The Ultimate iPhone Project

Anyone who knows me knows I love my iPhone. It's my baby. I ordered a special case for it off the internet because I couldn't find one in stores that would protect my baby enough. I don't know what I'd do with out it.

I'm also always searching for things to make my baby better. New apps. Themes. Plug-ins. Whatever.

Yesterday, Robert Scoble tweeted this link to AppsFire's blog that shows (what I assume can only be some of) the apps that he is using on his iPhone. I thought it was interesting to see what apps he uses. That inspired me to come up with this recent harebrained scheme entitled "The Ultimate iPhone Project".

I want to know what apps you're using and loving in order to make my iPhone (and hopefully yours too) into The Ultimate iPhone.

This is a really simple and easy project that I'm hoping a lot of people will be interested in helping out with. All you need to do is leave a comment with what you're using and think is the best thing for your iPhone. This can be apps, themes (for jailbroken iPhones), games, whatever you think is the best of the best on your iPhone.

Now my phone is only a 3G, which means I can't use apps that require the compass on the 3GS, but that doesn't mean you can't post any of them here.

Also, free and/or cheap apps are preferred (as I'm still a broke student), but if something is really worth the money you paid for it, put it up.

I thought I'd start with listing some of the apps on my 1st iPhone page and what I think of them to get the ball rolling.

• My theme - right now I'm using the illumine theme. I like (and am looking for) themes that are cool and sleek, don't require a lot of changing things around to make them look good and ones that don't have app icons that are so crazy that they make my apps whose icons don't change look very out of place
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• Battery percentage - through SB Settings (must be jailbroken to use) so I can see how much battery I actually have left
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• Score Mobile - I use this for my sports updates. I like the easy to use and read interface, but am willing to try something else
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• Weather Eye - I use this one because they're the weather channel I watch at home in Toronto and it gives me more details than the one that comes with the phone
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• TwitterFon - this is the current mobile Twitter client I'm using. (I also haven't updated it since they changed the free one to have ads. I think they now call it echofon) Always willing to try a new one. I use tweetdeck on my laptop, so wouldn't mind trying their iPhone app one day
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• Evernote - I used to use this app a lot both on my computer and iPhone (they sync with each other) to remember everything, but now can't remember the last time I used it. Willing to take this off the front page
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• Shazam - great for finding out the name of a song that's playing, but I don't really use it a lot
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• NetNewsWire - I got this because I use their RSS reader on my desktop so I liked that they synced. Now that the desktop version uses Google Reader to sync, I'm willing to try any app that will sync with my google rss
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• Icy & Cydia - I use Cydia for finding jailbroken apps and themes, but can't say I've opened Icy more than once. Should take that one off the first page as well.
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• Categories - (available through Cydia on jailbroken iPhones) you can't see it on my homepage there, but I use Categories to make folders on my second page so that I don't have 1,000 pages worth of apps. The folders I made are "games", "useful stuff" and "fun stuff"

Ok, now that I've got the ball rolling, it's your turn! Leave a comment and let me know what your iPhone favs are. Also, please share this and tell your friends to join in as well. Hopefully we can collaboratively put together The Ultimate iPhone.

After I start to get a bunch of suggestions I can try out I'll update everyone with how I change my iPhone.

I'm Not Rude, I Just Don't See The Point

Just wanted to say this:

I don't understand why some people feel the need to thank everyone that retweets something they said or shared on twitter.

The other day someone said thank you for retweeting a link they posted. The thing was, it wasn't a link to something they had wrote, it was just something they had shared because it was interesting. This wasn't the first time this has happened either and I just don't see the point.

I post links on twitter because I thought something was interesting and I wanted others to see it. If someone retweets it than that's awesome, more people will see it and probably think it's interesting too. That's what I put it there for.

I'll thank someone if I put up a personal request like "I'm looking for info on ...." and someone on my list who may not know the answer will retweet it. They just did me a personal favour and I'll thank them for that. I just don't (usually) see retweeting a link I posted as a real favour.

