DailyTechTalk

I’m considering starting a weekly show focused on technology and helping people with basic problems. It can be 30 minutes to an hour, it’ll be recorded and put in a podcast and on YouTube for later playback. The primary delivery will be via a live broadcast and people in the chat room can call in or write in. What do you think?

On December 11th, 2007, I received an email from a producer named Brad; an early 30s filmmaker from New York who worked for a production company. Brad told me about a “Macintosh Documentary” he was working on. It didn’t have a name at the time and here’s the email I received:

This documentary is our first major project for ‘07, and we’re aiming for a theatrical release to then go to cable/DVD. The feature will be about the rise of Apple (from the tough early years to now) and the people who helped make it a success and have formed a community around it. Our crew will be heading to MacWorld, and we thought filming Adam’s party would enhance our narrative.
I can assure you that this will be a straight forward documentary, not a “Borat”-style ambush. Our company has insurance and I am attaching a location agreement that we use for everyone’s protection. Regarding permission to film patrons, employees, etc., we have releases that we can have people sign and it may be worth considering putting up a notice in the entry that will alert people to the filming that will be taking place. We obviously want to minimize any adverse impact that this will have on your business (it shouldn’t have any) and we will work with you to ensure that this happens.

They contacted me because my DailyTechTalk Macworld party was in its 3rd year and they wanted to talk to me about Macworld. Pretty cool, right? Well we did an interview that Wednesday morning at The Moscone Center and that night they interviewed me and Laura and did an interview with the world famous Violet Blue. I never knew this film would be showcased at Macworld Expo in 2009 to a crowd of over 200 people and then sold on DVD for thousands of people to watch over and over. Naturally, I’m pretty excited to be there for this and I hope you’ll be there too. My post is here and you can watch the screening if you have a Macworld badge. It’s as simple as that. You can find out more about the movie on their website. Below is a slideshow of photos that Laura took while they were interviewing me.

So. You may have heard that Apple is pulling out of Macworld in 2010. Big whoop and we all saw it coming. I’m not upset about it as you may have read my post on MacworldBound. I’m actually over this whole Macworld mess anyway and have been ignoring the blog posts from every Macworld Magazine Editor and how Macworld has changed their lives. Macworld did a lot for me as well but I’m not really a part of The Mac Community anymore and have used it as a mere stepping stone to greater things. I’m still an Apple user but I primarily use Windows with a splash of Mac.

This whole AdamsBlock thing has resulted in daily hate mails from uninformed citizens, hateful phone calls from blocked numbers and Twitter accounts like “fuckadamsblock” that just start following me on Twitter. The emails really get to me because they’ll start with “you’re a retard and your girlfriend is a dumb bitch.” Those emails will end with, “oh and I’m gonna rob you when you’re not home.” It’s gotten a little better but I’m still feeling a lot of heat.

Someone I’ve only met briefly, Lesa King, is an idol to my girlfriend. Laura goes to GraphicReporter every day to check for new tutorials. Lesa is the wife of the notorious Shawn King who has given a lot back to The Mac Community in his weekly YourMacLife podcast among many other things. Lesa is what Shawn calls, a MacMac and she’s pissed that Apple is ditching Macworld. Her idea of a SilentKeynote was pretty cool so I tweeted that everyone should Digg it.

Someone named MichaelYurechko replies to me with a link to this which I’ve copied below.

Lesa Snider King, go f**k yourself.

In Apple’s scheme of things, MacWorld makes no sense at all. It’s an event that happens every January and if Apple doesn’t deliver on a new product, their stock drops. Apple doesn’t need MacWorld to make news, they can make their own.

It costs Apple millions to sponsor this event that no longer does anything for them, it just makes sense to stop wasting money. The event is for die-hard Apple fans (for the most part) and this is not who Apple is trying to reach. Die-hard fans will continue purchasing new Macs, Apple is more focussed on gaining market share and going after those new customers.

Apple decided to re-think things. Having to push out a new product in January of every year is a product cycle Apple doesn’t want. For one, it slows sales. Everyone knows not to buy anything for about 2 months before MacWorld. They want to release products on their own schedule.

Lesa, as kirk06 said above, GROW UP. Silent keynote.. honestly.. are you two years old?

Grow the f**k up and get over it. If you hate Apple so much, buy a Dell.

He then puts out a tweet that says, “Lesa Snider King is one dumb b**ch. Go f**k yourself.”

