Damn Tech Show, Period.

After 10 years (and what some consider to be fairly lackluster performance really), Meg Whitman is stepping down as CEO of eBay. Apparently there is a substantial reserve.

While she never received a Hottie, Hot, Hot, Hot nomination during her tenure, some think that due to the excesses in her bank account these days ($1.4 billion), we can make an exception. Any takers?

Yep, Netscape (AOL) finally killed off the wanna-be Internet Explorer Killer.   It just never worked out for them.

Netscape Navigator was a very clunky piece of software, but had a pretty big and supportive user-base.   What will happen to those people now?

The Netscape team suggests trying Firefox.

Well played Netscape, well played.

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Tags: netscape, firefox, browser, dead, RIP, tech, bestdamntechshow

Our first episode shot entirely using the Chrome Key effect known as “Green Screen”. Still working out the kinks so give us a break…

It’s that time again folks.   The Best Damn Tech Show, Period. crew tells you what’s going on this week in tech.   We hope you got disgustingly drunk this Holiday Season, we know Schmidt did.  Now on to the news.

Digg This:  Deal or No Deal? - Our buddy from Digg, Jay Adelson spoke to BusinessWeek to update our last weeks story about Digg being up for sale.   It’s not.   Yes it is.  No it’s not.  Yes it is.  No it’s not.  And no they’re not preparing for an IPO (which Schmidt swears is a beer).   Also an update, Kevin Rose still drinks too fuckin much.  End of story (again?)

Vloggers are paranoid as fuck - Vlogger Cheryl Colan decided to wage war on the vlogging world by being all like “EpicFuSetJet isn’t on the up and up, I feel like they’re making money!”  No shit, sherlock.   Look, Zadi and Steve are the hardest working folks in the biz, mind your own.   Scoble jumps in with “See, I told you so guys, Vloggers is r dumb!”  Shut up Robert.   Then Ninja dude jumps in and says “Go work harder”.   You go Ninja!

Boy Genius Speaks - And we listen.   This guys sources are way more solid than a PodTech business plan.   He says that Apple will indeed unveil a new laptop at January’s MacWorld.   Oh boy, we hope it’s that one you can implant in your brain!

Who turned the lights out? (Who, Who?) - We hate end of year lists, so we figured this one was the best to share.   The top internet outages of 2007.   Remember that hour without Twitter? Remember the day without Skype?  Ahhhh, what a year it was.

Now back to your cookies, bitches.  Peas out.

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Tags: bestdamntechshow, geeksof the midweek, news

So what’s up in tech this week?  Here’s your midweek rundown.

Gimme Back my Pic Bitches - So this group of singers ripped off a Billy Joel song and got applauded by 10’s of 10’s of geeks for including them in the video and then this woman got pissed at them for stealing her picture and they were all like “Screw you” and she was all like “Meet my lawyer” and YouTube was all like “I’m taking down your vid” and then the group was all like “sorry” and she was all like “Pay me” and Michael Arrington was all like “Boooooooo!!!”

I’m Popular, Fuckers! - So Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks has 5,000 friends on Facebook, and he’s all like “Oh noz, what do I do?”

I’m WebFamous, who are you? - So formerly reputable Forbes magazine puts out their top 25 web peoplez.  Only problem is, we haven’t heard of half of the folks on it.  Then Scoble was all like “Oh no, so many others belong on that list” and then Rubel was like “Surely others belong on there”, and Perez Hilton was all “Weeeeeeee!”, and Cashmore was like *barf*.  Adam Plante surely belonged on that list.   For what, we have no idea.  But from the looks of that list, that’s all the criteria they were using.

Online office applications are craptastic…still.

Digg says “Gimme dat money!” - Digg’s up for sale, Digg’s not up for sale, Digg’s up for sale, Digg’s not up for sale, Digg’s up for sale, Kevin Rose drinks a lot.  End of fucking story.  Next!

I saw an Android and it said BOOYA! - OMFGZ y’all, I totes saw a phone with Google Androidz!  OMFGWOW.  Yeah, big whoop.  Give us 10 bucks and we’ll show you our asses, both are equally as interesting.   Google’s got a phone operating system, but not, we’ll believe it when we see it and then act accordingly.

I Shall Call it……..Mini-Apple! - So Steve Jobs was sittin around thinking of shit to make and he said “Yo…lets make a smaller Macbook and all of the geeks will get horny over it”.  And they did.   Maybe.

And that’s it, that’s this week so far in tech.   We’re spent.

Opera is breaking out the big guns…lawyers.   Today, Opera filed a complaint with the EU against Microspank.

They don’t want IE bundled with Windows, as it gives Microsoft unfair advantage in the browser war, and they want IE to comply with web standards.

