Category: Geek Stuff

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Daily Life Geek Stuff

Saturday, it’s a Saturday

Even though it’s the crazy holiday season it’s been a good day of rest. I got some work done this morning including the first cut of my Web 3.0 video that I sent off to the master of the lost art of audio story telling. I watched “The Sandlot” with my neice today and saw “The Holiday” with the lovely Carin last night (good date flick, a lot of fun).

I’ve also been messing around with Brain Age on my Nintendo DS, the UI for Sudoku is surprisingly good, exceptionally simple. The DS continues to astound me, I have no doubt there will be a Wii in my future.

I’m getting ready for a Christmas party tonight. Bonus points and a shoutout for anybody that knows the song that the title of this post came from. Have a good weekend, tomorrow’s The M Show!

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Daily Life Podcasting

Why Radio Sucks

Not long ago I was travelling for business with a rental car and I had no way to get my iPod output into the stereo. After 15 minutes I was actually considering the risk of driving with headphones (and decided against it for my personal safety, I already felt at risk in my ultra-sub-mini-compact vehicle).

Reason #1 – Ads. There’s tons of them. This is the golden age of podcasting, there are very few there.

Reason #2 – Finite number of stations, finite choices. When’s the last time you heard a show about the best way to raise pigs or knit? Radio: every town in America has, the morning zoo, talk from the left and right, country, rap, classic rock, current rock, oldies and that’s it. No matter what your hobby, you can find something that you really want to learn about. And even though I am 100% podcast there’s lots of hollywood quality stuff through Audible (John Federico, thank me later).

Reason #3 – 60 GB, 9000 songs, my choice.

Reason #4 – If you are stuck waiting somewhere you can watch video on your iPod, kind of cool coming through 6 car speakers.

Bonus Reason: You may say “But John, in your simple-minded rant you forgot one thing – variety”, and you I say “See #3 and add Smart Playlist – Random” and check out my channels on gigadial – it’s great, subscribe to the feed and I’ll throw you random new podcasts to check out. The CAPOW channel covers marketing and business stuff, New England Podcasters is everything else for the general public, and the John Wall channel has everything that’s too nerdy, radical, edgy, or adult for the (somewhat) family friendly NE Casters channel.

My channel has some All-Star geek recordings right now that include Apple Founder Steve Wozniak, Joel from Joel on Software, and Business Gurus Clayton Christensen (the Innovator’s Dilemma) and Malcolm Gladwell (The Tipping Point and Blink).
If you want just music then check out some folks doing some great stuff: Rock from Accident Hash, Hip-Hop from Julien, Chill with Anji Bee, and get your pirate Barry White style groove on with Suzy Chase.

By the way, anyone can add to those channels so if you have anything you’d like to share please add it.

Holy web bluntman, that’s a lot of links. Have a good weekend, The M Show will be out Sunday Night with some special guests…

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Brain Buster Geek Stuff

Web 3.0

I mentioned yesterday that I had a chance to speak with Mike Kowalchik of Grazr and that started me thinking about the changing face of the web. This goes right along with a post of Steve Rubel’s regarding Yahoo no longer putting feeds on major pages. RSS is a way to get through content faster – it removes some of the friction in an already nearly frictionless environment.

The only problem is that we are now drowning in information – the web is being crushed under its own weight. A tool like Grazr allows readers to skip unchanged page views that would normally bear advertising messages. Once you are hooked on RSS feeds your surfing time decreases. This is a disruptive force.

I’m beginning to think that the missing link is an RSS killer app. With a program that folks on the far side of the chasm would adopt (something beyond a propellor-head newsreader), a program that makes RSS completely seamless, we will see something completely new. While Grazr may look like a widget on the surface, I think it may be the first look at something completely different.

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Brain Buster Geek Stuff

What a 21st Century Record Label Looks Like

I attended the WebInno event tonight over at the Royal Sonesta just across the river from Boston in Cambridge. Besides getting a chance to catch up with Andrew Bourland and Christopher Carleton, I got to see some interesting new web apps. I geeked out on RSS and OPML with Mike Kowalchik of Grazr, but that stretched my brain too far and now I have to process that for a day or two before talking about it.