Some people will say it helps to build relationships, but if you want to do that with me I'd rather we engaged and talked about whatever it was I just posted. That would help build a relationship with me.

But thank you to anyone who ever has or will retweet something I post.

That's just my personal thought on that.

Not The Brand I Was Looking For, But Maybe For You

Before I left for my trip I said that I was going to read Dan Schawbel's Me 2.0. Well, I finally did and here's my thoughts.

I would recommend this book to a lot of people, but it wasn't what I was looking for.

I bought this book looking for some new ideas on how I can expand my 40deuce name, my personal brand. This book was more for recent graduates who are looking to explore new ways to try and make them stand out in a job search. Most of the ideas revolved around using web 2.0/ social media to their advantage.

Most of the things the book recommended were ways to use social media, which I think I'm kind of on top of already. I would however recommend this book to people who are coming out of school and aren't as involved in using social media. If that's you, I would highly suggest you take a look at this book and try at least some of the ideas Schawble presents.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't think it was a total waste of my time. The book did give me a few new ideas and even a few ideas to fix up some of my old ideas. Schawbel definitely knows what he's talking about and holds quite an impressive resume (which kind of makes me mad, cause I think he's younger than me).

Anyways, I think that aybe I should have looked more into a book on branding for my whole 40deuce life, but since I'm going to finishing my schooling days in the next 2 months and will be on the job hunt, I'm glad I read the book. BUT, if you're already have a job and are really into social media, you may not want to bother reading it.

I think this song goes with the get a job theme (plus it's funny because the drummer was my manager at the bar I worked at back home):

40deuce

I Have Something Else For You To Read

Just in case anybody actually reads this blog... AND, just in case you actually enjoy my writing... I have news for you.

I had to start yet another blog as a class assignment. This one will soley be focused on looking at how communications professionals use Web 2.0.

If you care to read it, check it out @ A GEEK IN PR

They Don't Believe Me That I'm Me

If you follow any celebrities on Twitter you may have noticed that the site has started to verify some celeb's pages. For example, check out Quest Love of the Roots or Oprah's twitter page and notice right above their name the little checkmark and "verified account" badge. If you click the badge it takes you to a page that explains the how and why they're doing it (see here).

I have nothing against this idea. I actually think it's a good idea. Big businesses and well known celebrity names carry heavy influence over people, and an impostor can screw up their public image very quickly. If I owned a large company I wouldn't want people who have nothing to do with me saying things and claiming they've come from me. Doesn't even matter if it's positive or negative, it's still not really me. I'm sure you can all relate to the feeling.

However, since I'm not a big company or a big celebrity (yet) I was kind of weirded out to be asked to verify myself. I wasn't asked by Twitter either. I was asked by a regular everyday person whom I had added to my list earlier in the day.

I was adding some people in my industry for networking purposes while in my new home down under when I received a DM saying "[username] uses TrueTwit validation service. Please follow this link to validate your profile." Check out the service for yourself here.

Esentially, it's a service that asks anyone who follows the person using it to go to a website and enter a captcha to prove they're a real person. The service then sends the user an email that says I'm a real person, you can now check to see if you want to follow them back.

This is kind of crazy if you ask me. As I've mentioned in other posts, I don't believe in auto-follow-backs of people that add me. I like to check peoples profiles before I add them to my Twitter list. You can usually tell within 10 seconds if the page is a real person or a spam page. Heck, I don't follow everyone that follows me even if they are a real person.

Besides the laziness of the service, because we all know how much effort it takes to click a few links and look at a twitter page for 10 seconds, there was something else that got me about this service.

I could have signed myself up for the service which would have made me one of those auto-DMers that I hate, but it also would have automatically verified my "realness" to anyone else using the service that may have wanted to add me.

If I could create a spam page and then sign it up for the service so that my spam page is automatically verified... doesn't that defeat the whole point of the service??

Just a thought.

40deuce

Guess Who's Back, Back Again

So I'm done the main travel portion of my time in Australia. I'm now settled into a place in the Sydney area and have started school again working on my MPC (Masters of Professional Communication).

