So excited to be doing Abby’s Road today on TWiT.tv – some of my sites are currently down (no thanks to our hosting provider whom I will not name…) so I thought I’d throw this up in the meantime.

Here are the important links:

Listen to the latest episode of Digital Life Radio featuring special guest Abby Laporte! – MP3 LINK – Subscribe in iTunes

Twitter:

Myself – @vocalgeekery

My Co-Host – @jkbrwn

The show – @dlradio

More about myself:

I started podcasting in 2005. I created the Unofficial OCF Podcast, a podcast dedicated to the computer tech community of www.ocforums.com Due to low bandwidth and cheap equipment, episode frequency began to suffer after about 3 episode. I put the show on hiatus, until I could resume broadcasting with more than 500k downspeed. 2 Years later – I began hosting the Official OCF Podcast which I recently ended to make time for other projects. Early in 2008, I joined the team of The Tech Report to produce and host The Tech Report Podcast. Recently I co-created and started hosting the tech radio show – Digital Life Radio.

My Radio Show:

Digital Life Radio – Website – RSS – iTunes

My radio program airs every Saturday 3pm on AM 1200 WXIT (in NC)  and over the web on Ustream.

My Podcasts:

Here is a listing of the online web-shows that I am involved with – you can keep up with the latest episodes by subscribing to the RSS feed for each podcast – or this blog.

The Tech Report Podcast – Website – RSS – iTunes

The TR Podcast is the official podcast of the Tech Report (techreport.com) The Tech Report is a tech news and reviews site – one of the largest on the web. Our podcast features frequent conversations with the writers and editors of the site – interviews with tech companies – and in depth discussion of the product reviews found on the site.

Yup – it’s that time again… geeks all over the world are hoving their fingers over the refresh buttons and following the live updates from the keynote at WWDC 09.

Here are the sites I’m following this bright and cheerful afternoon:

Ars Technica – http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/06/apple-wwdc-keynote-liveblog-coverage.ars

Gizmodo – http://live.gizmodo.com/

Engadget – http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/08/phil-schiller-keynote-live-from-wwdc-2009/

CNet – http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10257637-37.html?tag=mncol;txt

MacRumors – http://www.macrumorslive.com/

I open my inbox this evening after doing the dishes, and I’m greeted with a friendly email from none other than Microsoft. The subject line of the message reads: “Exploring Windows: Show your PC pride with “I’m a PC” merchandise” I never really pay attention to subject lines in an email, especially in a mass email from companies like Apple or Microsoft, but I knew exactly what the email was about when I saw the first picture embedded in the text:

After a series of ‘I’m a PC’ commercials, it looks like Microsoft has taken their PR battle all the way to the clothes that you wear. I clicked on the link in the email and was taken to site listing a variety of “I’m a PC” merchandise. You can visit the store here. Some of the finer details of their products are really priceless:

“I’m a PC pattern”?  – lets take a closer look.

It’s amazing the amusement that can come from a single email. My take – Microsoft, Apple has you completely canned with their ad campaign. No matter how hard you try, trying to make your operating system come across as ‘cool’ is just going to make you look worse and worse. Stick with Seinfeld, at least that wasn’t preachy.

I’ll probably be talking about this story on the radio show this Sunday – www.digitalliferadio.net

So – this is an attempt to provide a quick description of what I’m up to here in October of 2008. I’m not usually a ’short attention span’ person – but news headlines seemed like a good way to list some of my projects and activities.

Started a radio show – weekly call-in technology talk show in Boone, NC – we air every Sunday at 4pm and you can listen to the show live every week no-matter where you are – www.digitalliferadio.net – if you like the show – join our facebook group!

Officially ended the OCF Podcast – we broadcasted for over a year – produced 22 great computer hardware related episodes – and really left a fun legacy on the OCForums – if you love computer hardware how-to’s plus other cool stuff like interviews and tech news, listen to some of the OCF Podcast episodes – www.ocfpodcast.com

The Tech Report Podcast is getting awesomer and awesomer – if you love hardcore tech news and reviews – you HAVE to subscribe – www.techreport.com

Gary Vaynchuk continues to amaze me with his garyvaynerchuk.com videso – if you’re intersted in personal branding and ideas and inspriration for following your dreams – watch some of this guys videos. He also does a great wine podcast that is fun to watch – even if you don’t like wine.

Still twittering – and loving it – www.twitter.com/jdrake90

Hmm…. thats all I can think of for now – and I really want to go kick some but in UT3 – so I’m going to end it there;-)

“Please, please, please vote against the bill authorizing a Federal bailout of the failed Wall Street banks. This bill is foolish and will only reward the poor management of rich bankers while imposing the debt on the American people. This is socialism for the rich.

The claim that the market caused all this is foolish. Those responsible for the credit bubble and its predictable consequences are being let off the hook. If this bill is passed, $700 billion is only the very beginning of what will hit us. Financial institutions will be “designated as financial agents of the Government.” That is unacceptable in a free society. The Secretary of the Treasury will be able to buy up whatever junk debt he wants to, burden the American people with it, and be subject to no one in the process. That is not representative government.

Please fight this bill and the consequences it will reap. We are better off letting the market correct itself than to vote the American people into socialistic slavery.

Thank you.”

Episode 20 Stories – NOTE – we won’t use all of these – this is what we have to pick from.

The Dark Knight: where’s the video game?

