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Video: David Allen on Getting Things Done, GTD

Andru Edwards

Posted by Andru Edwards
Categories: Blogging, Business, Videos

In this day and age, getting things done is getting harder due to the massive increase in the number of things that grab your attention on the Internet. David Allen is the expert on GTD, or “getting things done” - above you will find a fantastic talk he gave at on the subject. This goes out to everything with an overflowing email inbox, tons of open apps on your desktop, or those suffering from continuous partial attention in this Web 2.0 age. If you have 45 minutes, check out the video above. It’s worth it.


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Is Bebo using your AIM credentials behind your back?

Andru Edwards

Posted by Andru Edwards
Categories: Blogging, Technology

Bebo

Here’s an oddity for you - it seems that Internet site Bebo took control of the AIM account of Teresa Valdez Klein just long enough to send me an invitation to check out her Bebo profile. I immediately realized that she wasn’t even online, and even tried responding - to no avail! When I asked her about it, it turns out that while she was signing up for the service, she put in her AIM credentials so that Bebo could find any other friends who were members so that they could hook up, and I would assume it would also allow you to pick and choose who you’d like to send an IM invite to. When she was at that step, something went wrong on Bebo’s end and timed out. She closed the browser, and I got the IM.

So whether it was on purpose, or an error - Bebo devlopers, it’s not cool. You should probably throw in some sort of safety into your code so that, in the event of a timeout, it errs on the side of caution instead of on the side of Bebo advertising. Kthx.


Scoble on Techmeme gaming, I’m still unexcited about the site

Andru Edwards

Posted by Andru Edwards
Categories: Blogging, Business

My friend Robert Scoble put up a couple of Seesmic videos on how to reverse-engineer Techmeme. For anyone who doesn’t know, Techmeme is a fringe site that aggregates technology news from blogs. The more a story is talked about, the more likely it will appear on Techmeme. And the more authoritative the people talking about the story, the higher they will appear on the Techmeme home page. I watch both videos in their entirety, and enjoyed them. The thing I just am still missing is why it’s important to be on Techmeme.

Gear Live network sites have been on Techmeme quite a few times. We didn’t really see any significant boost in traffic or anything else. To some people, it’s almost as if it’s a game in and of itself - “I wanna be on the top of Techmeme!”. Me? I’d rather be the top Google search result for that story. Techmeme is so temporary. The other thing that gets me is the weight put on sites as far as how authoritative they are is done by a human being, Gabe Riviera. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Gabe at all. I’ve met him and he seems to be a cool guy. However, the way sites/bloggers are ranked means that people are going to get missed.

There very well could be someone who writes better than, say, Mike Arrington, about a certain topic. But until Gabe hears of that person, Mike is still considered number one? It would seem to me that Techmeme should have a paid staff of people who rate and rank things, almost Mahalo-style. A group of 20 people is way more efficient (but still not efficient enough) than one guy doing the ranking. You can say that the larger group of people that Gabe uses is the bloggers who are regularly featured on Techmeme - but really, if that is your opinion, you just aren’t realizing how much of an echo chamber the blogosphere has become.

In any event, I’d still recommend checking out Robert’s videos if only to learn how algorithms work.


Heather Flanagan Interviews Todd Bishop

Andru Edwards

Posted by Andru Edwards
Categories: Blogging, Business, Videos

Here in Seattle, we have two major newspapers - The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Todd Bishop writes about technology issues for the Seattle PI, and I’ve run into him a couple of times at a few technology conferences, and he also came to the first Seattle Mind Camp event that we put on. Heather Flanagan I met at the second Mind Camp event, and found her to be hilarious. We still look forward to working with her very soon on a project or two. In the meantime, I came across this video interview that Heather did with Todd, and figured I’d share it, mostly because my name was mentioned at the start of the interview, which caught me off guard! Either way, this is an interesting look at how people in the traditional media industry see how things are progressing now that we have so many independent people doing news on the web.


The Gear Live Gives Back Education Charity Drive

Andru Edwards

Posted by Andru Edwards
Categories: Blogging

Alright, let’s take a break for just a moment away from the standard news fare. We know that you guys love the gadgets, gizmos, and consumer electronics just as much as we do.  These expensive and cool toys are often a marvel when you break them down to the technology that drives them. That’s what makes what we do fun, and why we love the interaction we have with our readers. However, we want to focus a bit of attention on the young ones in our country who would be happy to have a calculator for use in class, and the teachers who work for districts that can’t afford things like projectors for use in their schools.

