We’ve all poked fun at Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, for running across the stage at an event screaming (video) what I imagine are meant to be motivational words. The last such event was the CES Keynote, where Ballmer talked about the success of Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, and said something to the effect of “We Bing! And we Bing! We Bing! Bing! Bing!” While most people I know think his tactics are silly and goofy, and a bit embarrassing, you have to admit…they’re memorable.

I tried Bing when it first came out, and I liked it. But that was it for me. Most of us are in the habit of Googling. “Google it” is the default phrase when talking about a search engine. I use the Google Chrome web browser, and googling something is as easy as typing in a web address. Before Chrome, I was using Firefox, where Google is the default search engine. Firefox offers users a choice of search engines by clicking on a drop down box, but Bing doesn’t even show up in those options. You have to choose “Manage Search Engines”, scroll through four pages of search engines you’ve never heard of in order to find and install Bing. It’s not easy to use Bing, and habits are hard to break. Bing’s biggest challenge to overcome is converting those habits.

This week, I went to a dinner at Central 214 in Dallas hosted by Bing to find out what they’re up to and where they’re headed. It’s part of my job, but I must say, I love my job when it involves delicious food! I learned a couple things about Bing, and got a better understanding of why someone would want to use it. Bing is all about discovery. I’ve heard that sales pitch before from Microsoft, but I didn’t quite get it. Let me explain.

If you go to Bing.com, you’ll see a different background picture every day. Think of this like Google’s changing logo, but with Bing, you can hover over parts of the photo to get more information. One day it was a picture of an Olympic snow skier, and Bing was sharing information about why skiers wear the pants they do…how the pants make them faster and better. Today, the picture is a line up of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Hovering over parts of the photo, I discovered videos of past Olympic events and got 2 minutes, 29 seconds of smile-on-my-face entertainment with the video below, called Canadian, Please.

Visual Search was the thing that stood out to the most when I tried Bing originally, and I was struck again at how useful it could be when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for. Imagine you saw someone using a camera while you were out shopping, and you were interested in buying it yourself, but you had no idea what it was. Bing’s visual search engine is intended to help you search for it by browsing photos of it, then clicking for more information. I gave it a try with a search for a dog I saw when I was in Atlanta last week. It was the cutest dog I’d ever seen (with the exception of my own, of course!), but I can’t remember what breed it is. Unfortunately, Bing left me hanging in this particular search.

While I was at the event, I asked you guys on Twitter for questions, and had Melissa Powell from the Bing team answer them on video. (Please forgive the background noise!) These are the questions you had:

• Will Bing app be any different on the coming iPad? –@alainbosse
• How can I set up a network for kids so they can use Bing but get safe results? Can it be done with a domain black/white list? –@MichaelAskew
• What is Bing’s social search strategy? –@bceverly
• Ask them about how they handle their users search results and how long they keep them? –@robbmcmahan
• How will they integrate Bing, Windows Mobile 7, Hotmail search on the phone & web all at the same time/same search? –@mbl4889
• Are the rumors true about Bing being the default on the iPhone?
• Do they like puppies? –@RadioConelrad

Will I use Bing? I will from time to time, when I want to discover, but I can’t see it replacing my daily habits on Google. What about you? Do you Bing? Do you Bing, Bing, Bing?

Thanks to John P. for shooting this!

My friend Scott Ellis is taking the idea of supporting developers of the apps you love and applying it to WordPress, which I know lots and lots of you use! WordPress developers put so much effort into creating and maintaining plugins and themes that make your website appealing for your visitors, and many of them don’t charge for their services. Scott is declaring March 1st “Support a WordPress Developer Day”. Well, I don’t think he’s actually calling it that, but he should! He’s issued a challenge to everyone to donate $5 to your favorite WordPress plugin developer. I’m going to take it a step further and suggest that if you can do more than $5, do it! And, why not support WordPress Theme Developers as well?

If you decide to participate,  leave a comment. You don’t have to say how much you’re contributing, but active and open participation in something encourages others to join in.