Hmmmm.  Don’t we all?  I love Opera, they have big brass balls.

However.   Is there anyone bitching about Safari and iTunes coming bundled with OS X?  No?  *crickets* Anyone?  *more crickets*.  Oh yeah, nobody cares….yet.

So big ups to Opera on getting them some press coverage, but nobody in the world can make Microsoft comply to “standards” that aren’t really standard from a legal perspective.  We’ll be keeping a Geek eye on this one for y’all.

_drew

FINALLY! Announced yesterday, Google had defeated Microsoft by taking a 5% stake in AOL. Now at this point, most would say “Bah, who cares? AOL sucks!” And they do. But what really matters is AIM service which has rested steadily atop other instant messaging services.

You can now simply log into your GMail account and chat with GMail users as well AIM users. It’s very simple to use and is another step toward Google’s world domination!

For anyone not using GMail, GET A MAIL ACCOUNT!

• It’s free!
• Gigs of space!
• Supports POP and IMAP.
• Chatting with your friends right within the page (or pop the message out).
• Simple searching for a message you need to track down.
• 40+ Languages (Über vierzig Sprachen).
• Few ads, and ones that actually relate to your message.
• Great spam filter.
• Everyone else is doing it!

Also, by having a GMail account, you’ll be given access to many other Google features like Calendar, Reader (for RSS feeds), Maps, Groups, Documents, Language Tools, and even a personalized Google homepage allowing you to add an endless amount of plugins!

I personally had been leaving my instant messaging client open all day along with my Gmail just to keep up with others. It killed resources and I personally never found an application that merged the two that I liked. I think this is another great move by our friends at GMail.

Beer me!

Schmidt

Ask (reapeatedly) and you shall receive, originally uploaded by Mickipedia.

I’m not gonna lie (as Schmidt would say), the iPhone is changing the way people use mobile technology. I’ve observed many people using their iPhones and I’ve never seen people get more done on a mobile device.

Yes, net speeds are awfully slow, but once that problem is fixed I’m totally in.

This thing does it all. Blackberries just don’t hack it anymore. Touchscreen experience is the here and now and the future.

If Micki has an iPhone, so should you!

_drew

An Oldie, but a Goodie… Iggs was called in to host the Best Damn Tech Show, Period for 3 weeks while Paul went on a WalkAbout. When Paul returned, Iggs was kicked back down to the lowly rank of BarMan. He didn’t take it well.

Need to climb Everest but concerned about cell phone coverage? No more worries there as China’s largest mobile phone provider has now installed a transmission station at 21,000 ft. Says a spokesman, “the construction was very difficult”. The station was part of the Olympics initiative as they are taking the torch up to the top.

Ubuntu appears to be having an impact. Walmart started selling the $200 Linux machine (1.5 GHz VIA C7 CPU embedded onto a Mini-ITX motherboard, 512MB of RAM and an 80GB) 2 weeks ago and has already sold out. http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=926

Meanwhile the One Laptop per Child is offering a give one get one program where for $399 ($200 of which is tax deductible) a laptop will be send to a child in a third world country plus you will receive one for the child in your life. In addition, you will receive a year free T-Mobile hotspot access. http://www.laptopgiving.org/en/give-one-get-one.php

GEEK CHICK

IRIS ON THE VIRUS
Mighty Morphing Ebay Trojan
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/11/15/trojan_bayrob_morphs/

Ebay trojan (Trojan.Bayrob) has morphed yet again. This trojan loads a webserver on the victim’s computer and serves up false pages for Ebay motors and CarFax reports to fool people into giving money to the bad guys.

SCHMIDT FACED

Sony?s lackluster PlayStation 3 sales more than doubled recently thanks to the introduction of the new 40GB model and a $100 price cut on the 80GB model.

TECH IT OUT
Google is offering up to $10 mill for developers of apps for their android platform.

Sales of the Sony PS3 are up as a result of the $100 price cut from 40,000/week to 100,000 for this week. They still have a long way to go to catch up with XBOX 360 and Wii which are double the total sales.

Look out for YouTube’s “high quality video” rolling out in the next few months.

Viddler has officially announced their monetization model which we have been testing for a couple of months. If you are a publisher go and tech it out http://www.viddler.com/advertise/

Concerns over Comcasts decision to block bittorrent and other P2P’s http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071019-evidence-mounts-that-comcast-is-targeting-bittorrent-traffic.html a comcast user has actually slapped a class action lawsuit over their traffic blocking or slowing practice. Comcast denies it.

Also keep a geek eye out for Virtual Vouchers where you can buy credit through one place to use anywhere that accepts Visa (up to $1000) to help assuage online shopping fears.

SITE OF THE WEEK
www.viddler.com