Online Home of Derek Meister
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ABC World News took a look at the “Twitter Christmas” in this report about how retail companies are using social media resources like Twitter and Facebook to reach out to the public.
I had a chance to speak about our own @Twelpforce in the report, as I answered incoming tweets while on-camera.
An update to the Xbox 360 software today made available a few new services for Xbox Live users. Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm all now have apps in the My Community tab
Personally, I’m not sure how often I’ll use the new features, if only because they don’t offer quite the number of features more mature Facebook and Twitter clients have on other platforms.
For those of us already on Twitter, it’ll certainly help make the service even more popular with the general public, which may or may not be a good thing.
Still, it’s an interesting upgrade for players looking to keep up with their friends and family’s social media content, all without leaving the couch.
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I had an opportunity to speak to the Fox 8 Morning News team about how to reduce your energy bill by killing off “vampire power” used by your home gadgets.
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One of our favorite things to do as Geek Squad Agents is to find new ways to bring technology into our lives to improve upon the experience. Holidays is no exception, as this video I created based on the Halloween graveyard lightshow I put together for my home display.
The video is a simple overview of how to technify your decorations with the addition of two components, the first of which is a programmable light controller that can control any number of lights and other electrical Halloween decorations in a choreographed light show.
There are many different companies that make controllers, such as Light-O-Rama or D-Light. If you’re a hobbyist, you can purchase kits to assemble yourself, or if you’d like, you can even find fully pre-assembled starter packages with everything you’d need.
The second component you’ll need is a computer to control your electronic light show. In my case, I use an Intel Atom-based computer running Microsoft Windows 7, but the system requirements for a project like this are basic enough that just about any home computer will do.
To program the light controller, you first create a show combining your lighting instructions with the audio or music of your choice. Sequencing software to do this comes in many different forms, from very simple command line programs to more advanced graphical interface software, such as Aurora, which is featured in my video.
Once your sequence is completed, it can be loaded into a scheduler program on the computer, to be played back on the day and time you select. The computer is then connected to the light controller by either network cable or through a special wireless link, so that the light commands can be played back by the controller in time with the audio from the computer.
While there is a good amount of work involved in setting up a holiday light show of your own, it can be very rewarding when the local trick-or-treaters stop by and almost forget to ask for their candy because they’re too busy watching the show.
Over the weekend, I lost my beloved iPhone to an inopportune 4 foot drop onto hard concrete. The case I had the phone in protected the outside of the phone reasonably well, as there’s not an external dent, nick or scratch anywhere on phone. However, the impact shook something up, because now the LCD display isn’t working at all.
Because of the accident, I decided to see just how long I could last without my little portable computer substitute.
I lasted 3 days.
Yes, I upgraded to a shiny new 32GB iPhone 3GS. Only this time, I made sure to purchase it through Best Buy so that I could get accidental damage coverage to prevent another long, dark weekend of iPhone withdrawal.