Mom Sells Brain Toniq
July 23, 2008
(21 votes, average: 4.81 out of 5)
Loading ...TWiT 152 Pulled
July 21, 2008
My apologies - a stray audio track was accidentally left in the mixdown for this week’s TWiT, I Dream of E3. I’ve pulled the episode and am re-editing. A fixed version will be up in an hour or so. Please accept my apologies.
UPDATE: I’ve posted a fixed version. You can get it on TWiT.tv now or download it directly here. The feeds have been updated, as well.
Once again, sorry for the error.
(11 votes, average: 3.91 out of 5)24 Hours of iPhone
July 10, 2008
I’m going live in a few hours and won’t be off the air until tomorrow.
We’re calling this insanity “24 Hours of iPhone.” Starting at 10a today (July 10) I’ll be doing my usual Thursday slate of shows on TWiT Live, including Roz Rows, Windows Weekly, and Jumping Monkeys. But in between shows, I’ll also be talking with folks waiting in line for the new iPhone. Then at 3p Pacific we go live with wall-to-wall coverage of the iPhone launch.
The first 3G phones are already being sold in New Zealand and as Apple Stores open at 8am local time worldwide we’ll be talking with folks in line. We’re also giving away store credit for 10 iPhones, each with $100 credit toward Audible audio books to random callers during the program, thanks to our fantastic sponsor Audible.com
At 5p Pacific/8 Eastern/midnight UTC we’ll be talking with Steve Wozniak about his new iPhone. Other special guests will join us through the night. I’ll continue until the last Apple store opens its doors in Honolulu, Hawaii, at 11a Eastern Friday July 11.
Join us for this marathon celebration of the launch of the iPhone 3G on TWiT Live!
TWiT Live AIR App
July 10, 2008
Thanks to Peter Elst who made this Adobe Air app for watching TWiT Live. This should work on Windows or OS X…
If you don’t have AIR already installed the installer will download and install it first, then install the TWiT Live app. After installation you’ll have an application on your system with two tabs. The first tab shows the live stream with an attached chat window. Tab two contains the always-updated TWiT Live calendar.
Thanks to Peter Elst for a very handy app!
Top 10 Reasons Why There’s No TWiT Live Today
June 13, 2008
10. I did 20 hours of video in the past two days and I’m exhausted.
9. It’s time to give someone else a chance on Stickam.
8. My Energizers finally ran out.
7. There’s no more room under my desk to store the pee.
6. It’s been a month since I’ve answered my email.
5. My wife is coming home and I’ve got some ’splaining to do.
4. I’m paraskevidekatriaphobic and I’m planning to run for the cure.
3. It’s half-price day at Keny’s Donuts.
2. Metal Gear Solid 4 beckons.
and the number one reason I’m taking today off…
Sometimes a guy’s just got to sit around naked.
The Horror
June 13, 2008
Thanks to George who sent me this JibJab mashup. It’s very funny but be warned - it’s kind of gory and a little adult, definitely not for the little ones.
TWiT Goes To Math Camp (PG-13)
Can you identify all the TWiTs in this video?
UGM 2008
May 19, 2008
Ten years ago we launched ZDTV (which later became TechTV) and The Screen Savers, its most popular show. We wanted to begin with a bang, so Kate Botello and I decided to build the “Ultimate Gaming Machine” basing it on Lloyd Case’s design from Computer Gaming World. In 1998, that meant a PII 400 Mhz, 128 MB of RAM, and a fabulously expensive widescreen Sony CRT (and a price tag of over $10,000). Here’s what it looked like back then…
There have been 9 UGMs built since then, the most recent for Attack of the Show in 2005 (which cost around $6000 and was a lot faster). Since I’m launching TWiT Live 10 years later I thought it would be fun to see what the UGM would look like these days. Only this time, we’re going to let you build it.
Starting Friday, June 6, we’ll be inviting you to pick the parts for UGM 2008. From processors, to motherboard, to video and sound system, the choice will be yours. We’ll spend a couple of hours debating the merits of each component, with expert commentary to help you decide, then when we reach consensus we’ll buy it. At the end of the month we’ll assemble our creation and then give it away to some lucky TWiT Live viewer.
I’m not sure exactly how we’ll give it away. I know I mentioned this on TWiT and proposed a crazy scheme to get me more followers on Twitter. All I can say is I must have been drunk. It won’t be necessary to follow me, or Dvorak, and it definitely won’t be necessary to unfollow Kevin. I’m going to check with the legal department and find a fair way to do this that doesn’t require anyone to join Twitter!
We’ll kick things off Friday, June 6, at 3p Pacific, 6p Eastern, 2200 UTC with a processor showdown. AMD or Intel, which will it be? I’ll have experts on both sides then I’ll ask you to decide. June 13 it’s Motherboards and Memory. June 20th, video cards and monitors. June 27th storage and peripherals. We’ll finish the machine on the 4th of July, choose the best five games for it, and award it to a lucky winner.
So join us Fridays starting in June as we recreate one of the most loved bits we ever did on The Screen Savers. It should be a lot of fun, and who knows, you could walk away with UGM 10!