I’ve been caught up in a lot of hate lately and this is a perfect example. That response is totally uncalled for. I never said that I’m going to go to the silent keynote. In fact, I haven’t even bought a Macworld pass for this year because I’m kinda done with it. I was done with Macworld months before Apple’s Tuesday announcement. Lesa is passionate about something just as I was passionate about using my webcam in San Francisco to raise money for charity and deter crime but since she and I stuck our necks out there, we are faced with ignorant and hateful people who fly off for no reason. I flew off the cuff at Michael over Twitter because I’m sick and tired of people like him cursing out and publicly humiliating people who have a good intention.

I’m sure if Michael exposed his buying habits, what kind of car he drives or his political beliefs to the web, he would get a ton of people cursing him out as well. I know this to be true because whenever I show a passion for anything online, I get 50/50 positive and negative responses and the negative is always from an idiot that doesn’t want to actually debate but will instead attack me in the most simple elementary school tactics.

I wish Lesa King luck with her SilentKeynote initiative. I think it’s good to see someone stepping up just like many of us do for what she thinks is right. I’ll stand next to her because I believe in what she is doing and we all need a support system sometimes to combat the growing amount of ignorant haters in this world.

I subscribe to only 15 RSS feeds related to Apple and for the past 3 freaking weeks, all I’ve heard is Apple’s black Friday deals are going to be the most competitive ever! That’s what I heard last year! This is a short post because I know you’re all busy chowing down on turkey and drinking spiked egg-nog but I wanted to let you know a couple of facts that will make you realize that this black friday talk doesn’t matter.

A) Apple doesn’t care about you. Seriously. They don’t and never forget that.
B) You can get $100 off most Macs on Amazon every day of the year
C) MacMall offers ram upgrades, free copies of VMWare Fusion and printers that make the Macs a great value through them.
D) Apple’s Refurb store has deals on Macs 20% off or more every day of the year
E) eBay has fantastic deals on new unopened Macs every day of the year

Apple offering $150 off a MacBook Pro that’s priced at $2499 is a discount but getting up early, fighting crowds and waiting in line for that Mac where you could have gotten it for $100 less on Amazon yesterday isn’t worth my time and I’m disgusted with the amount of blog posts about how heavenly Apple is for offering discounts. If you remember fact A that Apple doesn’t like you, then you’ll realize everything they do is for money and stockholders.

Stay home, shop on eBay and update your blog or something. The Apple Store I would avoid on Black Friday.

Wow. Apple kicked fanboys in the balls a lot harder than I expected. $11 off the iPod nano. I’m not in the market for any Apple gear so I wasn’t lining up at 4AM at any Apple Store but it’s amazing how for weeks I’ve read report after report about how much Apple was going to give you the reach around on black friday. I wake up today and see $11 off the iPod nano and $21 the Apple TV. Hah! Yep Apple hates you and that same Apple TV you can get for $50 nearly everywhere else. Avoid Apple’s Black Friday deals because every day of the year nearly every Apple retailer beats even the black friday discounts.

Every year for the past 3 years I take Christmas eve off and I start to go crazy. The itch to get things done begins and I find myself logging on to social networks trying to find friends to chat with or parties to attend. It’s quickly realized that I’m alone and everyone is with families, drunk or shopping. So, for the past 3 years I spend most of Christmas day working. Seriously. I sleep in because I can and then around 10AM it starts but the fun thing is that I work obnoxiously. I don’t get my own personal projects completed, no I bother everyone who is clearly off that day celebrating Christmas.

I’ll follow up on all of my unread emails with an email asking them a question which forces them to respond. I’ll post blog entries on all of my blogs and Twitter at a crazy volume so that I’m basically the only person on Twitter. Then when I’m completely caught up, i begin instant messaging people I work with and adding people as friends on Facebook. Anything that causes their blackberry or iPhone to buzz and check their email. It’s my way or reminding America, nope you’re not getting a day off. This is the Internet Age and I can make your phone buzz even on Christmas Day. So if you’re friends with me, I’m sorry but the workaholic in me that hates football, doesn’t get in to parades and doesn’t like shopping or getting drunk forces me to work on that day and bug the hell out of you.

It’s not like I can go out anywhere on that day. Everything is closed! Luckily, The Internet isn’t closed and that’s the best Christmas gift I could receive.

Over at my other blog, MacworldBound, things are heating up with Macworld coverage. I won’t be talking about Macworld here but I encourage you to check it out

http://macworldbound.com

Today, I stopped by Rickshaw Bagworks here in SF. This company is very new and is already doing some amazing things. I picked up one of their bags after completely customizing it and filming them make it right in front of me. My girlfriend who saw the bag said, “wow that has to be the best computer bag I’ve ever seen!” I think you’ll enjoy this.

Building The Bag:

Building a Rickshaw Bag from Adam Jackson on Vimeo.