Most importantly, I have a proper internet connection now and will be blogging here once again.

If you want to see what I've been up to for the past 2 months, click here.

40deuce

Been Rockin' the Suburbs

I know that I haven't posted here in a while, and here's why:

Tomorrow I leave to go to Australia for 6 months. I'm going over there to attended the University of Western Sydney for a semester to get my MA in Professional Communication. Before I start school though, I'm going to be traveling the east coast of Oz. I'm pretty freakin' excited.

For the past 2 weeks I've been living up in the suburbs with my mom (yes, like high school again) because I subleased my apartment for the first of the month until I come back. I've been pretty busy getting ready to go and that's why I haven't posted in a while.

Sad news is, I probably won't be posting on this blog again for at least another month when I'm settled into a place in Sydney. That's not a forsure on no posting for a month, but probability.

While you're waiting anxiously for my return I'll be updating a travel blog as often as possible. Feel free to check out my adventure @ http://mytb.org/40deuce

Till next time friends...

40deuce

Epic Publicity #WIN!

I've always been a fan of music artists doing cool new things. One of my favorites is DJ's who find new cool ways to mix, sample or change other artists music. That's why I was excited about a year and a bit ago when I heard that DJ AM was teaming up with Travis Barker (of Blink-182), whom I think is one of the best drummers around right now, to do an album.

The result was a great mix tape called "Fix Your Face" where DJ AM did the mixing and scratching and Travis played his awesome style of what I refer to as "ninja drumming" over the whole thing.

I got really excited the other day when I saw that the duo had released their set from Cochella 2009 as an album "Fix Your Face 2".

My friend gave me a link for the free download, which I'll give to you all shortly. The thing about this download was it was done in a manner I've never seen before, but I think was a genius idea for publicity on their part.

When you click on the link it will take to you to a website that says you can get a free download of this new album in exchange for one tweet (that's a twitter message for all of you not on the bandwagon yet). If you continue to click through, the site logs you onto twitter and then asks if you will allow it to tweet a message that says:

"Download the new #trvsdjam mixtape "Fix Your Face Vol. 2 - Coachella 09" in exchange for one tweet!"

GENIUS!!!

This message spread over a persons Twitter network allows everyone to see the name "TRVSDJAM", let's them know they have a new album and even makes a hashtag for the guys so that if enough people get the album through this method #trvsdjam will become a hot trending twitter topic.

I don't know about you, but I think this a great way for some free and great publicity. I wouldn't be surprised if you start to see other artists or even companies all trying things like this in the near future.

Now for those of you dying for the link to get the album in exchange for a tweet, here it is: http://twitter.trvsdjam.com

Now here's a track from their first album:

40deuce

#LOSTCHAT

Have you ever been on Twitter on a Monday night and seen the hashtag for #journchat go by a zillion times?? How about a Thursday and seen #smallbizchat?

What these are are large groups of people all talking about a single topic. #journchat is a bunch of journalists and people who interact with journalists (such as PR folk) talking. #smallbizchat is for... you guessed it, small business people.

I had an idea the other day to start a chat of my own. Perhaps it will be a one time thing, perhaps it will be ongoing. We'll have to wait and see how it goes.

So, here's my idea...

Because this Wednesday (May 20th) will be the first without a new LOST since the season is over, I thought it would be fun to have a #LOSTCHAT. This will be a forum on Twitter where everyone across the world can come together and discuss just WTF is going on. There's millions of theories out there about what's happening in LOST, and I'm sure your theories are different from mine, so let's discuss them together.

Please pass this on to all of your Twitter friends who also enjoy LOST.

We will start at @ 9pm EST on Wednesday May 20th (the time when LOST should be on for the east coast), and using the hashtag #LOSTCHAT.

This should be fun. See you there!

40deuce

Trying Something New & Interesting

Weird looking picture above, right??

If you follow me on Twitter than you would have seen that this picture is also my avatar there.