I’ll update this post on March 1st with which plugins and/or themes I’m supporting!

I wanted to share this episode of Wealth Nation with you guys because it applies to you. John spoke at the DFW WordPress Group in Dallas, Texas. His topic was Make More Money with WordPress, Social Media and Analytics. He spent an hour and a half giving tips and tricks to increase your blog’s visibility and revenue, and we used the topic for this episode of Wealth Nation. Giovanni Gallucci (pictured on the right) joined us for the conversation and Giovanni had to call John out on a couple issues. You gotta love Gio! Watch the video below for ALL of John’s tips! You can listen to Wealth Nation here, and subscribe on iTunes.

The Dallas WordPress Group is the largest WordPress group in the nation. If you’re in the Dallas area, definitely come join the fun!

When it comes to bacon, I’m an Original girl. I like my slices thin and crispy. But I can also appreciate any other slice of bacon goodness. In a Yahoo! taste test, the best original bacon comes from Ozark Trails with the Hickory Smoked and Peppered Bacon. They suggest eating it on top of a burger or with fried eggs. I suggest eating it (whatever the brand!) as soon as it comes off the frying pan and cools off enough not to burn your mouth!

What’s your favorite kind of bacon? Leave a comment below!

Thanks to @El_Fenix for the link!

Once you invite a friend to play, then you lay down your tiles to make the first word. The game will then alert your friend that it’s his turn. He’ll make his move on his own time and then send it back to you. A full game could take a week or two, depending on how often each of you plays. I love the fact that it doesn’t have to take much time. You make one move per active game at a time, and put the game away. You don’t fall into the trap of an addicting game that can go on and on and on for hours! There is a free version, supported by ads, and a paid version for $2.99. Give it a try, I think you’ll like it!

CK Hay sent me this link to Hooked in Amsterdam’s post about a Potato Bacon Cheddar Tart. Here are the ingredients:

2 pounds or so of room temperature bacon
A minced onion
3 minced garlic cloves
4 cups of grated aged cheddar
5 or 6 large unpeeled baking potatoes
A sprinkle of salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

For more pictures and the instructions, visit Hooked in Amsterdam. I’m going to go drool now…

• Chuck Joiner, host of MacVoices
• Don McAllister, host of ScreenCastsOnline
• Katie Floyd, co-host of Mac Power Users Podcast
• Dr. Kiki Sanford, host of This Week in Science
• Victor Cajiao, host of the Typical Mac User Podcast

The Rules

What do you have to do to win? Create a short video (60 seconds or less) that captures the spirit of Macworld 2010. There are no other guidelines. This is all up to your creativity, so have fun with it! Once you’ve thought about your idea, and shot it, you’ll need to upload it to the DroboMacworld Flickr group to actually be entered for the contest.

On March 1, 2010, Data Robotics will announce the winner on their Twitter page, so I suggest following them and even adding them to your SMS updates so that you’re not left wondering if you were a winner!

Official details are here.

Disclaimer

I get questions about this all the time, so I want to save both you and me some time! If you guys have been around GeekBrief.TV for a little while, you know how much I love my Drobos. I fell in love with the product when the company first launched, and as I often do with technology companies that excite me, I developed a relationship with them. They soon became a sponsor for the show and I was proud to be a part of some introductory videos for their website. As a lot of you have noticed, they’re not a current sponsor, but it’s not for a lack of desire on either end. It’s just a matter of pure business. I love them and work with them from time to time, and judging this contest is one of those times!

So go start thinking about your video! What will you do to capture the spirit of Macworld 2010? I look forward to watching your entries!

Thanks to Charlotte Alldredge who sent this in. It was taken at a shop in Carmel. The small print says “It’s a Mad Dash Through Meatland on Your Way to the frying Pan!”

Over the weekend, I decided to dig in to the mess and reorganize ALL my data!! I wanted to make it as easy as possible, so I hooked up all 12 drives at once. Yep, that’s right….12 drives at…the…same…time!