An Inside Look behind The Commuter Bag:

Rickshaw Bag an Inside Look from Adam Jackson on Vimeo.

My Flickr Slideshow:

You have to check these guys out. I’m proudly wearing the commuter bag and it’s the most comfortable bag I’ve ever used.

It was back in May that I talked about Yoono as a social media sidebar for firefox that had it all. You have the ability to clip web pages and photos (social bookmarking) and receive recommendations for new websites that you’ve never seen (discovery engine) and connect with your friends via the most popular social networks. I feel in love and haven’t stopped using it since. Well, it’s only been a few months and Yoono is making waves again with some huge announcements.

1. The user interface was fine for me but a lot of people didn’t seem to like it. Well, that’s all new and getting started is much easier. You can update your status from any where in the sidebar, viewing Flickr and interacting with Facebook is much easier. Yoono also added Myspace and imeem networks to the sidebar.

2. There is a new widget in town. Currently, there are widgets for Gmail, social networks, music, Digg and clipping things on the web to check out later or share with friends. Yoono is adding the shopping widget. It’s an unobtrusive, easy to use widget that is there when you need it. I was shopping amazon for Ren & Stimpy DVDs and the shopping widget is there to show me that Buy.com has it for cheaper and with free shipping. I can even share that link with a friend. This is Yoono’s secret to making a bit of money which is something every startup right now is striving for.

With the addition of new networks, a simpler interface and a cool shopping widget to help save money, I’m ecstatic about the changes coming to Yoono and anxiously await Firefox’s notification that I need to update my version of Yoono because it’s going to be full of goodies.

Download it now at http://yoono.com.

I’m going to make a very bold statement. If Apple hadn’t developed boot camp when the Intel Mac was released, I’d be carrying around a Sony Vaio or Dell Inspiron notebook today. It’s completely true and I’m going to go over some things. First of all, I don’t give a crap what OS you run on your computer. If you want to spend $7,000 dollars on a tricked out Mac Pro with dual 30″ displays and throw Suse Linux on it, be my guest. What is upsetting is that Mac users are extremely passionate about what I do with my technology. How I spend my hard earned money is my business and if that makes me less of a person in your eyes then we can just no longer be friends.

Outside of the deep south, where I grew up, when someone buys an import vehicle dozens of people don’t line up to say to them that they’re a terrorist because they didn’t by a Chevy. Why am I publicly ridiculed for running Windows Vista. I’ve written about this before and received dozens of comments and replies about my lack of taste and idiocracy of running Windows Vista. It was my choice to purchase a 2.6Ghz MacBook Pro and it’s also my choice to run any operating system that I choose.

What keeps me from buying a computer from Dell? Actually, Dell is my favorite PC manufacturer right behind Apple. Yes Apple is a PC manufacturer and they make computers fully compatible with Windows XP and Vista. Dell has fantastic support and offers well made computers for an awesome price. Their social media outreach and blogging has made the company more transparent and their phone support (if you buy a business line computer) is still based in Texas and you’re talking to someone who you can understand. The only caveat to buying a Dell is that you can’t take it into a store that has a “genius bar” and their design is always a step behind Apple and not as cutting edge. A minor detail is that I can’t easily run Mac OS 10 on a Dell. I still need the Mac for creative things like music production and photo editing.

Why buy an Apple computer? Small, thin, light technology that looks exceptionally beautiful and it makes me a part of a club of other Apple users. Use an Apple and you’re somebody especially in the bay area. I love the genius bar for instant help and support and Apple’s public image makes me feel warm and fuzzy. I don’t mind paying an additional $700-$1000 dollars for that. It’s just like buying Banana Republic jackets compared to Gap jackets. They are usually the same. Actually I have a jacket that looks exactly like my friend’s but he paid $30 less at Gap but my experience at BR was better and I paid a premium.

I’m going to say something about Apple and I’d like for you to drop your egos and simply listen. Apple is a publicly traded company and investors are the only people that Apple has to please. If Apple happens to please its customers as a result of that, then good but their priority is investors and returns on their investment. Apple owes you nothing, did not ask for this community to spring up and simply makes hardware and software. They’re no different than Sun Microsystems or Oracle. I’ve worked for Apple and as a user of their products, it was the worst experience ever. Rules about what websites you can’t visit, rules about how to handle fanboys and rules about representing Apple even when you’re not at work all enclosed in a 300 page policy & procedure manual. I couldn’t even post a picture unboxing my new Mac while working at Apple. My co-workers couldn’t smoke cigarettes while wearing their Apple shirts and other wacky rules forced me out of the company. Apple doesn’t love you and I can go on and on to prove it. Steve Jobs held a door for me once while I was working at Apple campus but if I said anything like, “you rock!” he would have fired me for being a complete wacko creep.