I changed it to try out something. The picture above is actually called a QR Code, and basically it's a super fancy barcode. You need to get a special application to be able to read the code, and then something will happen. I use an app for my iPhone called 2D Sense to read the codes.

My code will automatically take you too my other blog once the program has decoded the code, but companies are starting to use these codes to get content to their customers such as websites, coupons, plain text, whatever.

I just thought it would be something fun to try, so go download a QR Code reader and try it out for yourself.

A special shout-out to @doctorjones for giving me the idea.

40deuce

I Think I understand the Hipster Trend

So, today I was on a walk around Toronto and as usual, saw a lot of hipsters along my journey. While looking at a semi-cute hipster girl I had an epiphany; I finally understood this hipster trend thing.

A little while ago the hot trend was to look like you just came out of a pop video. Girls dressed like pop princesses and guys looked like they wanted to be in N'Sync. The problem with this was you actually had to be a semi-good looking person to really pull off the look. Girls could buy the clothes, cut and dye their hair the right way, wear a lot of make up, but if you weren't a good looking person anyways it wouldn't help.

Hipster style is different though. It's kind of about looking frumpy and like you're not trying even though you are. I think it's caught on though because it's leveled the playing field. Hot girls can wear the style and still be hot. But, on the flip side the not-as-attractive people can also wear the style and the "I'm not trying to look good" look helps bump them up a bit. Like I see girls who are only semi-cute but the look they have going sometimes helps to bump them up a bit.

However, for the record, I still don't support the hipster movement.

Now, here's some hipster music I can stand:

40deuce

Building My Personal Brand

In my last post I mentioned that I was starting a new book called "Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success", and I'd like to explain why.

As you may have deduced with your superior intellect, my real name isn't "40deuce", although it's a possibility for my child (kidding). I came up with the name a long time ago. It comes from my lucky number 42 (and yes, it was my lucky number before I read "The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy" although that was a fantastic stroke of fate), and I just though changing the 2 to "deuce" made it sound cooler.

At first, I was just going to use it as a business name. I was going to have a 40deuce empire! 40deuce Media, 40deuce Records, 40deuce Films, 40deuce Clothing, 40deuce whatever, etc. A little while after that I decided to use it in an email address just because I couldn't think of anything else and didn't want to go with just my real name (how boring). Later it just became a screen name for me so I could log into all kinds of websites and not really worry about forgetting what name I came up with for this site.

At first I never really considered anything about using the alias, but then people on Twitter (where of course it's my handle) started addressing me with lines like "hey deuce" as if it was my real name. I thought it was a little strange, but I understood why they were doing it. It didn't quite click in my head yet that I had started building a personal brand.

A little while after that I decided to get some business cards made up for networking purposes. I put all the usual title, contact and website info on one side, but had to think of something to put on the other side. I decided that I should just put a big 40deuce on the back side. That way I could also tell people that they can find me on Twitter with that name, but I also figured it worked since I plan on calling any business I start 40deuce.

While at a networking party for young business minded people here in Toronto known as #GenYTO, I was mingling around and introducing myself to the people there with my real name. We would chat for a while and eventually the person I was talking with and me would exchange business cards. It was at this point when a few people throughout the night would look at my card and say, "Oh! You're 40deuce?? I've seen/follow you on Twitter." This is when I started to realize that I was becoming this 40deuce brand.

The next week in school one of my classmates asked to see my business card. When I showed it to her she asked, "What's with the 40deuce?" I didn't even think about my response and somehow the words "I'm building a personal brand" came out of my mouth.

That was the first time I even thought about it in those terms. I didn't mean to say that, it's just what came out. It did howevr make me realize that it's true. 40deuce is now my brand. My personal brand, and I think that I've started to establish it enough that it's now time to build that brand and really make it known.

And that my friends is what lead me to pick up this new book. I'll let you know how it goes when I finish reading it.

40deuce

Learning "The New Rules"

I know, I know. I've fallen off the posting wagon again. In my defense, my last month of school was hectic, but I'M DONE NOW!!!