The other main course was Calabash Music which was demoed by Brad Powell. They focus on World Music, and the interesting thing was that they have a mini player that bands can host on their own site which has both a playlist and integrated purchasing mechanism. You can listen to the tunes, and click to purchase the track. He mentioned that they already have a deal going with National Geographic (who hosts their podcasts with LibSyn). Very cool stuff, sort of a CD Baby without the CDs. Is this the record label of tomorrow?

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Daily Life Geek Stuff

Where to check out new Web Stuff in Boston

I found out about the Web Innovators Group through Brian Owen of Masthead Venture Partners at the Nantucket Conference back in the spring. The latest meeting is tonight so I’ll fill you in on anything cool. If you are in the Boston area just go over to their Wiki and sign up.

I may even grab some audio for The M Show.

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Geek Stuff Graphic Design Productivity Booster The Marketeer

Browse Fonts, Preview Fonts, Manage Fonts, Ahhhh

I’ve spent the past 5 years looking for a font browser. Like any other Ronin Marketeer, I have a portable hard drive of digital tools that I’ve gathered. It includes some insane amount of fonts now over 10,000. Yesterday I again hit a point where I was so frustrated that I decided to take a time out to see if there were any tools out there.

I found Suitcase by Extensis. This gift from the gods allows you to grab a folder and it will build a library, complete with samples to view of all the fonts in the subfolders. I’m doing the 30-day trial but unless it does something ridiculuous I’ll be a new customer in no time

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Geek Stuff SalesForce.com SEO and Paid Search The Marketeer

What is The Google OneBox

I have been watching the Google OneBox and there was an article about it in today’s Search Engine Watch. I’d give a direct link but it’s a paid subscription service (and well worth it).

The OneBox is the space above the first entry of organic results (results on the left side of the screen). A couple of months ago I started noticing paid ads show up there and now they are putting maps, movie times, and book recommendations up there. My gut tells me we’ll probably see video up there very soon too.

One weird thing – it only appears to show up the first time, if you refresh a page you are on it’s gone.

In other big news I got notice that SalesForce.com is getting scheduled maintenence around Jan. 15 to get the first ’07 upgrade. This will have integrated Google paid search, but you can get that already if you dig for it.

Shoutouts to Christopher Penn for his ninja search info and Bryan Person for helping me get the feeds straight.

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Podcasting The Marketeer

M Show Sunday

It’s Sunday and that means The M Show gets recorded… A very slow week with the Thanksgiving holiday here in the states, but a few intersting things like the OJ project being scuttled and a statement that The Boston Globe is not for sale.

Steve Rubel had an interesting post on widgets – components that designers can add to webpages. Relevant as I contine with my initiation into WordPress…

Take a listen on Monday Morning!

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Geek Stuff Productivity Buster

Burden of a Geek

Happy Thanksgiving!

The blog has arrived. I really wanted to go with “Adventures in Marketing” but the URL was gone and it didn’t sound that cool, and wasn’t too search engine friendly. After much thought I am excited to announce Ronin Marketeer!

Ok… you’d think I could turn the spinometer down for at least a day like today… guess not.

I am deep in my holiday tradition of providing tech support for my relatives while I’m at home. Adam Curry once said something along the lines of “As a geek it’s your duty to keep your friends and families machines going”, and I’ve always kind of liked that line. Perhaps describing it as a duty makes it sound more romantic than getting the spyware gunk out of the machines my nephews have played with.

That said, I’m thankful for family, friends and all the blessings I have. This is going to be another exciting year and I’m looking forward to seeing how many people we can bring along on the ride. Enjoy the turkey!

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Geek Stuff Podcasting Productivity Buster The Marketeer

The Marketeer at Podcamp Pittsburgh

I got to meet the most famous videobloggers of all time… The stars of TikiBarTV
podcamp pittsburgh