Apple’s hardware is equal to beautiful art and if I could run the Blackberry OS on my iPhone I would but I can’t. I can run Windows Vista on my Mac so I do. Let’s talk about Vista haters. There is a very slim group of people who don’t hold it against me running Windows on my Apple computer. Instead, they attack Vista and say I should be running XP. Windows XP is unstable, insecure and unreliable. I mean that because I’ve been running it for a long time. My background is in IT and system administration for an IT company in Florida. I’ve been setting up Windows XP Pro, Windows Vista Business and Windows Server deployments since 2004 and have had my fair share of issues with all Windows OSes. I installed Windows Vista the day I received my copy in November of 2006. That’s when it was released to manufacturing and sent out to Microsoft Partners. I ran Windows Vista Business for a year and then after receiving Windows Vista Ultimate, I moved to that.

I’ve operated Windows XP and Vista on a MacBook Core2Duo 2Ghz, MacBook Pro 2.33Ghz and my current machine, a MacBook Pro 2.6Ghz without any hitches. There are issues but they are related to Apple’s Bootcamp drivers. I blame Apple for this and not Microsoft. It’s the hardware manufacturer’s responsibility to make good drivers or find them and Apple has failed at this. I’m not saying that Apple promised perfect compatibility with Vista but when I bought Leopard, it came with BootCamp 1.0 and I consider that a feature I paid for. It’s no longer a beta and Apple needs to either fully support Vista 64-bit or not. The issues I have are as follows:

1. Issues with sleep unless I log out
2. Keyboard Backlight flickers in bright or low light. It never just works
3. Audio is extremely loud even on the lowest setting
4. Battery management is crap. I’ve had vista notebooks from Dell that last a long time so I know it’s not Vista completely but with all wireless, bluetooth and monitor turned down my brand new MacBook Pro will only get 1.5 hours if I’m typing in MS Word and doing nothing else.

People have said there are other problems and I’d like to bring those up.

1. Reliability. I ran my MacBook Pro for 30 hours straight this weekend broadcasting live on Ustream with an external monitor, 10 USB devices, a webcam and nearly all 4gbs of ram in use and never had any issues that required a reboot. Applications don’t crash unless it’s just really poor software.
2. Viruses. I purchased AVG Pro 8 and it auto-updates every day and does a full scan once a week. Nothing so far. In fact, I’ve never gotten a virus on my workstation. I preemptively run Spybot, Spywareblaster and AD-Aware once a week just to keep things clean. Avoiding porn sites helps keep your computer clean. I’m serious.
3. Constant pop-ups asking if you want to allow or cancel when you’re using the computer. Turn of User Access Control and you’ll never ever get a pop-up ever again asking permission on system changes. Google it, disabling UAC takes 2 steps.
4. Slowness? Nah. I’ve never operated Vista on anything less than a 2.0Ghz Core2Duo with a modern graphics card. My first Dell that I put Vista on was a 2.4Ghz Core2 and my current Dell at home is a 3Ghz Core2Quad. Don’t put vista on your Core2Solo 1.6Ghz Toshiba with 1 gb of ram. That’s stupid.
5. Drivers. When Vista first came out, it hated my NVIDIA drivers but after a month it was fine. As most PC users do, I eventually upgrade my graphics card to a model that came out after Vista and my issues totally went away. My Macs have never had graphics card issues running Windows Vista and after SP1 came out, everything was totally resolved.
6. Total cost of ownership. Yes it’s expensive. I didn’t buy my copy of Windows Vista Ultimate orOffice Ultimate. A retail copy of Vista Ultimate 32bit is $299. Office Ultimate is $389. Pair that with a copy of Ad-Aware and AVG Pro and you’re spending a pretty penny. Let’s also assume that once a year, you need to reload the computer cause you’ve screwed it up somehow and you pay Geek Squad $250 to do that. That really ads up especially since I paid $3200 for my MacBook Pro with every add-on. To be honest, Office and Vista were free because I’m a Microsoft Partner and I do my own tech support so it’s perfect for me but I may be an exception.
7. Learning Curve. I pick up on things pretty fast and I’ve been using Windows Vista for 2 years now. I don’t have that issue anymore so it’s non-existent but that’s a factor for many people.
8. Backups. Windows Vista comes with awesome backup software. I have a G-Drive FW800 that I do daily full backups of my computer to and ShadowCopies / Previous Versions does exactly what Time Machine does up to 2 months ago.

