Okay that title is a big exaderation, but today September 25th I got to meet Neil Gaiman. He has probobly already forgotten about me but I very much enjoyed his talk and will definitely remember it. He read from his new book and there was Q an A session afterwards at the book store. For those that don't know Neil Gaiman he has written many books including Neverwhere, American Gods, and the latest Anansi Boys. He has also written a few graphic novels, the best being the world renowned Sandman. All of his novels are very well written and he has a very unique style. In all of his novels it seems that the main character is out of their normal place, but also fantasy is very much a part of most of his stories. And the best of all is Sandman in which the "king of dreams" is brought to earth and kept against his will. It continues with what ends up happening to him afterwards. The story is long and brilliant, like all of his work. Today was quite an experience. I got to the store right at 5:00 and I got right in line to get a ticket for the signing. In about 30 minutes I got the ticket and sat down to wait for his talk. I waited and waited till 7:30 to see him. Everyone was taking pictures, and he started reading out of Anansi Brothers. After that was a Q&A session. He was asked "How did you come up with Croup and Vandemer from Neverwhere?" or "What books did you read as a child?" or "Are you still into the career of Duran Duran?"(referring to a Biography he wrote when he was younger). After that It was time for the signing. My ticket said 42 and I got in line. As I got up to him I started shaking and as he was signing my book I told him about how much I love Sandman. Then I got behind the desk and some lady took a picture of us. What a great day.

PS. Check my flickr for some more pics.

Looks like Google is getting ready for their virtual war with Microsoft. Some one has mocked up the page and posted a little FAQ about Google's new army.

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This was brought to me by Brett from Squenix and Two 2 Tech
Mr Jobs loves his operating system.... He goes so far as to say:

“We don’t know how having OS X available for PCs would affect Macs”, and promised, “we will have technology in OS X for Intel so that it cannot be installed in other PCs”. “Theft is bad”, he said, warning: “You don’t want to burn in Hell.”

Hey everyone, today be internation talk like pirate day. I did it all day at school, and everyone thought I was an idiot but it was definatly worth it. Great fun when your a pirate, espacilly when you be a pirate o' t' internet. (NOT ME) So tell your buckos and neighbors about international pirate day and tell them like a pirate.

Well it's out and its been announced. And just what does this remote control do? Well we were all expecting a surprise from Nintendo, but maybe we got a little more than we bargained for. It looks a lot like a remote control/NES controller but this little baby has a lot more inside the case. The idea is that its all wireless. Part of it works like a light fun where you can just point to the screen and controlled a cursor. It also has built in tilt sensitivity. For instance you can tilt the controller forward and the player on the screen will move forward. Oh and don't worry FPS fans, you can attatch an analog stick held in your other hand, via the port at the bottom. Its a very simple very sleek design, but it is definitely and unprecedented undertaking especially for this generation. Its battery powered, and you can use it to turn the console on and off. Hopefully it will work fine for games and will not lead to Nintendo demise but rather gamers will see them as the clear innovator among the three system manufacturers. Only problem I can think of right now is how they are going to display the thing at a store.P.S. There is a great article at IGN that goes more indepth.
P.P.S Sorry there will be no technorati tags in the next few posts, Im still trying to get greasemonkey to work with Firefox 1.5

Something is wrong with this shirt, why do Leia and Han have light sabers, and why is vader holding on to the laser part of the light saber?

Two 2 Tech is a Podcast I have started with my good friend Brett (also from SQUENIX). Its just your average tech podcast but this time is 100% better because I'm in it. Basically we cover the latest and greatest in the past weeks news. We have only had two episodes, but we plan to start giving tutorials on your basic tech applications, and reviews on the software you should be using. We have each show up by Sunday or Monday every week. Enjoy it and please please send us your feedback at two2tech@gmail.com

Today was quite a day. I got together with Jack from Squenix so we film some footage for an upcoming episode. We ended up stealing wifi from barns and Noble and we got to talking about software, open source, and the ipod nano we just saw that day. Suddenly some guy comes up and asks us about wordpress, if I new about it this blog would be in WP, so I couldn't answer his question. It turns out that he is a huge UI guy and has been developing interfaces for the last ten years. He was just working for Yahoo, and now he got hired by AOL to develop the UI for their new project. A podcast search engine. Thats right AOL is trying to get all of their "garden" onto the web for the users. The podcast search should be out in about 6 weeks. I'm not gonna say who this guy was, I'm actually not really supposed to talk about this according to him. Just look out for better services coming out of AOL, Time Warner has access to a vast array of content and information that AOL could easily put for everyone's use. So look out MSN, Yahoo, and Google for this new web service giant.