TWiT Live Update
May 14, 2008
We’re inching along with TWiT Live, my attempt to turn the humble Tech Guy Labs into an Internet TV station. If you saw the earlier pictures or video tour you wouldn’t recognize the place. It’s turned into a bustling hub of activity and an actual workplace.
To start with we have an office manager and bookeeper, Frédérique (now I’m not the only person with acute accents around here).
Frédérique is an old family friend who comes in every morning to make sure things are running smoothly.
Colleen is our new studio manager and resident geek. She is helping me build the studio and has been invaluable in getting the wires connected.
Her latest feat is putting in this guerilla lighting rig. It’s handy having a welder on staff.
It’s very weird having employees. The guy from ADP came in today and we set up payroll, taxes, worker’s comp, benefits, and so on. I incorporated TWiT as an LLC some time ago - now the chickens have come home to roost. I’m really am the Chief TWiT now (although I still can’t bring myself to put that on official papers).
I’ve promoted Dane to President and Biz Dev guy. He’s been my invaluable right arm for more than a year now, and without him TWiT would never have grown past a handful of poorly edited shows. He’s still doing all the editing and posting but I’m looking to hire an in-house part-time editor to free Dane up to do more high-level planning. Which frees me up to do 20 hours of streaming video a week.
We even have a water cooler around which we can gather and gossip.
As far as the studio goes, we’re almost done. We’ve got the lights in, thanks to Pat Grosswendt and litepanels.com. They have already made a huge difference.
We are installing our new Tricaster Studio on Friday so I’ll finally have more than one camera online. The Tricaster will let me switch between up to six cameras (we have four Canon XL-2s and will probably buy another) and several computer screens (so you can finally see our Skype callers, hosts, and guests). When the Tricaster comes online the fun really begins. It’ll be just like the Gerry Todd show…
I’m pleased to announce that our streaming host for all this will be Stickam.com. They’ve really stepped up to help us make this work. Today they put us on a dedicated server cluster which should help us scale to more viewers without slowdowns. We’ll be using the Flash Media Encoder on our end (once we get the new Tricaster 2.0 software) to improve quality, and we hope to start sending the show in widescreen 16:9 soon.
We’ll be using the integrated Stickam chat to get viewers on the air so sign up for a free Stickam account now and request friendship with Leo Laporte so we can put you on. Stickam is helping us design a better page at TWiTLive.tv, too.
I turn on the cameras every day except Monday and Friday from 11a-4p Pacific (2-7p Eastern, 6-11p UTC). You can subscribe to our production calendar using RSS, ICS, or HTML:
If you subscribe using Google calendar, Outlook, or iCal the calendar should get updated automatically (shows are often being moved or added). Turn on time zone support in your calendaring program to convert the times to your local time. I also post changes and updates to the TWiT Live account on Twitter, and Stickam can send you SMS, Email, or IM notifications when we turn on the cameras.
As for content, it might not be as jazzy as the Gerry Todd Show, but I do hope to keep the pipeline filled with interesting information. To start with you’ll be able to see all the TWiT show being produced. They’re all audio shows (and don’t worry, they’re going to stay that way) but we’ll add video elements to most of them. At the very least you’ll be able to see Dvorak’s, Steve’s, Amber’s, Megan’s, Cammy’s, Paul’s, Dick’s, Andy’s, Alex’s, Scott’s, and Merlin’s shining faces via Skype video.
Whenever possible we’ll get our contributers into the studio for the shows, too. I think we’ll be able to do live in-studio versions of TWiT and MacBreak Weekly at least once a month.
People tell me that some of the most interesting stuff happens in-between shows. I hope you caught Scott Bourne’s fascinating impromptu tour of his bird photos after MacBreak Weekly last week. That’s the kind of thing we’re going to do a lot more of. When something extra interesting happens I’ll capture it and put it out as downloadable high-quality video. We’ll be creating a new netcast of these Best of TWiT Live pieces later this month. It will be available on iTunes, Apple TV, Miro, and Stickam.
Meanwhile, I better go pay some bills, as Gerry Todd says. Thanks for your support, and a special thanks to the numerous TWiT donors who are making this possible. We couldn’t do it without you!
Dave Mora Interviews Me
May 12, 2008
Video podcaster Dave Mora did this interview with me after the KGO Live event last weekend. He recorded it with a Flip camera. Thanks, Dave!
Dave’s Web site is eunknown.org and he does a great job. Gives away a lot of stuff, too!
Dipity Do!
May 12, 2008
Tomorrow on net@night (watch live at 4p Pacific/7p Eastern/11p UTC at TWiTLive.tv) Amber and I will be talking with Dipity - a new and very cool web service that turns your feeds into a timeline quickly and easily. You supply links to your Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Wordpress blog, or other feeds and Dipity automatically turns them into a timeline or flipbook of your life.
Here’s my Dipity timeline from the past year or so.
I wish this had been around 20 years ago - I’d love to go back that far. But then, 20 years from now I’ll have this!
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