Archive for the ‘The Roundup’ Category

You might remember the products. You might remember the hype. Then, you are tooling down highway 41 years later and all of a sudden you think to yourself - “Hey, whatever happened to…”

Failed ideas. Maybe it was a great idea, but wasn’t made right, or design errors brought it down. Maybe it was just a bad product. Well, let’s take a stroll down memory lane and see if we cannot repeat these errors again.

Oh yeah, why 16? Well because we could.

The Computer Watch: Whether it was the Ruputer, the MSN Direct ‘Smart’ Watches, the Timex Data Link Watch or another gadget watch - BTW - I remember having a “Transformers watch”. It was awesome!

Still, the Dick Tracey style communication watches, the “Computer on a wrist”, never really hit it off. I even remember a watch that gave you directions. You would put in the paper tape and turn a little dial to indicate where you are and where you are going.

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Podcasting is fun, but sometimes the prep is a pain. We need to keep some calm before the show. So we relax. We meditate. We light up another cigarette and swash back a shot of JD. Whatever is good for the podcast, right?

I listen to music - It keeps me in check. Usually I am listening to other podcasts, but when it’s time for mine, I change to something that soothes me. Heck, there are a few times I have been known to run a calming meditation audio before a show.

There are some songs that are special in my list. I have listened to them in the past for specific reasons.

Before I show my list, I asked a couple Podcast friends what was in their lists. I did get a couple “I don’t listen to music before”. That is OK, too. Here is what I got: Read the rest of this entry »

Wow. It was about a year ago I asked for people to send in thoughts as to what to expect in 2008. I also made some Technology predictions. But the real question was - How far off was I?

This is actually part 1 of a 2-part story. This first part reviews the predictions I made last year and how far off I was. Part 2 will have this years predictions, including predictions from CEO’s CTO’s TechPodcasters and even a Psychic.

So without any further ado, let’s pick apart my idiocy from last year:

OLPC will have some growing pains. The first part of OLPC will be the easiest. Maintaining the machines will be the trick. Microsoft coming onboard will muddy the water, but they might be able to do things like offer a better support network to third world countries.

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I have seen and heard of many devices that will tell you what your Blood Alcohol Level is. From the machine you have sitting next to the gumballs at the front of the bar asking for 50 cents to tell you, to small keychain devices that work off a watch battery. Breathe and hope you are not past the limit.

Now you can add your iPod to that.

David Steele Enterprises announced they are shipping the iBreath - a device that attaches to your iPod or iPhone and tells you if you are over the legal limit to drive. And that’s not all! The device also doubles as a FM Radio Transmitter, so you can push your iPod music to your car stereo.

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Customers in Chicago IL, Atlanta GA, Ft. Wayne IN. and Baltimore MD. are going to get a boost from a technology called “DOCSIS 3.0″as Comcast is rolling it out to those areas. It is part of a 10 city initiative which will also include the Twin Cities MN, Boston (Metro) MA, parts of southern NH, Philly (Metro) PA, NJ, Portland OR, Seattle, Spokane and Eugene WA.

DOCSIS stands for “Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification”. It was developed by CableLabs, and includes contributions from companies like ARRIS, BigBand Networks, Broadcom, Cisco, Conexant, Correlant, Harmonic, Intel, Motorola, Netgear, Terayon, and Texas Instruments. DOCSIS uses a Hybrid Fiber-Coaxial cable to push data through at 343 Mbit/s per 8 channels.

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I saw you back in Comdex in 83 - You were a exciting new technology - a marvel to me with a touchscreen.

Ohhhh, ohhh

But times have changed and you are now put to the side - the integration with the phone makes it real nice - and you get tossed in the scrap pile to die.

Ohhh, ohhh

I used your applications

ohhh, ohhh

And all your revelations….

Earlier in the week I read the article “5 things the Smartphone Killed“. While I am not in total agreeance of the list just yet, I do agree on a lot of their items and I can see the Smartphone can totally engulf all the item replacements. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, it was 366 days ago that the first posts for Geekazine surfaced (Leap Year, ya know). It’s been a little longer for the podcasts. Nonetheless, this site went live on November 7th 2007.

Since then we’ve had over 175 podcasts and video casts, over 400 posts, a few posts and some people got some great swag. We’ve talked with some great names in the last year - from Bryce Whittey from Technibble, Josh Chandler, to Jeri Ellsworth.

I would first like to thank everyone for a great first year. I would like to thank the sponsors: Gotomeeting.com, Careersaver.com are the two main ones. I would also like to thank all who have sent donations to the site.

Thanks to Norbert Davis from TCTPodcast.com for all the Cool Tech Corner episodes. Thanks to the cast at Techpodcasts, Blubrry and Raw Voice for making a great community. Thank you to uStream for giving me a facet to do the LIVE Show every Monday. Thanks to Vocalo - I haven’t made an episode there in a while simply because I just run out of time, but I am still appreciative for all they did.

I am going to make the next year even better. We have a good stream of people going to Geekazine and to the sister site: Dorkazine. I have some great news. I have signed up some more web sites and we are going to incorporate them into the family. More in future ramblings.

We survived the election. We survived the MicroYugo. We survived Steve Jobs health. We are Survivors - The Eye of the Tiger.

Once again, feel free to email me @ geekazine@gmail.com or call me at 608-205-4378 and say hi. Give me some ideas. Submit an article for use on the site. Let’s make next year better than ever!!

I didn’t get a good chance to spend time at Geek Kon this year due to the schedule. That’s why I put down thoughts rather than a review. What I did make of it was pretty good. Lots of die-hards attended and most in costume.

The event brings Sci-Fi enthusiasts, gaming pros and guild members together. There were many different events going on within the 2 buildings of the University. Discussions from local stars gone global - Luke Sienkowski (The Great Luke SKi), Matt Sloan and Aaron Yonda (Chad Vader) and a lot more. Read the rest of this entry »

I passed by the old Comp USA store in the area yesterday. It looked so lonely. The other shops in the mall were bustling - the Party City next door was getting ready for Halloween and the Target was doing it’s normal influx of customers.

It would have been nice to see Tiger Direct purchase this outlet, alas they didn’t and therefore there is a big “For Lease” sign on it. I am intrigued as to why the sign is still up. Maybe there is still a lease on the space from CompUSA? Maybe Tiger Direct is getting some free advertising off of this? After all, it does overlook a main traffic vein of the west side.
I started remembering the rise and fall of the store. I also remember what I was able to get here. I had a CompUSA Wireless B router at one time. I also got a great deal for me and my brother on a HP CDRW drive with free MP3 player. That was years ago and the CDRW pretty much has gone in the spares bin.

The fall was kina sad. I walked into the store to see areas blocked off by torn down shelving units. They tried to sell a 486 for $100. Not sure if they sold it to anyone…

So I snapped the picture, reminisced and moved on. I suppose it’s the way we live life - things come and go. Or as the great saying goes: Things change. People Change. Hairstyles Change. Interest rates fluxuate….

Apple said it was an update. They applied the update and it didn’t fix the problem. Apple is still saying its about the update.

Now a woman in Alabama sues Apple for false Advertisement. Jessica Alena Smith filed the lawsuit stating that the advertising said the iPhone 3G was suppose to double the speed of the original iPhone. There is no report of how much she’s suing for.

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Part of the world is already in this Superstitious day. The rest will follow shortly. 8-08-08 will also be an interesting day for many.

The Summer Beijing Olympics will start at 8:08:08 on 8-08-08. It’s not true 8:08 depending on how you look at the clocks. It will be officially 20:08:08, but then again, halfway around the country, it WILL be 8:08:08….

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