I want to state something else. The Mac is perfect for 90% of home users that just need to surf the Internet, chat and check email. The PC is good for that small percentage that has to have games, doesn’t want to spend very much on a PC (initially). Linux is good for the tinkerer. I’d recommend the Mac OS to everyone that just needs the basics and occasionally wants to play games. I want a little more from my computer and love a little tinkering and I prefer Windows because I can stay more organized. The file system is easier for me, Office is the best suite of applications every released and Vista search is so fast and functional. The sidebar kicks dashboard’s arse and the bottom toolbar is functional in every way I can imagine.

If you don’t have a knack for IT, figuring out drivers and doing your own tech support than get a Mac with Leopard but I like a little more fun out of my computer but I don’t like the standard PC laptop design. Apple gives me more and I’m a part of this special pretentious club and I like it. That’s the root of it. I like Windows and being a part of your club so I’ll stick with Apple for a while. Let’s get off each other’s back and just use our computers how we want. I love bashing as much as the next person but the Vista bashing is just old now. It’s not cool anymore so let’s take a chill pill.

I’ve told the story countless times of my friend Liana and how a sudden illness caused a chain of events and now she is in the hospital being treated. By following tweets from Scott Bourne, it appears that tonight (Sunday the 19th) her condition worsened and she is now in ICU. Having told the story there were a few things I omitted that made a huge difference in my efforts to raise money for a cause which she approved of.

1. I am not paid by Podango or Liana for my help
2. I never intended to benefit from this venture financially
3. I never mislead or lied about anything when I was handling this crisis.

However, as the weekend unfolded, I came under fire from people both on stage and behind the scenes. This blog post will be about my effort to fulfill a wish from a friend and the fire I came under as a result. Less than 24 hours after hearing that the studio space Liana was President of would be closing down I pleaded for that not to happen and for options. Doug of Podango gave me a few options and I went with the route of collecting contracts from commercial entities that wanted to use the space but that was an uphill battle and did not equal results.

I spoke to Liana while she was in the hospital about a donation or charity kind of plan and she disapproved. Liana did not want handouts or donations. She did however say that if we offered people something of value in exchange for their donations, that would be acceptable. I envisioned the title, “charter member” for those who donate and that we make the space a place for independent filmmakers, audio engineers who are still in school and podcasters to come and create great content in a relaxed environment. She loved it and we chatted briefly about forming a not-for-profit organization and how being involved with our neighbor, the SF School of Digital Filmmaking would be a great in to market this space.

I went with it and built out the infrastructure across the web. I called Liana Saturday afternoon around 6PM and said that I was going to move forward with a telethon and she said, “ok let’s do it.” and she graciously thanked me for my help and for everyone’s help. I later learned Melissa, a friend of Liana and member of Girls Gone Geek, had also spoken to Liana and received the same approval regarding an Internet Telethon. With that, we moved forward beginning at 6:30PM PST via Ustream.TV.

After 2 hours, we had gathered nearly $1,000 in donations. We were telling people to not donate and instead help spread the word about the studio space so we could also find potential corporate sponsors for our space to help cover most costs. The whole time I continued to say that Liana asked for this and that I was not asking for money and only doing this to help out a friend. Unfortunately, this statement is what caused the most problems. By making the benefit sound like Liana’s health and wellbeing and saving the studio were one in the same, I came under fire by parties that thought it was fishy and completely amiss from what should be the focus and that was Liana’s speedy recovery and her health.

Either way, I continued my campaign and by 5PM (22 hours later) on Sunday we had reached $2,000 dollars in donations. I might also add that these donations were more like pledges. I couldn’t touch the funds that you sent and in order to approve them I had to attach a bank account to the Paypal account to even accept the money so the donations would sit in a form of escrow and would be easily refunded if our plan didn’t work.

It was shortly after we broke $2200 dollars in pledges that I saw a tweet from Scott Bourne, a close friend of Liana’s, that she had been taken to The ICU and her condition was serious. At this moment, things changed. This entire rally that was now at hour 23 had to change the course. The request Liana had given to me that she wanted the studio to stay alive was still in my mind but her illness was worsening and I had some decisions to make.

At this time, our rally to save the studio because Liana asked us to became a rally to save Liana and the studio. We didn’t properly identify the needs of this effort and confusion hit and that’s when people began to ask what we were actually asking money for? The mob mentality broke and it was me against the world. Those that had been with me since hour one (which started on Friday by the way when I heard the studio would be closed) understood that I was simply fulfilling a request from my friend but others saw this as something totally different and each person interpreted things differently.