Scrabble owners spell L-A-W-S-U-I-T for Facebook knockoff

Ars System Guide: Summer Gaming Edition: Page 1

Dell begins rolling out Ubuntu 8.04, adds media codecs

Week in Storage: Cloud storage fumbles, tape sets records

New flash technology promises millions of writes, centuries of use

Tattooed Zune Boy has change of heart, will cover tattoos

iPhone 3G to crush Blackberry: redux

Apple says, “Want to hack iPhones for a living?”

Core 2 Duo E8600 coming on August 10 – The Tech Report

Analyst says Android and Symbian to merge, Nokia and Google to get matching tattoos – Engadget Mobile

BlackBerry Bold’s internet browser gets toyed with – Engadget Mobile

Intel Atom for netbooks pricier than desktop version

Microsoft online business flags despite overall revenue rise

Voodoo Envy 133 – At A Glance – Reviews by PC Magazine

Gateway’s Direct Departure a Sign of the Times – Columns by PC Magazine

The Trouble with Terabytes – Columns by PC Magazine

Adobe’s Photoshop Express Site Taken Offline – News and Analysis by PC Magazine

Cult of Mac – News and opinion about the Mac and iPod communities » Blog Archive » AT&T Testing Voice Web App for iPhone

PC World – Tech Tactics may Boost Youth Interest in Olympics

PC World – Nintendo Promises a Wii Bit More Storage

PC World – In Pictures: E3 2008 Picks and Pans

PC World – Make Banks Compete for Your Deposits

Google Counts Over 1 Trillion Unique URLs | Maximum PC

Technoloy is Turning Us into Time Wasters | Maximum PC

Mass Effect | Maximum PC

Faucet Fountain: Faucet Fountain Eliminates Paper Bathroom Cups, Recreates Grade School

Spider Cam: Philips Wireless Internet Cam Concept Would Be Creepy, Crawly Desktop Addition

Up: New Pixar Movie Has Us Completely Puzzled

Anybody Home?: Back to the Future Hoverboard Auction Starts at $30,000

Tesla Roadster: Only 25 Tesla Roadsters Left On Sale For 2009

Closing Time: Gateway Shutters Online Store, Exits Direct PC Sales Business Completely

Dell Issues NVIDIA GPU Update To Laptop Owners – HotHardware

Microsoft’s Fake OS Gets a Web Site – HotHardware

Once Tricked into Using It, Users Like Vista – HotHardware

Asus announced “whole-day” batteries for the Eee – Boing Boing Gadgets

DailyTech – Voodoo PC Gets Absorbed Totally Into HP

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Hands-On Preview

EMI Loses Stones, Scores Humiliation Hat Trick | Listening Post from Wired.com

Five Reasons Why I Love Microsoft! – Opinions by ExtremeTech

Hard Drive Failures, Using Spyware, and Locating Network Devices – Top Tips by ExtremeTech

Nvidia Offers Sneak Peek of Chips for Intel PCs – CPUs, Boards & Components by ExtremeTech

McG Talks Terminator Salvation Details, Debunks PG-13 Rating Rumors | /Film

Posterity? Bragging rights? not sure why I’m doing this – but I thought I’d put a picture of my studio online.

Vwala:

A friend of mine approached me a few days ago asking if I was interested in doing some writing for a new Mac magazine targeted towards a teen audience. I politely accepted his offer, and the first ‘edition’ of the Mac Focus Magazine was released this morning. I wrote two articles, one as a software pick, the other to cover the new iMac refresh.

Find both articles here: http://www.macfocusmagazine.com/author/jordandrake

Expect new front page content once a week – www.macfocusmagazine.com

In my one year of podcasting, plus many years of computer use, I have never had the occasion to spring for a pair of nice headphones. Lately however my constant production work has required that I wear cans for over 20 hours a week. My standby headphone model has always been in the CFW category (comes from wal-mart) and after constant use, I started to feel the pinch (literally) of cheap headphones. This past weekend, I broke down and ordered a pair of AKG K240 Studio Headphones. This purchase set me back over $100, but visions of ear cans that wouldn’t give me a migraine, made the ‘buy now’ process so much easier.

I decided on the AKG’s due to several recommendations from friends in the recording industry, as well as an endorsement by the world famous Leo Laporte. These headphones are designed first and foremost for wear all day comfort – not for outstanding sound. Since most of my work is dealing with vocals, the lack of blow-away audio isn’t a problem for me. They’re also very economically priced for pro headphones.

The AKG’s arrived Tuesday, and I made a short unboxing video (this is why I’m a geek. See the video here. At first, I found them to be kinda uncomfortable. They are very large headphones, and the bottom part of the ear cups actually rest on my cheekbone. After wearing them for several hours, I finally became accustomed to the feel, and I now understand how folks like Leo Laporte can wear them for 40 hours a week. As expected, the sound isn’t blow your socks off amazing, partially because nicer headphones like these need more power, but also because thats not why I bought them.

Now that I have the appropriate headgear, recording shall commence.

I was a guest panelist in the latest episode of Mac on My Life (Web here). ML is a show that covers the latest Apple stories and topics, I’ve been a guest once before, and was invited back.

In this latest episode – we discussed new Shuffles from Apple, $0.99 rentals from iTunes, and each guest had a software pick for the show.

Listen Here

The show is kinda geeky, and I was a tad slap happy at the end… but you may still enjoy the listening experience;-)