Posts Tagged ‘casters’

Got up. Showered. Shaved. Walked to convention center.

Then I woke up.

The opening keynote jumped us into gear. A panel of Andrew Edwards,Robyn Antone, Mark Gross and Jermaine Durpri. The subject: Celebrities and Social Media.

Really great discussion about how they look at social media. Anthony Edwards promoted his efforts in Africa. Jermaine talked about how he talks with people until they show that ended with Anthony Edwards making his first tweet ever.

Took in some sessions. Flash animations was a great show. We learned how to make the podcast lively with flash video. Different approach to casting.

Cali Lewis was next as she talked about video cameras and green screens. She, along with her producer Neil, showed off the cameras they use and how they produce video for Geekbrief.tv.

The day then took me to walking the floor and talking to various bloggers and casters. That is, up until 1:45 PM when it was time to show my Wisconsin skills and eat a 1/2 lb Fatburger. We were the winning team of the weekend, as not only I finished the burger, but 10 others completed the massive consumption. This included Maria – the only female that did it all weekend. She did it with grace and distinction.

More walking of the floor as I ran into Cali again, then stopped by the Chad Vader booth. It’s cool to see those guys do well, especially since they are from my neck of the woods. Season 2 is almost over and they are planning for Season 3 already. Awesome!

By 3 PM it was showing that the conference was wrapping up. You could see people packing up their booths and crews starting to knock down the exhibit. But the day wasn’t over.

Sat in a couple more sessions. Todd Cochrane and Rob Greenlee talked about getting your podcast cataloged. Sat in on a Wordpress session, too. All in, a great day. Time for Guy Kawasaki and the key note with Kevin Pollack, Matt Sloan and Aaron Yonda from Chad Vader and Jenny Lawson, the Bloggess.

It was a different keynote as it was more of a talk show than a keynote. Very open – of course if you’ve seen Kevin Pollacks’ show, you know what could happen. Yes, the Larry King game was played. Matt Sloan did an awesome job with it.

Jenny the Bloggess was the surprise for me. I did not hear of her until now and her interview was pretty funny. She tried to to get the Bloggers to tweet that Vegas has turned into Zombieland. Mmmmm, brains…

The show was awesome, but now it’s over. At least the conference. There was a lot more to happen during the evening. It all started at the Pool of the Hilton. Good food, drinks and more talk between the bloggers.

It was then downstairs to the casino where the party continued. Never thought I would be seeing Karaoke in the Star Trek area of the Las Vegas Hilton. I suppose I never thought I would be singing Karaoke in the Star Trek area of the Las Vegas Hilton. But I did. Queen – Somebody to Love. It was by request of Todd’s Mother – a Podcaster herself – of the Chericast.

What a great evening. What a great weekend. I met a lot of great people and did a lot of cool stuff. This is my 3rd time in Las Vegas – more as a participant – but I did get a lot of work done. Created a lot of video that I won’t probably be able to get ready until I get back, but once I get home, it will be processed.

BTW – this is the last picture I took of the evening. I don’t know why an orange was in the middle of the Hotel floor, but there was a woman sleeping just about 30 feet away. Guess she lost her key or something…

So now it’s time to relax in Las Vegas for the next 24 hours. Safe journies home, everyone.

Busy Week
Thanks for coming to the site. We had another great week – busy week. It was a lot of fun and really productive.

Post – HPTF

Of course, we went to Vegas the week before to cover the HP Technology Forum Expo. Andy McCaskey, Kara Karsten and myself were working hard with interviews, product reviews and more. This week was planning to get some of the videos out to you. So far, we’ve posted the HP POD video on Friday and have a lot more coming soon.

Summer of Podcasts – Podcast Carnivale

This is what really took up the majority of the week. The last month I have been working hard in getting prizes together. Now it’s time to put a contest together. That is where the Summer of Podcasts comes in. Each week, Podcasters will be giving out codewords during their shows. We will be giving away a USB wireless VGA from IOGEAR (See the video below), a WebAround Web privacy screen and a lot more. The best part is a lot of prizes are from the Podcasters themselves. Caffination is giving some Coffee, Bageltech News gave a NYC canvas print, Bwana.org is giving Team Fortress 2 for PC and a T-Shirt, SDRNews is giving a MagicJack, Techpodcasts (Geek News Central) is giving an iPod Touch: there is a lot more.

Wednesday, July 1st is when the contest starts. Check out the site before hand to which shows are giving codewords for the week.

Bands

It’s summertime, so the band ramps up in it’s playing. It’s all well and good – I enjoy taking the trips and playing the gigs. This last weekend I played 3 shows and it wasn’t even Sunday. This afternoon is one more show. Next week is just about the same.

Interview

This last week, I was interviewed on the Isthmus – a local tabloid – style paper in the Madison area. The interview will be out next week, when that happens, I will post it.

PC/Mac Smackdown

Had lunch with Cal last Wednesday. He said – “Hey, why don’t you come on the show”. I said “Sure, why not?”. Therefore, I was on the PC / Mac Smackdown with Cal Davis and Rachel Baker.

Windows 7

Pre-Orders of Windows 7 means a significant discount. I have Windows 7 RC on my Dell D600 and really like how it works. What is even more interesting – Windows 7 works a lot better on that machine than when I put on Ubuntu 9.04. Ubuntu would lag when I was working – and I mean REALLY Lag. I would litterally select something, count to 5, then watch it execute.

I am really impressed with this OS, so I am excited this is coming out.

MJ, FF and EM AND BM

It was a sad week for a lot of people. Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson took the Trifecta this week as all three passed. Ed McMahon was the sidekick of Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show, Farrah Fawcett was the poster girl of the 70’s and of course, Michael Jackson was the King of Pop. While I was never a big MJ fan, I do appreciate his music and also how he let Weird Al Yankovic to make fun of his music.

I remember when I first heard “Eat it” 0n the radio. While I never listened to “Bad”, I did have the “Even Worse” album which featured “Fat”.

*Update – Just as I published this, the Internet found out that Billy Mays – the Oxy Clean promoter (as well as Mighty Putty, Big City Sliders, Kaboom and a lot more) was found dead at his  home. He was 50. I guess it’s more than a Trifecta…

Studio

This week was a lot of work with the studio. Only problem – I can’t find my staple gun. I had it, then it dissapeared. I am not sure where it went. AUGH!

Still, the new studio is doing well. I am hoping to record the first video there by Mid-week. My bedroom is getting cluttered with PC stuff and that needs to head down to the Dungeon. The door to that room is the main reason why I call it the Dungeon.

Looking at Phones

I have to admit, I have been looking at the iPhone 3GS. The one thing I like is I have fatter fingers. I was able to use the screen a lot better than with the 3G. For instance, when I hit the “N”, on the 3G, I would always miss and hit the “M”. However, with the 3GS, I have not done anything different and seem to be hitting the “N” key and actually getting an “N”.

I still have some tests to go. I am also looking at the Palm Pre, but in order to do that, I would have to switch to Sprint, which I don’t know if I am ready to do. Android is a possibility, but I really don’t want the G1. I am waiting for the Lenovo version.

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That’s pretty much it this week. Keep watching the site for more info on the contest. Of course if you want to give a prize for the contest, let me know.