I expect I’ll get some questions about what kind of drives I have in this stack, so here’s a list, from left to right, top to bottom:

• WD MyBook
• LaCie
• G-Drive
• G-Drive Mini (highly recommend these drives!)
• LaCie Rugged
• Drobo Firewire
• Drobo USB
• Drobo Pro
• G-Drive Mini (2)
• Acomdata (very old!)
• Drobo USB

You can see full sized images on my SmugMug page.

You can see full sized images on my SmugMug page.

Thanks to @smoknyreyz and everyone else who sent me the video!

It’s entirely different than what Americans are used to, so if you’re up for supporting them and giving it a try, you can order some from Tcho.com. Enjoy!

This is the first video of Google Goggles in action…

Prep for the Streaming Holiday Party & Christmas Eve Snow

You can see full sized photos on my SmugMug gallery

If you weren’t able to make it, we’ll be streaming the event throughout the holidays at CaliLive.TV. Congratulations to @BachmanFamily, who won a Drobo during the stream!

Thanks to John P., the official Party Photographer for spending the evening snapping away. There will be video added to this post later, but here’s a look at the pictures, or you can take a look at the set on John’s Flickr page.

UPDATED: Oh, here’s a video of our dogs that Giovanni Gallucci posted.

I’ll be on during the 10:00 AM Pacific / 12:00 PM Central / 1:00 PM Eastern hour to discuss holiday gift ideas and take calls. You can join in by calling 888-334-4248, or email studio [at] holidaymarathon.com.

I’ll ALSO be on during the 12:00 PM Pacific / 2:00 PM Central / 2:00 PM Eastern hour along with John P. to record a Wealth Nation episode. If you have any business or financial questions, hit us up by calling the number above! You can hear the promo here.

Looking forward to chatting with everyone tomorrow!

And the Consensus Is…

Keep in mind, I requested feedback on headphones that were NOT bluetooth or infrared. By far, the most suggested wireless headphones were from Sennheiser. Everyone appeared to be using different Sennheiser models, and this is one of those things that will depend on your budget, but any of the Sennheiser wireless headphones should be the way to go, especially their HD models.

Wireless still presents a lot of problems, so it made me laugh that a lot of the responses I got were “wireless headphones that WORK?”

What is “And the Consensus Is…”?

From time to time, I’ll ask you guys what the best product/service is to accomplish a particular task. Then I’ll gather up the responses from Twitter and Facebook and post the answer. When you need to find a product to make your life better, use the search box at the top, or browse through the “And the Consensus Is…” tag. If you want to recommend a topic, just ping me on Twitter or Facebook.

@cleasai sent me this photo on Twitter of a restaurant called Viet Cali. Maybe now I can have Pho anytime I want!

]]> http://calilewis.me/viet-cali/feed 0 http://calilewis.me/annual-streaming-christmas-party-with-geoff-smith http://calilewis.me/annual-streaming-christmas-party-with-geoff-smith#comments Wed, 16 Dec 2009 03:39:36 +0000 Cali Lewis http://calilewis.me/?p=1514 We’re having the Annual Streaming Christmas Party on December 22nd, and everyone’s invited!!! If you’re not familiar with our Christmas Parties, let me fill you in…

Geoff Smith

The first thing you need to know is who Geoff Smith is. A lot of you will know him and have enjoyed his music, and if you don’t know his name, you’ve probably heard his jingles. He’s an amazingly talented musician who made his mark on the new media world by creating jingles for different podcasters. Some examples are Drobo, iJustine, and TWiT. He’s also written and performed songs that make geeks dance, like Digg the Code.

One evening in 2007, Geoff tweeted that he was in his studio working on a new album, and he had Ustream going. Neal and I joined the chatroom at Ustream and I tweeted that I was watching Geoff work. Pretty soon, we had a crowd of people watching and talking in the chatroom, and Geoff wasn’t getting ANY work done! Someone asked if he could sing one of his songs so he did, then someone else asked if he knew the words to a Beatles song, and he started singing it. And that’s how the Geoff Smith Late Night Concerts began. It was pretty incredible to watch Geoff play the piano, sing, take requests from the chatroom (he knows pretty much every song ever made) and in addition to that, watch the chatroom explode with excitement. People loved “singing” along in the form of chat. It’s hard to explain, but when the night ended, people said it was one of the best experiences they’d ever had.

