Happy day. iLounge is reporting that the word on the street is that Apple is going to host a special event for new products on September 12 in California. Yay. New iPods.
« July 2006 | Main | September 2006 »
August 2006
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Create and Share Feed Pages with SpeedyFeed
If you liked Original Signal - and judging from the traffic I am getting from it, you do - you can now build your own similar site easily. SpeedyFeed offers a nice way to create customized start pages that you can share with the world. Here's a list of the most popular feeds people are adding to their pages. Give it a go.
I've Been Rocketboomed
Last week I had the pleasure of sitting down with the delightful Joanne Colan from Rocketboom. They posted the interview today. Don't miss the end. There's blatant product placement! There are bonus clips on the Rocketboom site as well.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Browse Web 2.0 News by Logo
Web2Logo.com is a visual front end for Web2List. Both are outstanding for finding and tracking various Web 2.0 startups. The logos on Web2Logo.com link off to a Web2List page with the latest news about the company, Alexa info, blog chatter volume and even a profile written by the company. Here's one for digg. All that's missing are RSS feeds by company. There are tags, comments and a digg-style interfaces as well. Good stuff.
TagFetch Tag Search Engine Revamps
TagFetch, which searches the various services that utilize tags, has relaunched with a new design that looks a lot like a start page. The site is incredibly handy. You can filter by rich media, bookmarks, blogs, news and more. We need more services like these that glue stuff together. For a sampling, check out this TagFetch page for the "public relations" tag.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Turn Your iPod into the Ultimate PowerPoint Accessory
This is the second in my series of posts on various gear that I find useful.
Many readers of this blog work in PR or marketing or for Web 2.0 related start-ups. This means you spend a lot of time preparing presentations in either Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple's Keynote. What's more, you probably also invest hours rehearsing and traveling to and from various meetings. Oh and if I were a betting man I'd say you carry an iPod. Well, whether you are on Windows or Mac with a few simple steps you can turn your iPod (even an older one) into the ultimate PowerPoint accessory. I am going to focus on PowerPoint here since it's what most people use. The process is similar for Keynote.
Getting Your Preso on Your iPod
First, you need to get your PowerPoint presentation on to your iPod. This is a snap. Head on over to ZappTek and download iPresent It. It's now available on both Windows and Mac (It was previously only available for Macs). iPresent It will take any PowerPoint or PDF file and convert it into a series of images that can be viewed as a slideshow on an iPod. It supports file tracking so you can easily update your slideshows whenever you make changes to a presentation. I have been testing the software and it works perfectly. iPresent It runs $17.95. Apple explains how to get these images on your iPod.
Using Your iPod to Rehearse
Now that you have your presentation on your iPod you need to rehearse. The iPod has everything you need to rehearse while you're on the go. This works best on either the latest fifth generation iPod or on the iPod Nano (though it's hard to see slide text on the latter). Simply navigate to the Stopwatch feature on your iPod and start the timer. Then, while the timer is still running navigate back to the Photos menu on your iPod, find your slide show and click it. You can run through the slides one by one or even run it as a slideshow complete with slide-to-slide builds. You can even keep music running in the background while you rehearse.
Hooking Your iPod Up to a Projector
Last but not least, it's actually possible to connect your iPod to a projector or a TV and run your presentation right off the device. I would test this out on different projectors before flying sans computer. This won't work with the iPod Nano. You also need either the Apple AV Connection Kit or their AV Cable to hook your iPod up to your projector. Presentation Zen (one of my favorite blogs) shows how nicely this works.
That's all there is to turing your iPod into the ultimate PowerPoint accessory.
Tags: ipod, powerpoint
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Dear Google, Clean Up Google News
Google is still playing it very inconsistently when it comes to how it decides what blogs get indexed in Google News and what doesn't. In addition, they're also now inadvertently scooping up forum content from mainstream sites. This, mind you, is par for the course for a rare Google product that is actually out of beta.
I have blogged about this issue several times now. And Google, to their credit, promised to be more forthcoming. However, that was three months ago and we've seen little movement since. Yahoo needs to follow the same path now that they have removed most blogs from their news search engine. What's the criteria? What cuts the mustard and what doesn't? C'mon gang. Follow Topix's model. (By the way, Topix is also exemplary in their handling of press releases on topic pages. They're separated. See lower right of this page.)
Here's the latest example of Google News' double standard when it comes to non-professional content. On my personalized page tonight I saw links to this forum post on CNET Reviews. (See image below.) Google's gotta come clean on what's news and Yahoo News needs to follow too now that it's more like Google.
Follow Me on Twitter
Subscribe
Contact Me
Read My Favorite Feeds
Miscellany
An AdAge Power 150 Blog 
Steve Rubel works at Edelman. Everything posted on this blog is his personal opinion and does not necessarily represent the views of his employer or its clients.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.