I took a step back, gathered my thoughts and let some individuals who had donated take over the room. I went home since I had not been home in two days and checked in to the room. My friend Kolin was fending off a mob of people talking about the future of their donations and the studio, I saw Leo Laporte tweeting about the separation of the studios and Liana’s wellness and I noticed that my efforts were noble but were not delivered properly and the confusing that ensued was not reversible.

At the same time, getting in contact with the CEO of the film school to discuss the price of taking over the lease was impossible on the weekend and that discussion was a key aspect in moving forward with buying the equipment from Podango and taking over the space as an independent studio. Since negotiations weren’t happening and the clock was ticking I had to communicate with those in support of the studio’s success and fulfilling Liana’s request to keep it alive. The issue is with Liana’s current condition, the studio would certainly not be on her mind. The clock was running out for us and we couldn’t move forward with any negotiations without her. With her wellness as my top priority, I made a tough decision to go against her wishes and scrap the contribution and fundraiser efforts.

I knew that people were behind this because of Liana and because they believed in Liana’s idea of having a community co-working studio but I visited the idea that if we ask each donor if they’d like a refund or have their money go to Liana I received some criticism from people saying that if I did that, even asking people what they wanted to do meant that I had misleaded everyone (including donors) and that I would be a liar for a crook. At the same time, more people were getting suspicious with Liana’s recent move to ICU, the chances of reviving the studios in time were getting slim so I decided the following:

1. Announce that we were ending the fundraising event on the web and Ustream.TV
2. Returning every penny to every single contributor (which has been completed)
3. Letting everyone know to send your full support and well-wishes to Liana and not the studio. Liana needs our prayers right now and we need to focus our good thoughts to her recovery.

My effort to fulfill Liana’s wish and save the studio was a failure. My 48 hour journey was nearly successful but at the end of the day, my friend’s health comes first and I must admit that when I ended the telethon at 6PM, I sat in front of the camera and told everyone that we had missed the point and that this had gone on too far. Liana needed our support right now and we’re trying to save a building. The diggs, tweets and links / donations needs to stop and we need to move forward with focusing on Liana’s recovery and not the saving of this space. I walked away and, yes, this grown man cried. I sobbed over my friend because for the first time in my life, I realized that I had a friend that wasn’t well and I was afraid. I’ve never had a friend like Liana and I was wrong the whole time for not focusing more on her than some building. The money has been refunded and I will now focus all efforts on Liana’s health.

I want to send out a huge thanks to everyone who supported us throughout this 48 hour sleep-deprived journey. I met some amazing people who are not greedy and care only for other people. I’ve spoken to over 500 people via phone, email, IM, Twitter and chat room over the past 2 days and everyone is in full support of Liana and their donation was for a studio that was operated by Liana. In their minds, it was a package deal and the space couldn’t exist without her. I feel that I have made the right decision. I hope I have and I owe so much to the people that supported me this weekend. I’m now shedding tears of joy knowing that there are some truly amazing people in this world. Thank you. We raised $2,645 dollars in contributions. I’m astonished and in awe. This concludes hour 42 of no sleep.

Now please drop Liana a line and let’s wish her a speedy recovery.

These are our donations so far (8:30AM)

This is the times that donations were pledged

Live Video streaming by Ustream

We don’t want everyone to donate. Just helping to spread the word and raising awareness about this would be helpful.

UPDATE: Any company that donates $1000, will get a month of free advertising on the MyMac.com Podcast!

if you donate $250 and put in your donation that you’d like space on “rob’s websites” just mention it in your paypal donaction.

1. Twitter: Please tweet this page or a link to our Ustream.TV stream talking about it.
2. Blog about it and link back to us.
3. Buy things!
a. A friend is selling an item on eBay and the sale goes to us bid here and here and here.
b. Buy headphones from Radius Earphones and use the code “SAVEPODANGO”. You’ll save $5 on your order and all proceeds go to the fund.
4. Write blogs, newspapers and television stations in your area! This would be a huge help. Send one email. It may go really far.

Thanks everyone. Below are links of coverage so far:
http://dailytechtalk.com/2008/10/a-call-to-arms-i-need-your-help/
http://dailytechtalk.com/2008/10/project-save-the-studio-is-live/
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/save-the-studio
http://mashable.com/2008/10/17/podango-productions/

It’s been nearly 30 hours since I began this quest to saving Liana’s studio space. She has given her graces along the way to continue with what I’m doing. Liana is my friend and I’m accepting no money for this at all and just trying to help keep this studio alive. I wouldn’t continue on if she hadn’t asked me to so here goes.

