August 2008

Casio EXILIM PRO EX-F1+8GB SDHC+7Gift 12Xoptical 60Fps

I recently bought an Aiptek Action HD camcorder at Wal-Mart and have been very pleased with the results - especially for the price. Late last year I bought a Canon Digital Rebel XTi and have been extremely happy with that camera, too. That was until I discovered the Casio Exilim Pro EX-F1. I ran across this blog post and have been obsessing about it since: Slow Motion Lightning Video is Mindblowing, Will Sell a Thousand Slo-Mo Cams.

No doubt about that.  I plan to spend a good chunk of time researching this camera over the weekend and who knows… maybe I’ll put my other two cameras up on eBay.  How can anyone resist buying this camera?

Slow Motion Lightning footage from the Casio EXILIM Pro EX-F1:

If you’re like most people on Twitter, you only have a few people following your every move.  You long for the day when you have thousands of followers like Leo Laporte, Jason Calacanis, Scobelizer, Chris Pirillo, Michael Arrington and other A-Listers on the web.  How can you achieve this if you don’t have a fan base that you’ve been building since 1994?

Simple.  You just log in to your Twitter account and hit the accept all link for the 15,619 follow requests waiting for you.  At least that’s all I had to do today.  I logged in and saw thousands of anxious people waiting to see links to funny videos or read whatever brilliant thoughts I might be able to fit into 144 characters.

After clicking on the link, it took me to a page where I could accept requests that other Twitterers placed to follow me.  I could accept them one by one or take the easy way out and click “accept all”.  The second option seemed best. 

Within a few minutes my status went from LOSER (around 5 followers) to WINNER with nearly 8,000 followers!

I have to admit, it was exciting as hell.  I decided to post a link to a contest I’m currently running just to see what happened.  Traffic started flowing to my site almost immediately.  Some people entered, and one person told me where I could go.

What do I do?  Keep promoting my stuff like the cool people do or “come clean” about what happened.  After a bit of thinking, I decided the best thing to do is let everyone know the truth about how I became so popular in such a short time.  And the truth is that I clicked a link on my Twitter account to accept all friend requests.  Am I going to hell?  Or should I have taken the Ned Flanders route?

Many people don’t seem to mind and have actually been helpful with a crowdsourcing test I did.  It must be awesome to have this kind of power on a daily basis.  I now have MORE followers than Adam Curry, CNN and even Hillary Clinton!

I really don’t know how this happened, but obviously there’s some kind of bug in Twitter’s system.  If anyone that works at Twitter would like a detailed analysis of what happened, feel free to drop me a line and perhaps it will be easier to track down the bug.  Has anyone else experienced this before?

It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to tell you this story… but it will make me feel even fuzzier if my followers stay with me.  I promise I will try to be almost as interesting as @THErealDVORAK.

To follow me on Twitter, click @manatee.  Receive links to funny videos & pictures, cool stuff, interesting news and more.

To unfollow me on Twitter, click here.

Do you own an iPhone or iPod Touch and are addicted to buying applications from the iTunes App store?  Are you getting a little concerned about your upcoming credit card bill and wondering if you’re spending a bit too much?

Well, we’re here to save the day as one lucky winner will receive a gift certificate worth $25 in the iTunes store!  Use this credit to download that app you’ve been wanting to buy or, use as you wish to download songs, movies, TV shows or whatever.

How to Enter:

To enter this contest, simply blog about this contest.  To qualify, you need to link directly to this post.  Write a small blurb about it to spread the word. Leave a comment below with your URL where you have blogged to this post.

We’re going to make this more exciting…. this contest is open to the FIRST 25 entries only! So… you will have a 1 in 25 chance of winning.  Unique entries only, one entry per person. 

GOOD LUCK!

Netgear SPH101 Skype Wireless VoIP Wi-Fi Phone

So you have your iPhone want to download the Skype iPhone application. Well, as of this writing they haven’t released a standalone Skype app for the iPhone. BUT…. there is a way to use Skype on your iPhone and even your iPod Touch.

Take a look at IM+ for Skype. This is a web based application, but still does the job fine. You can chat with friends, family and colleagues and believe it or not can make outgoing phone calls to real land lines/cell phones via WiFi, Edge network or 3G. If you want to save your daytime minutes because you’re on the cheapo AT&T plan just find a wifi hotspot, connect to Skype and make calls for next to nothing.

Personally, I have an unlimited Skype out account which cost around $30 a year when I last paid for it. When you login to IM+ for Skype it will initially go into trial mode which lasts about 7 to 10 days. After that, you can subscribe for $5.95 a month or buy a lifetime license for $29.95. I recommend the latter. I just note that the $30 I paid was for the unlimited calling on my desktop iMac. So, I’m not sure if you have to pay twice or not. I’m guessing you only have to pay for the IM+ for Skype account, but may need to clarify this.

I wonder if they will bother making an application if this continues to work as well as it does. I suspect they will and charge $29.95 for the application. Stay tuned and I’ll make and update on this when and if the app is released.

One of the most controversial applications in the App Store is the application called NetShare. NetShare works with your iPhone to allow you to create a tethered Internet connection with your Mac or PC. What does this mean? Well, it means that you can use NetShare to turn your iPhone into a WiFi hotspot - sort of.

After some pesky configurations, you can get your Mac or PC to communicate to your iPhone which then connects to the web.  I tested it and it does work, but wasn’t very fast since I’m on the Edge network. If you’re lucky enough to have a 3G connection, it will be much faster…. but then again, I’ve never been on a 3G network, so I have no idea how fast that is. 

Enter to win $25 in iPhone apps!  Hurry - contest open to first 25 entries only!

3G iPhone iPod Touch Nano Video Charger Dock Apple 16GB

I’ve only tested this on a Mac so far, but have included a video tutorial that some other dude was nice enough to do.  Scroll to the bottom of this post to see how to configure this on a PC.

[click to continue...]

One Hundred Push Ups Challenge

I just heard about an interesting fitness challenge while listening to The Daily Breakfast podcast by Fr. Roderick.  It is a six week exercise program called One Hundred Push Ups and challenges you to do do 100 consecutive push ups.  When you first start off, you do an initial test to see what level you’re at.  Sad to say, I was only able to do 10 good ones without cheating.  I’m 39, so this put me at rank 2.

Tomorrow I will officially start week one of the six week challenge.  Looking at the chart I will need to do at least 28 push ups total.

New Perfect Pushup As Seen On TV Exercise Pilates Yoga

I really like this idea and wish I would have thought of it.  This is a win-win idea all around.  The creator will probably make small fortune with a book deal or from self publishing books, DVD’s, etc. - and… will get a lot of people in shape.  I have thought of a funny spin off idea, but I have too many projects on the table right now to get that one started.  But who knows… maybe it would be fun to start.

Do you need to get in shape?  Hate driving to the gym, finding a parking spot and all of the other hassles that go along with it?  Tired of paying high membership fees?  Take a look at the One Hundred Push Up Challenge and maybe you can start this as well.

AppleiPhoneApps.com reviews Jott for the iPhone and iPod Touch.  Jott is a voice memo recorder that allows you to record audio notes while on the go.  After making a recording, the audio is sent to Jott servers and… believe it or not real people transcribe the audio message into text for you.  The transcribing usually takes a minute or so.  These notes can then be transferred to your a to do list.  There is a 15 second recording limit and so far you can only read your converted notes on your iphone.  I’m sure in the near future there will be some type of export feature.

Leather Coach Cell/Iphone Case