Techoo! Goes To Black Friday

I'm setting my alarm for 4a.m. in the mornin', cause I'm taking part in the festivities of Black Friday.

First, a trip to Circuit City, to nab a couple of those 2GB Sandisk Cruzers for 8 bucks. After that, anything goes. I'm thinking about videotaping my travels for publishing on this interweb tubepage, so stay tuned.

The Weekender: Forecast for Rain

I know that this is an oldie, but it's a goodie for sure. Anyone remember this, or the countless parodies of it on YouTube? I will explain no more, since the video should explain more than enough.

Zach's Linux Switch: Video Editing

I'm gonna add a little more to my Linux switch saga; this time I'm talking about video editors, and how much all of them in Linux suck.

Seriously. Linux can do pretty much all of the things Windows can do with little to no effort, while editing a simple video is a major pain in the ass. No video editor is included in Ubuntu, and all of the editors I have tried either crash, have absolutely no features or fail to play the video properly at all.

The first one I tried, PiTiVi, looked like a pretty good candidate. Just import your vids, drag and drop to the timeline, and add all of the wonderful effects and transitions you like, right? Wrong. It didn't include any transitions, titles, effects, or anything else that a video editor would normally have. Pretty pathetic.

Pretty much all of those I have tried since PiTiVi have been even worse. Most of them will play the video, but with no audio. Some will crash upon booting, and some won't open at all.

The video editing scene in the Linux world is in a sad state of affairs, and it will keep many people from switching if the problems aren't solved.

Blogger: Now With Video!

Looks like Blogger has finally taken advantage of their cousin YouTube, as they have added video posting to their service.

I can see the video upload picture up in my toolbar as I type, and we'll take advantage of it as soon as we can come up with something to tape.

On closer inspection of the actual video player, it looks a whole lot like the Google Video player, so this may be a way to recycle the soon-to-die Google Video site. Not a bad idea, as I liked the Google Video interface.

In closing, I just wanted to say a few words concerning today's anniversary.

It's been six years since the 9/11 attacks, and I just want everyone to remember what happened this morning six years ago, and to look how far we've come. If it wasn't for trademark American resiliency, none of us would be able to blog as we can today. If any jihadists out in Afghanistan are reading this, I just want to say just this.

We won. We've got Blogger, bitches.

Fresh iPods Just As Expected

They've arrived. The new iPods are shiny, touchy-feely, and pretty much just what everyone was expecting; as usual. Crazy how that works out, doesn't it?

The nano now has video playback capabilities, and a brighter display. Although, I don't think a brighter screen will help heal the severe eye strain caused my watching a movie on the thing.

What came as a surprise to me is that they didn't completely scrap the full-size click wheel iPod. They slapped a classic label on it and bumped the HD capacities to 80 and 120 GB.

Now, the star of the show, the iPod Touch. Looking exactly like the iPhone, only smaller, the Touch is everything but the phone. It's got wi-fi, built-in iTunes Music Store, and the same cool interface as its bigger cousin. The only drawback is the paltry 8 and 16 GB drives. The cool factor may cancel that out for some people, though.

In other announcements, the iPhone will cost $399 by the holidays, so get your credit cards ready to spoil the kiddos! iTunes now has ringtone support, and Apple has partnered with Starbucks to offer an interesting service.

Imagine, your in your local Starbucks, and your connected to the internet with your iPod Touch or iPhone. You say, "Gee, what is that song that's playing?" Well, finding out is as simple as pushing the Starbucks button in the Music Store, and listed before your very eyes are the last five songs that have played at the Starbucks your currently in. The problem? Well, I don't know of many people who actually want to know what songs are playing.

Hmm... what was the name of that indecipherable new age song that just played? Could it have been John Tesh?

The Weekender: Don Johnson Sings!

Hey, remember Miami Vice? Of course you do. Don Johnson? Hell, yes! He was friggin' Sonny Crockett for God's sake! Did you know he could sing? Ummmmmm...

Don Johnson's runaway hit single is served piping hot just for you on this week's weekender.



Circa 1986, this cheesy gem of a video is just one of Johnson's smash hits on his debut album, Heartbeat. It sold like hotcakes, and it seemed that Sonny was headed to quite a career in music...until his second album. What's he up to now? Commentating last year's Super Bowl and raking in royalties from Nash Bridges!

SATURDAY CHALLENGE: Can you spot Paul Shaffer from David Letterman fame in this video?