Gear Live has joined the 2007 DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge, and we have chosen ten great causes that are centered around getting some basic technology into classrooms located in our local area, as well as some of the hardest areas still suffering the affects of Hurricane Katrina. We’ve chosen ten causes that we thought touched on what we believed in, and you can take a look at them and choose which one(s) you want to help. Our goal is to raise $10,000 for the children of our nation. Just know that the money you donate will go directly to that specific teacher request - not into some big pot of money that is then doled out by the organization. As donations come in, there meter over on the right will fill up.

Some of the most expensive purchases for schools are consumer electronics. We believe that all children need to get acquainted with the tools of the future as they learn so they when they are ready to hit the workforce, they can succeed alongside their peers. Please, help us in assisting teachers, children, and schools in low-income areas get the tools they need to help their children excel.

Read More | Gear Live Gives Back

Gear Live redesign coming soon…

Andru Edwards

Posted by Andru Edwards
Categories: Blogging, Business

A few people were wondering why I’ve been quiet here on the blog for the last couple of months. Truth is, I’ve been hard at work on a complete redesign of the entire Gear Live network, which is finally near completion. We should have it rolled out within the next two weeks, and the team that’s been working on it is very happy with the results. We think our readers are going to love it. Check back soon to see it in action, and let us know what you think after checking it out.


Expression Engine 1.6 is Coming…

Andru Edwards

Posted by Andru Edwards
Categories: Blogging, Technology

Rick Ellis

So, Expression Engine 1.6 is set to be released very soon, and it looks to be one of the most significant releases yet. We already manage multiple sites under one installation, but it is a bit of a hack (although, an easy one.) The new release brings about a Multiple Site Manager add-on, which we at Gear Live are more than ready to jump in to.

In the meantime, we figured we would mess with a few images of EllisLab CEO Rick Ellis, to see if we could win ourselves a copy of the MSM add-on. If not, it’s all good. Messing with Rick seems to be turning into a pastime…

As you can see above, we are very excited about EE 2.0, so we made a point to share that in the image. Two more images after the jump.

Click to continue reading Expression Engine 1.6 is Coming…

Read More | Expression Engine 1.6 Preview and Contest

Catch Me On PodTech’s Marketing Voices

Andru Edwards

Posted by Andru Edwards
Categories: Blogging, Business

I did an interview a few days ago with Jennifer Jones, the host of PodTech’s Marketing Voices. We talked about the future of journalism, and what we referred to as “the death of print.” For those not in the know, major companies are starting to approach bloggers more and more for coverage of their products. Heck, at , we recorded almost 200 episodes of The Bleeding Edge, something I am almost certain no other “traditional” media outlet came close to doing. 

Read More | Marketing Voices: Andru Edwards and the Death of Print via PodTech


Grapes on a Plane Video Montage

Andru Edwards

Posted by Andru Edwards
Categories: Blogging, Business, Personal, Videos


Click To Play

So, a couple of months ago I was one of the speakers at the 2006 Blog Business Summit in Seattle, WA. As a thank you to some of the speakers and better performing affiliates, Steve Broback and company flew us over to Washington’s wine country, courtesy of a couple of jets from Greenpoint Technologies. As always, we had our cameras in tow, and put together the montage video that you see above.


Gear Live’s The Bleeding Edge Show Wins At The Vloggies!

Andru Edwards

Posted by Andru Edwards
Categories: Blogging, Business, Technology


Click To Play

I have no idea how we pulled this off, especially with stiff competition like Diggnation, Command-N, Systm, CrankyGeeks, and others - but we did it. Gear Live’s technology video podcast, The Bleeding Edge, won the award for Best Technology Video Blog. This is truly amazing, and an honor, and let’s us know that despite all the silliness and fun we are having doing what we do, there is a movement happening, and we are honored to be a part of it. Check the video above for a nice, truncated recap of The Vloggies. Oh, and yes - we couldn’t make it, and we didn’t send a video acceptance speech because, quite frankly, we didn’t think we would win!

Read More | Gear Live via The Vloggies


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