During my last couple months of school though, I managed to read this great book in little 45min increments on my public transit commutes.

The book is David Meerman Scott's "The New Rules of Marketing and PR" and is a fantastic read. I highly recommend this book to not just anyone in marketing or public relations, but to anyone that does any kind of business now or wants to in the future.

This book takes a look at how the world of business has shifted thanks to the internet and how people are staying connected to their consumers through it. The best part about it is how Meerman writes the book like he does his blog. It's very easy to read and simple to understand. As well, there are tons of real life examples (or case studies) that make all the material he writes about easy to understand through actual stories.

The book is broken up into three distinct sections. The first talks about why the internet has changed how marketing and PR is done. The second section then talks about different tactics that are currently being implemented on the web and gives a nice overview of each. The final section then helps readers to make an action plan to harness all these new techniques and use them for their benefit.

The section I got the most out of (possibly because I was supposed to, as he reiterated it throughout the book) was about creating buyer personas. The chapter talks about how every business has to know their audience, and sometimes that could be more than one audience at a time, and make sure that you think like those people when creating your content. For example, words are very important. You need to make sure that the content on your website or blog is written in words that your target demographics would use in their everyday speech. It also talks about moving past just the basic demographics like age, sex, location, etc., and breaking it down even further into micro categories like "males in northern Canada from 14-30 years old that ride bikes, are heavy into music, love chocolate ice cream and walk their dogs without leashes" (that example isn't actually from the book).

This book was a great extension to "The Cluetrain Manifesto" which I blogged about earlier in the year.

Again, if you do business of any sort now or plan on it in the future, I highly recommend you read this book.

Next on my reading list: "Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success" by Dan Schwable and I'll explain why I chose this one in my next blog post which I'll hopefully have up in the next couple days.

Till then, enjoy this tune:

40deuce

The Glitz, The Glamour & The Grind

On Monday April 6th, as part of a school class, I had to hold an event. All of my class was split up into groups and each group had to put on a seminar type of event with a theme. My group decided to focus our seminar on entertainment PR.

We put together an event that we cleverly titled The Glitz, The Glamour & The Grind: The Skinny on Entertainment PR. We held the seminar down at Toronto's Second City Theatre. The whole thing was a great success.

We had three speakers come to talk to the students that attended. Anna Von Frances of Pink Mafia, a full service PR firm in Toronto that specializes in entertainment events. Daniel Shehori who does PR for The Second City on top of other live comedy shows, and Nick Poireir who is a recent graduate of my program and currently is doing communications for LuminaTO: Toronto's Festival of Arts and Creativity. The speakers spoke about their experiences in entertainment PR, gave the students advice on what to do, what not to do, trends in the business and then answered questions from the audience.

On top of that, to add some entertainment value to tie in with our entertainment theme, The Second City kindly donated us some of their cast to do some improv for us. They went over as a hit, and we got to make an ass of our teacher on stage.

Overall, I think the whole thing was a success.

Here's some pics from the day:

Lot's of pics today so no music video.

I'm out.

40deuce

Irony At Its Finest

Last night was opening night for the Blue Jays 2009 season. I was lucky enough to be one of the 48,000 people in attendance. The game was amazing with the Jays blowing Detroit out of the water 12-5, but something was wrong.

I couldn't get any service for my cell phone during the game. No phone calls. No text messages. No internet for surfing, emails or twitter. That didn't just happen with my phone. Everyone around me seemed to be having the same no service issues.

Does anyone else find it kind of ironic that I was in the ROGERS center and my ROGERS cell phone wouldn't get service??

Just a thought.

That is all.

40deuce

THE NUMBERS DON'T MEAN JACK (NOT A LOST POST)

For the past couple of weeks (aside from not writing any blog posts here) I have been lucky enough been taking part in the beta trial of an online app that has a connection to Twitter. Now, I'm not at liberty to speak the name of said app, but that's not the important part.

What I want to talk about is a certain feature this app I'm beta testing has. Technically, I am not giving anything away about this specific app because this function is not native to just this application.

