Lately I haven’t had time to watch any TV or even listen to Podcast’s that I would listen to on a weekly basis. One thing I always try to do is listen or watch things that inspire me or make me want to do more. Surprisingly the Random Show is one of those things. The Random Show was put together by Kevin Rose and Tim Ferris where they talk about traveling, investing, technology, health etc. Kevin Rose is the founder of Digg.com, but you also may know him from The Screen Savers back in the old TechTV days. Tim Ferris is best know for his book The 4-Hour Workweek
February 2010 Thoughts
2010 is sure going by very quickly! It is already March and it seems like it was just the new year not that long ago! This month hasn’t been the best here is Pittsburgh as we’ve had some of the worst snow storms in recent memory as you could tell from my Snowed In post. I was extremely busy working on a new project and ThinkComputers last month so I was only able to write 6 posts, my favorite out of them would have to be the Things I love about Pittsburgh
Mentioned in the New York Times
Back in January I wrote an article on ThinkComputers about this year’s experience at CES, where companies were getting thrown out of hotels because they did not register with the CEA. I also reposted the article on this blog as I wanted to share my experience with all of the readers here. About a week after the article was posted I was contacted by the New York Times, they interviewed me for about 30 minutes about the article and my CES experience this year compared to last year. I was pretty cool being interviewed, I have only been interviewed 2 other times and it was by websites, not a big publication like the New York Times. Here is a quote from the article…
Things I Love About Pittsburgh
Well if you didn’t know I’ve been living in Pittsburgh all my life. I’ve live in the suburbs most of my life but I moved closer into the city about a year ago. You really learn a lot about a city when you live in it. I’ve learned even more since living closer to the city and going out more. I originally got the idea for this post from Michael Kwan who did 2 posts about the things he likes and dislikes about Vancouver. So I figured I know a lot about Pittsburgh I should let you know the things I like and dislike about Pittsburgh. This post is the things I love about Pittsburgh, but believe me there are things I dislike so stay tuned for that post as well!
SUSHISAMBA at the Palazzo
When you think of Las Vegas you think huge casinos and gambling, but Las Vegas has some of the best restaurants in the county. Hell even some of the buffets are really good! I’ve had some of the best meals of my life in Vegas. The Rodizio Fire Pit at Rum Jungle was awesome, my monstrous shrimp cocktail and 22oz porterhouse at Envy Steakhouse was just great and the 5-course meal I had Zeffirino was simply amazing. Oncec again this year in Las Vegas I had one of the best meals of my life, definitely the best sushi of my life!
Super Bowl Ads 2010
I’m not a huge football fan, especially when the Steelers are not playing, but I did watch the Super Bowl this year. The Reason? The ads of course! Before we get into that congrats to the Saints for pulling out the 31-17 victory over the Colts, the onside kick to start the 2nd half was brilliant. According to the Super Bowl XLIV Wikipedia page the broadcast had a US audience of 106.5 million viewers and scored a Nielsen rating of 46.4 with a 68 share, the highest for a Super Bowl since Super Bowl XX in 1986.
Snowed In!
If you live anywhere from the mid to north east part of the country this weekend should have been interesting for you. It all started Friday evening when a light snow started to fall and by late that night we had about a foot of snow on the ground and it didn’t stop snowing until sometime Saturday! It was pretty crazy, seeing people try to dig their cars out and failing horribly. Luckily I didn’t really have to go anywhere all weekend and I had enough food to last me so I didn’t have to leave my apartment. My friends came over Friday night and were stuck here till Sunday!
January 2010 Thoughts
Wow it’s already a month into 2010! January was a really crazy month for me as I was in Las Vegas for CES. I tried to fill everyone in on my trip, but I still have 3-4 posts to publish, so stay tuned for those. Out of the 9 posts from January my favorite would have to be My 2009 Year In Review. It is always good to look back and see what you were doing and having a blog enables you to look back. That is why I love blogging, from time to time I will go back and read my old posts to remember fun times, get new ideas, and just to look at old photos. That’s just another reason to start blogging if you haven’t already.
Backupify – Secure Your Online Life
I use many online services and I’m sure you do too. If you don’t think you do you probably at least have a Facebook account. So you put tons of photos on there, write long notes, get tagged in photos etc. What if for some reason Facebook crashed and you lost all of those images and other important things on Facebook? This is very unlikely to happen, but it is always good to have a backup of everything. This is where Backupify comes in. It’s a service that backs up many cloud services and for a limited time (till Jan 31st) the service is free.
Is CES Slowly Going Away?
I myself have been going to CES for 5 years now. For ThinkComputers it is really the highlight of the entire year, we really don’t attend any other trade shows. We get to see the latest technology, new products and catch up with old friends, not to mention getting to spend a week in Vegas. Something really stood out to me this year during CES…it was very small! Also this year CEA (the company that runs CES) tried to kick out many exhibitors who opted to use hotel rooms instead of paying for a booth.
Lenovo’s Blogger Nights
Another really cool event I was able to attend during CES this year was Lenovo’s Blogger Nights. This was a 3 day event hosted at AquaKnox at the Venetian. The entire event was hosted by Lenovo, but each night was co-hosted by someone else. Wednesday night was co-hosted by social media club, Thursday Night was co-hosted by Social Media Jungle and Friday night was co-hosted by GDGT. Because CES was so crazy we were only able to make it on the last night, which was Friday.
The 2010 PC Race For Charity
The PC Race is one of the best events to attend during CES. Not only is it for a good cause, but you really get to network with a lot of people and hell it has the best food! Also it’s probably the only place you will be able to find most of the tech media all in one place! So the way this event works is that 30 contestants all tech media see who can build a computer the quickest with the winner getting $10,000 towards the charity of their choice. Second and third place also get cash prizes for charity and everyone’s computer that gets built does get donated to their charity so it is a win-win!
The CES 2010 Swag
One thing that is great about going to conferences is all the free swag you get. Since I go to these events as media many companies have made up gift bags especially for media members. Another thing that I’ve also noticed is that the more established your site is the better swag you get! This year I really didn’t want to pick up that much swag mainly because I never really use half of it and it is a pain to pack in my suitcase, but I did get quite a few useful things this year.
The 2010 Night Before CES Party
Everyone knows the Night Before CES Party is always the best! It’s always packed, there is a great DJ, free food and drinks and of course they have it at the best location, Palms Place. This year the party was hosted by Cooltronics, Futurelooks, and Redux. Last year we were on the 56th floor of Palms Place, but this year we were up on the 58th floor! Once again this floor only has 4 suites all of which feature 3,120 square feet of space, a pool table, full kitchen, and five 42-inch plasma TV’s. It’s the perfect place to have a party!
In Vegas for a Week
Well it’s that time of year again, off to Vegas for CES. This trip is always a lot of fun and it sure gives me a break from all of the holiday madness of the past month. It also is good to get out of Pittsburgh and the cold, although it is only around 50 degrees in Vegas it is sure a lot better than like 15-20 degrees in Pittsburgh, and there is no snow!