Well it seems as yesterday, Augest 7th was Apple day. They just decide to put out everything they could. First and most importantly the iPod nano, then the ROKR, and updates to iTunes and Quicktime on Windows.
The iPod nano
Well here it is just like I previously posted, color screen, 2 and 4 gig flash drives, but now its ultra thin. That is just a little thinner then a pencil. Most intresting about the nano is that this is Apples replacement for the mini. It looks just like the standard ipod, and has all of the same funcionality. The only thing is, that the mini is still a great player and you can get the six gig mine for the price of the 4 gig nano. Of course it is flash and that does have its benifits.
The Motorolla ROKR
After months and months of rumors, and fake images all over the internet the ROKR has been announced. Basicly it has the iPod type interface on a Motorolla cell phone. And of course it plays 100 songs. We all want more but it is a full blown cell phone. It looks nice but it might just be better to get a treo and a big memory stick. The phone says it has i tunes but its very scaled down. As for iTunes, version 5.o just came out. It comes with parental controls, a bunch of bug fixes, and a new cleaner and nicer interface. Also Quicktime 7 has offiaclly been released for windows. Basicly it allows playback in h.264, wich the preview version has had for the last few months. Thats it for Apple right now but there should be a small update to the power books in the next few weeks.

Breaking news from digg.com

Apple has or will announce a new flash iPod the iPod NANO. This time its an ipod shuffle/mini hybrid. Every one expected the video ipod but Apple decided to remake the shuffle into what it should have been originally. Its smaller then the mini, and now is a perfect cylinder with a small color LCD. To navigate through your songs just squeeze and turn the rubber wheel. Again the design is great from apple, and its very practical. Its a little pricey for a 2 gig player at $199, and the screen seems small and hard to read from. I expected the video but this nano seems like it could sell, maybe if they lower the price for the shuffles.
Also
Apple will announce at the same event on the 7th their Motorola itunes compatible phone called the Rocker. The only thing special about that is the nice iPod interface for a phone. As for the nano we will have to see where it goes for this holiday season.

EDIT: Recently more information has been released, the above information might not be true, but I am sure that Apple is working on a flash based color ipod, other then the mini or shuffle.

Okay so the Meetro v0.61 beta is out. Instead of just passing on it because of that really cheesy video on the main site, I decided to try it out. And it is great... really, and honestly great. The fact that it is location aware only means that you know where others on meetro live or where they are typing from. But the fact that you know where even random people are talking to you from makes you want to IM them. Therefore "breaking the ice". It is all orgnized very nicly, the close some one is to you the higher they are on the list. On top of that the UI is very usable and the profile system is done very well. You can type a little about yourself, post cool websites, and then describe what you like in the categories of books, movies, places, and movies. If you find some one close to you, just view their profile and see if you like what they like and then talk to them. I've been talking to all these people that live within 5 miles of me, and one guy is still talking to me about comics. At first this seems (and it seemed to me) like a very odd concept --ohhh people know where I am I'm going to get killed-- its actually a great way to meet new people. Definitely try it out, its worth a look.

No Need to Click Here - I'm just claiming my feed at Feedster

You Tube is a new free "sharing" service. It just like flickr but there is enough bandwidth for plenty of videos. All you have to do is set up an account, upload your videos, name them, tag them and then your set. There are plenty of videos already out, and it could eventually make a good substitute to a Google or Yahoo type video search. The best part is that it has a tag based search system. There are also plenty of friends list features, including sharing videos with your friends or family only, and recommending other peoples videos to your friends. After you watch a video you can rate it and comment on it. Hopfully they'll get bought by Google, and they can make it even better than it already is.

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Push me..
And then just touch me...
Till I can get my satisfaction.

I just revisited this video that's been on my hard drive for a year now. It great, sure whets in the video is great but the song is good to. Great when shopping for power tools. Its from The full band name is Benny Benassi and the Biz from their album Hypnotica. It was also remixed and re-dubed on this cd.

Satisfaction