After much deliberation and planning, we’re going to host a fund raiser tonight to help the studio stay a part of the community and not be sold off piece by piece. We’re going to keep this studio alive. We have an outside party who is friends with Liana who has offered to purchase all of the equipment from the current owners and negotiations have already been initiated. With the money raised this weekend, we’ll be able to sign a new lease on this building and form a new company. The company will be a public use studio that will allow independent filmmakers and podcasters to create great content for the web. Hopefully, with a couple of corporate sponsorships and donations the studio can stay around for years to come.

Inspiring people with great ideas is what this will be about. Everyone can make a difference. The studio is not a not for profit organization yet but everyone that donates this weekend will be added as a “charter member” and be recognized for their generosity in helping the studio become independent. We can do this and I’m going to do everything I can to make this a reality for Liana. I’ll be live all night tonight at Ustream.TV accepting call-ins and I hope you’ll join me in the fight to save the studio.

We’re located at 2331 3rd street in San Francisco. Please text me or email if you’d like to swing by and be a part of the experience in person. My contact info is below. Everyone else, please do your part in spreading the word on Twitter, blogs and on your own podcasts. The stream starts at 7PM Pacific Time.

Here is the info for spreading the word and donating:
UPDATE: Any company that donates $1000, will get a month of free advertising on the MyMac.com Podcast!

1. Ustream.TV Show Link

3. Blog to watch for all information (here)
4. Paypal account to donate to
5. Or: Click this button:

6. My Twitter Account (for all updates)
7. Pre-written tweet: Please help @adamjackson and @fittorrent save the podcast studio from liquidation. http://tinyurl.com/6j6886
8. CALL IN: Our skype number is (408) 844-4130. I’ll get to every call that I can.

9. Liana’s email is [email protected] please send her your thoughts.

Free TV Show from Ustream

Here’s Liana’s Qik stream showing a tour of the studio.

This is the first personal post on this blog in a long time. It’s extremely personal and I hope you or your friends can help me with this. My best friend mysteriously went missing on October 4th. I’ve been desperately spending my days trying to find her when I learned she was in the hospital in LA. She has been very sick and unable to communicate with friends. Her family is finally with her and contacted me today (the 17th) and gave me an update.

I don’t know if she’s going to be ok. Her personal life was private although she was a very active member of the social media and San Francisco tech community. Me and Laura happily considered her our best friend. The recent events are so unfortunate that Laura and I will be going down to visit her. I’ve always wanted to go to LA but not on these conditions.

Here’s the problem with this situation. I worked for her part time as an assistant. She operated a Podcasting studio here in SoMa, San Francisco called Podango. She was over the day to day activities of the studio as the sole employee and I helped out. Well, she’s been missing for all of these days. We’ve lost every contract and we are 17 days behind on paying bills. I’ve spoken to the CEO of the company in Utah and here’s the deal. He’s going to close the studios on Monday and liquidate the nearly 50 thousand dollars in audio equipment. I pleaded with him and he told me that if I can get 4 grand in contracts for the space for this month then we can save the studio.

This is my friend’s livelihood and a place where our friends come to produce awesome content. We’re a proud member of the new media community by sponsoring events, taking part in barcamps and letting people use the space for free when they’re getting started. Our bread & butter is corporate contracts and now those are all gone. I have until Sunday to make this a reality and I think it’s a job that’s bigger than I am.

I’m begging for your help. Please contact me at [email protected] and I’ll send your our fees for renting the space. If you live in the bay area and know someone that needs the space then I can even give them a first month’s discount but we need people here and we have to break even. I’m not making any money from this. We just have to save the studio because it would break my friend’s heart and she’s too sick with an unknown illness. I can’t even contact her right now so i’m doing all of this for her. THANKS!

You can contact me a few ways:
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: adamjackson

Here are some of Liana’s social network spaces:
Friendfeed
blog
Flickr
Twitter1
Twitter2
Upcoming
Flickr photos tagged with lianalehua

[UPDATED]
I’m sending this email to friends. Feel free to pass it on.

Please forward this if you can and hopefully we can get the business going in her absence. Thank you!

Here is a photo slideshow of our space:

[UPDATED 2X]
I’d like to clarify something in order to clear up things that I said earlier over Twitter and on Mashable.

If anyone reading this wants to see this podcasting studio continue as a community facility, then maybe there’s a chance we can raise the cash to acquire the assets and pay the rent.