A lot of websites are popping up these days to help people build up their Twitter communities. Some of these allow you to look for people who may be tweeting about things you're interested in. These sites usually allow users to categorize themselves and then be sought out. Some sites I use for this for this are We Follow and Just Tweet It.

On the other side are sites or apps that do what my beta test app does; they will automatically do a mass follow of people for you. All you have to do is click a button and and the program will grab hundreds of of random people and add them to your Twitter follow list.

Here's my beef; I just can't figure out why anyone would want to do this????

Sure some people out there may be playing the numbers game in Twitter, but to me that defeats the whole point. Sure, I'm not the most popular person in the Twitterverse, but I'm ok with that, because most of the people I follow I followed for a reason. I follow people who I'm interested in. People who I think I can have a good conversation with. People who I won't ever talk to, but still like to hear what they have to say. I follow a few different news aggregating accounts on different subjects. Sometimes even a celeb or two because they can be cool or funny (I highly recommend checking out Kenny Powers from Eastbound and Down. F'n hilarious!). But, I never follow someone just in hopes that they will follow me back.

I'm not interested in becoming the guy with the most followers on Twitter (although I probably wouldn't be upset about it if it happened). I'd rather connect with people and have meaningful conversations and start friendships.

Social media should be about actually being social, not looking the coolest. And that's all I have to say about that.

40deuce

Is Twitter the Next Great Search Engine??

I'm going to start this post off with a little story.

Today I was doing some research for ideas for an Online PR class that I'm helping my course director put together. While looking for some informative links to show him I came across a problem. I was looking for SMRs (Social Media Releases) to show my prof how different they are from old skool regular news releases. When I googled (do you capitalize that if it's being used as a verb?) "social media release" the top four hits were blogs and articles of peoples advice on how they think a social media release should look. Semi-helpful, but not what I was looking for.

I decided to try a different approach. Since I know that a lot of my Twitter friends work in and around marketing and PR, I decided to throw my query out to them. Within five minutes of me posting my question on Twitter I recieved six responses. Four of them were people on my list of friends with links and/or recommendations of people to talk to. The other two responses were from professionals who deal specifically with SMRs. One from Canadian News Wire (CNW) and the other from Marketwire, who each directed me to examples on their sites.

I don't know about you, but I find stuff like that incredible.

It also made me start thinking, is Twitter the next great search engine? Let's think about it for a minute...

- I was looking for useful information, and people I actually know were able to make recommendations on where to find this info. If you can't trust your friends, who can you trust?

- Professionals from all kinds of companies monitor sites like Twitter to see when people mention them. I'm sure that both the representatives from Marketwire and CNW had real time searches going for key words like "SMR" or "news release" so they could respond quickly. Other companies do the same thing. They search for mentions of their companies or products and respond to the people talking about them. I remember one time a friend had a problem with UPS, tweeted about it, and a few minutes later a UPS representative asked her via twitter how he could help make the problem right. Meaning, you can get any kind of info directly from companies themselves.

- You can see what everyone around the world has to say about a topic. There is now a plethora (I like that word) of Twitter search engines such as Twitter Search, TweetGrid, Twitscoop, and many more. On these search engines you can type in a key word or phrase and see what anyone in the "twitterverse" is saying or linking to about that topic. This is great for finding reviews and what people are saying about products and services, or even things like movies.

These are just a few reasons off the top of my head as to why Twitter is sometimes more useful than Google for finding things.

I'd love to hear what you all think about this, but I just added a new theme to my blog and the comments section doesn't seem to be working properly. I'm trying to fix that so please be patient. You can always tweet me your thoughts at @40deuce.

*UPDATE* comments seem to be working again, so please leave one.

40deuce

2 Posts In 1 - Both About Geeks Having Fun

The title rhymes. You like that? Thought so.

So first, I'd like to start off by admitting that I'm a terrible person.I made a promise at the beginning of the year to both you, my readers (if you actually exist), and myself that I would try to post more often here, and I have failed. All I can say is I will try harder. You can believe me or not, that's your call (I wouldn't), but I will try harder.

