tasty blog snack

Wow, so this weekend I went to Vegas with Symantec with their “Blast off with Norton” promo to do the Zero Gravity flight!

It was seriously so much fun — It’s way too hard to even explain the feeling of being weightless for the first time ever. I have a lot more videos and photos that I’ll put up in another entry. The above video is one that they edited for everyone who was there.

Also, as you can see my ostrich was there for every step of the way.

Now, not only was this an extremely fun experience.. but I also got to hear first hand all about their latest product launch: Norton 2009. Everything that has probably annoyed you about security software in the past, they’ve fixed.

Even though I’m not a big PC user, I have used them in the past and can tell you how much I hated dealing with the any and all anti-virus software.. until now!

They’ve made it much more ‘mac like’ with one click install and is completed in under a minute. Everything has been completely restructured so instead of infected files being on a blacklist, they’ve started using a technique dubbed the Norton Insight. This is a white list of most commonly used files and applications across all computers running Norton 2009.

Instead of wasting time rescanning these already deemed safe files (Firefox, Microsoft Office, etc) it moves on. This can easily be compared to bit-torrent for file security. Oh, and they’ll never bug you for an update when your gaming, watching a movie or doing anything important

I’m very interested to see how this will work out. I’ve only been able to play with a demo since this version is currently PC only (this will be the one time I’m actually a bit jealous of you PC users). I was assured that there will be a Mac update soon

You can get more info about Norton 2009 here!

Thanks again, Symantec for the amazing time! ..and look for more photos and videos in the next few days or so. I have a lot of both.

I’m just getting back from the Cusp Conference in Chicago. I spoke about the internet and talked a lot on life casting. I told a bunch of stories that I’m sure many of you have either heard me tell before or actually watched them happen live

This was by far one of my favorite conferences. What made this one so much different is that it wasn’t based around how to make money online or an expo with tons of people pushing their products on you.

Cusp had an amazing speaker lineup of people who were passionate about their art, career and connecting with people on a personal level. It was all about inspiration, design and creativity.

These are the people I saw speak the first day: musical prodigy Thomas Chen, community builder Mike Ivers, artist/architect Adam Kalk, body hacker Quinn Norton, robotics engineer Dr. Ayanna Howard, musician Kristy Hawkshaw, intellectual property lawyer Brian Murphy, and film maker / director Douglas Gayeton.

I am very excited to have been asked to speak at this conference and it was a lot of fun! Big thanks to everyone who made that event possible. Everything was extremely organized and very well put toghgether. I will be looking forward to it next year and would definitely encourage you all to check it out if you can.

Lastly, Dayna got me an extra special junior mint treat from a candy expo here in Chicago! These are mini-junior mints — as if they could get anymore junior!!! So amazing.

I also managed to visit the Apple Store for a few minutes too!

The store front that I was talking about.

Despite what might be slightly grammatically incorrect, Apple announced yesterday at the Let’s Rock event the “funnest iPod ever” — the new iPod touch.

What’s new in this little guy? I think most importantly they added a built-in speaker. I was a bit annoyed when I tried to play Tap Tap Revenge on my sister’s iPod Touch and I didn’t have headphones!

• Built-in speakers & volume button
• Wireless support for Nike+
• Thinner with contoured stainless steel enclosure
• Longer battery life
• Now priced at $229-$399 for 8g, 16g, and 32g models

…and that’s not all kids! As we expected, there’s a new iPod nano..or should I say 9 new ones? The new nano-chromatic iPod comes in an array of new colors with 8g ($149) and 16g ($199) capacity.

One of the coolest little additions is they now have an accelerometer like the iPhones and touch! This means you can flip these little guys horizontal to view coverflow album artwork, watch movies and play games a little more effectively. Well, as effective as possibly on a 320 x 240 screen..

Oh, and did I mention you can just shake the nano to shuffle a new song in your library? Yeah, I like that.

A few other things worth a brief mention:

• iTunes 8.0 is out - new visualizer is awesome!
• NBC shows are back on iTunes - YES!!
• There’s still an iPod Classic, black or white 120GB - $249
• Steve is looking quite thin
• Nike+ is built-in to the new touch and nano’s - maybe I’ll work out now
• Apparently laser engraving is free on everything

That’s that! What did you guys think of the keynote yesterday? I still haven’t had a chance to watch it all.

Not to bring it up again, but the word funnest just makes me feel uncomfortable. Blah, Steve!

I’m only in SF for awhile but I was able to make it out to the MySpace party last night to hang with the tech kids.

As always, Wm. Marc Salsberry was out and about taking photos of everyone (all of these are his). Thankfully he did, because I came back with an empty SD card! Above is his iPhone etching!

Found a fellow Pittsburgher ozsultan and I sporting our Ed Hardy shirts. I just got mine at Zeny’s here in SF!

..and last but not least, I finally met Michael Arrington. He’s actually really short as you can tell by the above photo.

Aww this cute little goldfish only had one little baby eye! We bought him

I’m hosting an episode of the Real World / Road Rules show “The Island” at Buffalo Wild Wings that will air on October 8th! It’s going to be a trivia game show episode with 3 past Real World cast members… and a wing eating contest. It’s pretty funny!

Shauvon from Real World Sydney, (me), Brooke from Denver, and Frank from Vegas — complete with his name placard.

Fabien shooting some behind-the-scenes with his Flip Mino.

I love the chroma key TVs!

There was also a Stacker game in the back that I filmed a quick video of.. but haven’t had a chance to edit it yet. I’ll put that up later!

1… 2… 3… go!

(and yes, this toilet is plugged in)

Best caption gets a t-shirt and some random things on my desk