New MacBooks and new Macbook Pros come out in less than 16 hours. Stop freaking speculating already. I don’t give a crap about part numbers, builds, price points, specs, CPU ratings, chip speeds, design, fabrication or who Steve Jobs hired to build the freaking computers. I don’t give a crap! So let’s just stop speculating about this. Trust me. I’m sure everyone that reads gadget blogs is not dumb enough at this point to buy a notebook tonight. If you’ve been reading Gizmodo for the past 30 days and you decide to buy a laptop from Apple tonight you’re an idiot and deserve what you get.

So why does every gadget blog insist on posting more and more speculation and breaking news? At this point, it doesn’t freaking matter. SHUT IT!

Today I hit 29 thousand tweets. This is monumental for me. I’ll be at 35K very soon. I spent a bit of time tonight investigating Twitterholic and realized that I have the most tweets of any human in The United States. According to Twitterholic, there are some people with 50K in tweets from Japan and Australia that are real people but most Twitter accounts with over 30K in updates are actually bots and not real humans having conversation.

I’m going to make the claim right now that I have the most tweets of any living breathing human in the US. I dare someone to challenge that!

On September 18th, I hit 28,000 tweets, had 1,009 followers and had received 1,112 DMs.
On October 3rd, I hit 29,000 tweets, had 1,120 followers and had received 1,275 DMs.

In 16 days I:
posted 1,000 Unique Tweets
retained 111 new followers
received 163 DMS

I’m extremely happy with how my Twitter career is going and I’m sure it’s going to get even better from here on.

Lately, I haven’t been blogging here at DailyTechTalk. It’s mostly consisted of updates over at the Yoono blog and all about social media and social networking. DTT will be revived shortly but Yoono’s blog is where it’s at for the next couple of weeks.

Check it out!
Subscribe via RSS!

I love Loopt. It was on the iPhone at launch and had a rocky start but after the smoke cleared I found it to be a fun app. You could share your location with friends and when you update your location, a message was posted to Twitter and Facebook with a link to your exact coordinates on Google Maps. Yesterday, 1.1 of Loopt was released with some new additions.

One of the main features was called “Loopt Mix” which looks at your current locations and shows others in your area. You can be-friend them or send them a message. Their email address is hidden by a loopt.com address. Users can opt-in for the service for those that are concerned about privacy. I immediately turned it on and opted in as a guy that was interested in “networking and business” and for a little fun I clicked that i was interested in “women.” It asks for your birthday and gender and you’re done.

When I opened Loopt this is what I saw:

It’s all guys. That’s fine with me. I wasn’t actually looking to meet women but I was surprised when I opened up all 20 guys in my area’s profiles and realized they were all interested in “men.” Once again, that’s ok with me. I’m not gay and don’t mind meeting gay men as long as they understand that it’s strictly friendship. The funny thing is, I received a message from a guy named “Oliver” today:

I responded that I’m fine and he immediately asked, “you wanna hang out later at my place?” C’MON! My profile says that I’m interested in women. Now I’m being asked to hook up by some guy. Looks like I’ll be turning off Loopt Mix for a while because at this time, the entire 5 mile radius around me is full of gay men looking to go out.

That’s fine if that’s what Loopt has become but I guess I no longer belong there. A place where I thought I could meet new people with an easy to use location aware app has shifted to a different set of people. No worries. There’s always brightkite.

Who ever would have thought that I’d be posting one of these. I do post a thing saying “i’m too busy for this” about once every 6 months. It comes in waves, ya know. Anyway, traffic continues to be great for all four blogs but I’m doing some things behind the scenes and that’s keeping me busy.

My primary responsibility right now is my day job(s) and those are more important than blogging. There are about 4-10 posts that have been in my head for the past 2 weeks and I just don’t have time to write them. Actually, this weekend is a good time for that so stay tuned.

My podcast is recorded and just needs to be edited so I’m pretty sure you’ll be seeing that over the weekend.

I think we’ve decided on a venue for the Macworld 2009 party and we’re accepting sponsorships. Don’t be afraid but sponsorships start at $500 and every bit of sponsor money goes into prizes and food for the party. Seriously, it’s going to be an awesome party.

My last project has taken a backseat lately due all of this going on and I hope that my partner isn’t too upset with me. He knows that I’m busy and hopefully will forgive me.

This week was a little slow but Tuesday night, I started getting a cold. By Wednesday, my body ached, nose was dripping and the fever set in. It’s funny because I also had some foot problems and my top wisdom teet started coming in. It’s Friday morning and I’m just completely helpless. I’m still doing my work from home but am not feeling well at all so hopefully most of this will be behind me and I can catch up on projects over the weekend including some blogging and podcasting for DTT. There is also a lot of Macworld questions in my inbox that must be replied to.

Basically, I’m busy but I haven’t let you down yet. Thanks everyone for subscribing to the RSS feed and showing some support.