Raging Technoholic

So they have found a small ASIC inside the headphones of Apple’s new Shuffle iPod player.   The intersting thing here is, what the hell does it do?   There is a general concern that this device is a hand shaking system that will only let Apple branded headphones or licnesed to be used with the Shuffle, if that’s true, that’s pretty messed up, and could be a very bad idea on Apple’s part.

If however, it is something else… well it could be just downright interesting, but only time will tell, hopefully someone with a logicl analzier can take a look at it and give it the ol once over and take a look.

Please Apple, don’t F this up.

Sweet jesus this is the best news I have had today.   I love my Kindle and I love my iPhone, and to know that they have now produce a incestuous love child warms my heart.

Huzzah!

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine the other day about all of the projects that I have going on, and I was trying to convince him to try and start a few of his own. During the course of the conversation he told me that, “I just can’t get the motovation, when I come home I don’t want to do anything but sit on the couch”.

Then is came to me, why I never come home and “Sit on the couch” I have no T.V. I havne’t had cable in probably 15 years, and my ex-girlfriend sold my T.V. on Craigslist and I haven’t missed it once, since I never watched it to begin with, which is probably why she sold it on crigslist to begin with.

As a person who doesn’t have a T.V. coming home to “sit on the couch” doesen’t sound all tha appealing since, well there is nothing to do there. Now I could get out my notebook and download all of the internets, but there are better places to do that from.

So i guess the moral of this story is, if you are trying to light a fire under your productivity, kill your T.V.

So since I am working on putting up a small podcasting networks, part of that obviously entails setting up a website, understanding SEO, creating a monetization model etc, the list goes on.

Over the past 6 months I have found a few semi-secret weapons to use, most are just the evolution of technology and the progress of existing tools, and others well… they are a bit outside of the box.

Joomla – www.joomla.org
For people wanting to setup a complete web site with message boards, shopping carts, group calendar etc, basically an entire community in a box, I have to recommend Joomla.  Joomla is an open source package that really makes the creation of an entire community possible almost instantly.   It has the idea of content creators, editors, publishers, and admins, as well as mini applications that run inside of the Joomla framework that offers literally thousands of applications to help you tailor your site, and did I mention that it’s free?    You can also skin it with themes from companies such as www.yootheme.com or www.rockettheme.com to really give it that Web 2.0 punch.

Wordpress – www.wordpress.org
For a more “me” themed site, you just can’t beat Wordpress.  Like Joomla it offers mini applications or plugins/widgets that are drag and drop to create a custom site that is amazing to administer, also %100 free it can be skined with a overall look and fee from any one of a thousand free skins or commercial skins from companies like www.press75.com and www.revolution2.com.   It’s what I run my blog on, and what millions of other users use as well.

ODesk – www.odesk.com
So here is a fantastic resource for all of you web entrepreneurs out there.  Maybe you have a custom site that you need done, or you want to make changes or extensions to your Joomla or Wordpress site, or need a part time or full time database administrator?

Odesk is a outsourcing resource dream, it’s a collection of people from all over the world that have defined their skills, background and ability into a search-able database where you can conduct interviews, track progress, update bug tracking, etc.   Since it’s a global site you can find people willing to do programming/HTML/mysql etc from anywhere from about $3.00 – $30.00 an hour.

This means that doing custom work is possible on a lower budget, it also means that by coordinating your work through a site like oDesk that you can even hire the project manager to will manage the developers, which gives you more time to work on the other aspects of the project.   When people billing you for their time, they run a little app on their machine that snaps a pic every min of their desktop, so they can prove they were really working on your project.

This site also introduced me to the concept of a “Virtual Assistant”,  a virtual assistant is someone that might not have a programming background, but is web savvy and can literally function as your assistant.  They typically work from home, have IM, and Skype and can do things like handle customer e-mail, research competitive web sites, and also go out and create google link juice by making posts in different communities etc.

Due to the globalizaton that the Internet brings there are very competent people out there that you can hire for anywhere from $2.20 – $6.00 an hour.   Often times that is someone with a 4 year degree and a good amount of work experience in the field.

All of these things really mean one thing I guess.  oh these times are a changing….

Sony Fail

Sony Releases New Stupid Piece Of Shit That Doesn’t Fucking Work

Ohhh looking snazzy looking Kindle 2.0 just came out… I can’t see why I would upgrade mine, but it sure does look thinner, and has a “read to me” ability.   God don’t let someone use that on the plane.

Check it out on Scobels site.