Now on to the real stuff....

I'm going to try something a little different in this post. First, I have two things to talk about in one post because of my slacking. And second, this will be a very photo heavy post. I borrowed a few pics from some people and want to share them with you.

On February 12th I took place in a really awesome event called the Twestival. This was a global fund raising party that happened in 180 cities. All 180 cities had a party where people, most of whom are Twitter people, got together to meet their Twitter friends in real life and raise money for Charity: Water, a charity that helps those in the world that don't have access to clean water. 

I went to the party in Toronto, also known as #TwestivalTO. Toronto's party was held at Circa night club and was a fantastic party. I got to meet a lot of local people that I speak to on Twitter for the first time beyond my computer screen, and it was just a generally fun party. These geeks knew how to party!

Overall the entire Twestival was a success. The Toronto party alone raised over $10,000, and worldwide $250,000USD was raised for Charity: Water. 

On a side note, I also made the news while at the party. Check it out here.

The second geek oriented event I attended this month was PodCampTO.  PodCamp is what's known as an "unconference." It was an event where a whole bunch of geeks got together at Ryerson University for a weekend to discuss all sorts of topics revolving around online media. The entire event was put together and run by volunteers and was free to attend. 

This was a great event where I again met a bunch of local people that I only knew online previously, but more than that I learned a lot. For two days straight I attended half hour sessions about all kinds of different topics ranging from how to build a brand on Twitter to the future of social media in Canada. I also got to see a live taping of the Inside PR podcast which I listen to all the time.

If you happened to miss the event, most of the sessions were recorded and should be up on the PodCampTO website in the next few days.

Here's some pics of the weekend in no particular order:

One last note before I finish this gianormous post: This will be the last time you see my blog with this look as I'm currently on the hunt for a new theme. See you next time with a different look.

Twestival Pics Courtesy Of:

Rannie Turingan aka @Photojunkie (http://www.rannieturingan.com/)

& Shawn Hawaii

PodCampTO Pics Courtesy Of:

Dave Fleet (http://davefleet.com)

40deuce

2009 = The Summer to Re-Live My Childhood

This weekend the Super Bowl had me on the edge of my seat. Which is unusual, since I'm not really a huge football fan.

For one, the game was awesome. Even as a guy that only watches football when he's with other people that want to watch it, I have to admit it was a really exciting game.

The second reason though, was because someone had shown me something the night before the game. They showed me leaked Super Bowl commercials for two movies I've been waiting for, and I wanted to see them in hi-def, not the digitally looking blurry versions I saw the night before. Unfortunately, they didn't show either of them in Canada. Thank god I saw them already.

Two of my favorite cartoons from my childhood will both be making comebacks as live action movies this summer.

First, since we've seen them before, is Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen:

Second, for the first time ever in live action, G.I. Joe!!

(I hope Sgt. Slaughter makes a guest appearance in that one)

And just to finish off this post, for anyone who cares, this was my favorite Super Bowl ad this year:

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When Will the UFC Meet the ACC?

I'm a big fan of watching guys beat the shit out of each other. It's even better when it's a sanctioned fight and not just two dudes outside a bar (although I enjoy watching that as well). I even considered going to Montreal last year to watch UFC's first ever fight in Canada.

Unfortunately, it was really hard to get tickets to that, and I didn't go. But not for a lack of trying.

We wanted to go to Montreal because they allow fights there, while here in Ontario, the sport is not allowed.

Anyways, last night while I was watching Georges St. Pierre fight BJ Penn, I heard Joe Rogan mention something interesting. He said that GSP was named the Canadian Athlete of the Year for 2008.

After a quick google search I found out that it's true. Don't believe me? Check here.

With that said, it made me want to know when the Ontario government will change their mind and allow the UFC to come and hold events here? If GSP is the Canadian athlete of the year, that must mean that ALL of Canada voted him in, not just Montreal.