It became a regular thing. Geoff would jump on Ustream, everyone would join him and tweet they were there. Amber Mac, iJustine, and Leo Laporte have all showed up and enjoyed it as well.

Annual Streaming Christmas Party

Last year, we went to Nashville where Geoff lives and plays at the Big Bang Bar, a dueling piano bar. We set up all our cameras and lights, brought our Tricaster along, called in extra bandwidth for the night, and went live. 80 people were there in person to watch Geoff do his thing and request songs. About 7,500 people joined us on the Ustream throughout the night, and thousands more watched the recorded version as we streamed the concert during the holiday season. It was a night we’ll never forget!

Christmas Party 2009

This year, Geoff is joining us to do it all again! Everyone’s invited to the live stream, and we encourage you to spread the word so it’s a more dynamic experience!

The party will be December 22nd at 9:00 PM EST, 8:00 PM CST, and 6:00 PM PST (that’s 2:00 AM GMT, December 23rd). Bring your smile, bring your song requests and hook up your computer to good speakers!

Join the video and chatroom at CaliLive.TV

Switching Granny

In addition to the live stream, we’ll have some local friends here at the house joining in. We would love to be able bring Switching Granny (the official grandmother of GeekBrief.TV) and her husband, Tommy, back into town for the Christmas Party. It’ll cost $1200 for the flight. Dave Peterson, who is flying in from Seattle, has offered to cover their hotel. If anyone in the Geek Brief family wants to help make a grandmother’s holiday, email me, @reply me on Twitter, or leave a comment below.

I set out to do a little experiment with four combinations of flour:

1) 1/2 Whole Wheat Flour, 1/2 All Purpose Flour
2) 1/2 Cake Flour, 1/2 All Purpose Flour
3) 1/2 Buckwheat Flour, 1/2 All Purpose Flour
4) Only All Purpose Flour

I used the recipe from the Food Network, as follows:

Ingredients

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 11/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 eggs
• 5 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 cup buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 5 large bananas
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup pecan or walnut halves

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9 1/2 by 5 1/2-inch loaf pan.

In a large mixing bowl, sift flour, whole-wheat flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Reserve.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, food processor, or blender, add eggs, butter, buttermilk, lemon juice, bananas, sugar, and salt.

Mix or blend until smooth. Slowly add dry ingredients. Fold in nuts. Pour batter into pan and bake 1 hour and 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

The Results

I think I will continue to edit and adjust the above recipe. I’ve never used Buttermilk before, so I might try this particular recipe without Buttermilk. And I’m not sure the lemon juice did anything for the bread, so this definitely won’t be final recipe I use.

I didn’t like the Buckwheat Flour very much, and I kind of liked the Whole Wheat. Neal liked the Buckwheat more than the Whole Wheat. Neither of us could tell much of a difference between the All Purpose and the Cake Flour, except that the All Purpose batch seemed to be a bit smoother.

I’m not surprised, but I agree with the majority of people on Twitter. All Purpose is the way to go! Here are some pictures…

When I’m expecting a response from someone regarding an important issue, I tend to check more often because I want to act on it quickly. Unfortunately, the moment I check to see if it’s there, I get interrupted by other emails that seem important at the time, but….are they really? No, not necessarily.

SO! It would be awesome if there was an option in the Gmail filtering process that would allow me to set up an SMS alert when a certain person sends an email. Since there isn’t, the only thing I can think of is to set the filter up so it copies the email to a completely separate email address, one specifically for this purpose, and then set up my phone to audibly alert me when I get email in that inbox.

This is a work around, and obviously not the most elegant solution. Outside of convincing Google to offer this option in filters, does anyone have any other ideas?