There's obviously a market for the sport all across the country. The sport has gained so much popularity over the past few years, and other markets across North America are starting to see that MMA is a real sport and not just dudes beating the crap out of each other (although technically it's both). I want the Ontario government to realize this as well.

Dana White, owner of the UFC, said that he will be making a big campaign on Ontario to sanction the sport this year.

Let's just keep our fingers crossed.

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All Aboard the Cluetrain (I wonder how many other blogs already have that title?)

I just finished reading a book that I want to recommend to anyone and everyone that uses the internet. That's right, EVERYONE.

This book is called the Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business As Usual.

I first learned of this book a month ago when I was reading infamous blogger Chris Brogan's recommended reading list for things to take on vacation with me. (Unfortunately, I can't find that list to link to, but I did find another link for helping people to understand social media, which also has the two books I bought from his list. I also figured I bought the books for that purpose, so this link works just fine)

This book talks about how businesses can't operate the way they have for the past 100 years with the cold stone face hidden behind cute and fuzzy marketing. That just doesn't work anymore. People don't want to be told anymore. They want to talk. They want to be heard. But, they're also willing to listen.

This book is about how there's a new revolution (already started), and if companies want to survive, they're going to have to change and adapt. 

It's written before the renaissance known as Web 2.0, but you would never know it except for the lack of mention of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.

Because I could probably write for a day on the things I think about what this book said, I'm going to point out to two great things and then let you read it yourselves.

The first thing I loved that was brought up throughout the book is how the web has transformed the world into a giant ancient marketplace. People can enter and leave when they like. They can walk around and shop around for things. They can also ask others what they think about things. The marketplace becomes a place where conversations happen, instead of advertising being thrown at you. You can talk to people around the world on their thoughts about companies and products, or you can talk to companies themselves and let them know what you think. It also gives them (companies) a chance to respond, and it's their loss if they don't, not ours.

The other part I loved is a chapter that speaks about how on the web, everything is hyperlinked. Another way the Internet puts power in the everyman. The web isn't like a half hour TV show where you know the order goes intro, lead up, commercial, climax, commercial, resolution, commercial. Hyperlinks allow people on the web to move around freely from topic to topic, spending as much time on any one thing as they like. The people are back in control.

GO READ THIS BOOK!

If you don't want to buy it, you can actually read the entire book for free at cluetrain.com.

I actually finished the book yesterday morning and had brought it with me to give to a friend that evening. We were going to a Social Media conference/seminar thingy. It put a little smile on my face when one of the guest speakers, Toronto blogger and teacher Boyd Neil, recommended several times that everyone in the audience read this book.

It's not just me. 

Seriously, go read this book.

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My new way to stay connected on the go

Once I start to like something I get hooked.

Once I started being an avid Twitter user, I needed to find ways to stay connected at all times.

On my home computer I'm using the Twhirl desktop client. I like it. It keeps me fully connected to Twitter without me having to keep checking the actual website and continuously refreshing the page while waiting for replies. But what about when I don't have my computer with me, or when there's no wifi to jack into?

Enter my glorious baby and best friend; my iPhone.

For the past few months I've been using the free edition of Twitterific. It seemed like a great iPhone app for a while. It was free, and I was able to stay connected to my Twitter list. There are ads on it, which can be avoided by buying the premium version, but they weren't all that annoying. I thought the interface was pretty simple and easy to use. It would highlight my @replies in a different colour so they stood out to me, but only if I viewed it within 10-30 mins of someone sending it to me. I was always getting home and finding that people were talking to me when I wasn't online and I was unaware of it. I needed to find a better way to stay connected.

After asking some other Twitter users what they were using, I was tipped on to the TwitterFon app. This one has a much better user interface. It actually has sections where it holds all my @ replies and direct messages until I view them. It didn't matter if I was online or not. It just updated me when I logged on. The colours are a bit annoying, but I'm sure I'll figure out a way to change them eventually.

It's a much better way to stay connected to all my Twitter friends (not to mention it's free), and I highly recommend it to anyone with an iPhone that tweets.

Now here's a good song...

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