It wasn’t until I got the Canon 5D Mark II that I was even interested in trying. I played with it the first six months, but in the last six months, I’ve really been getting into it and interested in learning more and doing more with photography. I became aware of something called HDR, and a photographer at the top of the HDR space, Trey Ratcliff. If you’re not familiar with HDR, it stands for High Dynamic Range. It’s a process that combines a series of pictures taken at different shutter speeds. You wind up with a very contrasty, dynamic photo. You can get more information about HDR from Trey’s HDR Tutorial.

One day, Trey emailed me letting me know I could use his pictures for GeekBrief.TV if I wanted. Wow! THE Trey Ratcliff I thought! Cool. So we did. The vibrant photos you’ve seen in the background on the show are from his collection StuckInCustoms.com. He actually has a great story that shows off the power of social media, but that’s another post. We happened to be traveling to New York at the same time a couple weeks ago, so he told me he’d give me a lesson in shooting HDR. We met in Times Square and I nervously took my first several sets of HDR-ready pictures.

This past weekend, I bribed Trey with the promise of homemade popovers (how could he resist even if he wanted to?) and he taught me the most important part of HDR…the post processing. I no longer have a camera, since my 5D Mark II was stolen in New York, but I’ll be getting a new one, when I decide which one I want. I just hope I don’t forget everything he taught me by the time I get a new camera!

I have always been very open about sponsorships. Viewers know what I’m promoting because I love it and when I’m being paid to promote something. I never accept sponsorships that I don’t think have some value to my audience, and there are times when my love for a company has led to getting a paid sponsorship, like with Drobo. I loved and promoted Drobo long before they became a sponsor of GeekBrief.TV. I knew it was a good fit for my viewers, and thousands of you have confirmed it.

In the new media business, income doesn’t come from just one source. Most of us making money in this space have several income streams, or are at least working on that. The advertising business is fickle, and we can’t rely on that alone. This leads me to the reason for this post.

There has been a lot of talk and controversey about whether Twitter users should include ads in their feed. Is it right? Is it misleading? Will Twitter followers abandon people who do it?

At first, I stayed far away from it. I was honestly a little scared of how my followers would respond. I’ve been quietly sitting back and watching for almost a year, carefully considering all opinions and views. The bottom line is this. I work hard at building my business and my brand. For four years, Neal and I have worked pretty much 6-7 days a week to build a viable business, and in order to grow, it requires some risk. In the next year, we expect to have some growth opportunities that will enable us to hire other people. In order to kick everything to the next level, I’ll either have to look for outside investors or find some creative ways to make enough cash to grow.

I’ve taken the step to include ads in my Twitter feed. I’m all about transparency, and I’d love to hear your thoughts. You’ll be able to tell a difference between ads and regular tweets by the hashtag #ad or #sponsor or #spons or something similar. Here’s my promise to you. I will only accept ones that I believe to be relevant, funny or interesting. I’ve already turned down several offers, one of which was a vibrating MP3 player. Don’t worry, my brand is still my brand and I won’t give up who I am just for a bit of extra cash!

In the holiday spirit, any sponsored tweets I do between Thanksgiving and Christmas will go to my favorite charity, Heifer International. Heifer focuses on giving people in third world countries the ability to change and be in control of their own future by providing them with livestock. They can use cows for milk, water buffalos to help plant more rice than they can by hand, chickens for protein or trade, etc.

Let me take this chance to thank you all for being such supportive and wonderful people. I’m reminded every day how awesome you guys are!

I know I said in the comments below I don’t prefer bars in case we have underage viewers wanting to hang out, but if you are underage and plan on attending, please leave a comment or tweet me so I can work out something. Maybe we can meet somewhere in Union Square prior to going to the bar. You just have to tell me so I can make it happen! Here are the details:

Date: Friday, November 20th
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Heartland Brewery, Upstairs (35 Union Sq W)

RSVP below. Looking forward to hanging out with everyone!