media

Use the Web to keep two PCs in sync

Featured on this week's Real Deal podcast: Synchronizing two computers. If you want to know how to keep yourself sane if you regularly use more than one PC, tune into this show for a rundown of my tips on how to keep files, bookmarks, and e-mail synchronized over the Web.

Products mentioned:

FolderShare LogMeIn SimplifyMedia Orb FoxMarks Del.icio.us Google Docs and Spreadsheets.

If you want to join the ongoing discussion, come on over to the Real Deal forums.

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Apple's lock on the media...

There's no other company quite like Apple. They have security that rivals defense contractors and there is a whole legion of websites dedicated to gathering inside information and publishing company "secrets." It's not muckraking either, most of these investigators are devout Apple fans with a thirst for any undisclosed information about their favorite company. The most perplexing aspect of Apple's cult-like position in our society is the way the company manages to consistently invoke the press' interest.

It's still unclear exactly what Apple will be introducing at their press event tomorrow, but the mainstream media is already talking. Usually when companies host a media event to launch a new product, the product is the news. For Apple, the event itself becomes news. In today's San Francisco Chronicle, the lead headline on the front page of the Business section reads, "What news awaits the apple faithful?" The article goes on to surface the various rumors that have been percolating on the various apple rumors sites. Even the headline itself, invokes the almost religious zeal that Mac aficionados hold close to their heart.

Toshiba's big and clever hard drives

Toshiba has announced new ranges of hard drives that it believes are larger or cleverer than anything that came before them.

First up is EasyGuard, which is all about hoarding and protecting your data. The first product in the range is an external 2.5-inch laptop hard drive with a massive 320GB capacity and a 'freefall' sensor that protects the read/write heads in the event of shocks or drops.

The second EasyGuard product is a "ruggedized" (but not freefall-enabled) external hard drive with a fingerprint reader (pictured). The idea is that this'll keep your data secure, … Read more

CNET Live - Episode 21 - Show Notes

Never ever drink St. Pauli Girl N.A. It's a mistake. Believe me, my stomach is reminding meright now. It's not even alcoholic!!

But aside from that we had a great showtoday. All your calls, and good calls too. Of course we did a few of our regular segments. Here's all the notes.

Watch the show on CNET TV.

Things we Crave

Pool convections system 2

Creative TravelSound i50

First Look

Burton Lil Buddy Speaker Cooler

Download of the Week

Media Coder.

Insider Secrets

Portable Apps.

Make Photoshop portable

Your calls

Stream music with Bluetooth using these … Read more

Nokia takes on Apple with music store

Yesterday, top cellphone maker Nokia announced Ovi, an umbrella brand for a forthcoming set of online services. Among these services is a new Nokia Music Store, which will offer both over-the-air and PC-based downloads, with two-way sync between device and PC. The service will launch in Europe, featuring a catalog of "millions" of tracks. Individual song downloads will cost 1 Euro and full albums 10 Euros. A subscription, PC-tethered, streaming-only service will also be available for 10 Euros per month. (The whiz-bang Flash site introducing Ovi is here. A press release is here.)

The service leverages Nokia's … Read more

What the heck will they blend on YouTube next!?

Apparently, blenders aren't just for smoothies and margaritas anymore.

Ever try blending golf balls? Light bulbs? Cell phones? A rake handle? An iPod? I bet not, but I have a sneaking suspicion that you have watched Tom Dickson from Blendtec blend some of these things on YouTube.

A few months ago, I used the "Will It Blend?" campaign for an article on Marketing Profs.

Since then, the campaign has continued on (Tom blended an iPhone this summer, for instance) and is now arguably one of the best examples of YouTube-based social-media marketing (SMM) to date.

The YouTube-based … Read more

Digg doesn't have a photo section yet, but these seven sites do

The update to Digg yesterday brought with it a handful of tweaks, although notably absent was the much anticipated photos section. Keep in mind that you'll still find Digg saturated in photos, there's just not a bona fide section for them, or way to view pictures on-site. While confirmed on the official Digg blog that a special photo section is on track for October (two months from now), there's already a handful of sites to get your fix for photos made popular by real people. Here are seven of my favorites:

Reddit Media isn't actually endorsed … Read more

Slide.com: Millions of widgets, widgets for me

Embeddable widget powerhouse Slide gained buzz as a way to display photo slide shows on MySpace, but then saw meteoric growth as part of the Facebook Platform initiative. Now, the company has announced that 1 million of its Flash-based widgets are added to the network's servers every day for non-Facebook social media platforms. Slide's Facebook widgets, which rank No. 1, No. 2, and No. 6 on the list of most popular embeddable applications on the white-hot social network, are not Flash-based and consequently were not included in the tally.

Note that this refers to widgets created, not "… Read more

Plaxo gets naked, opens up some source code

Contact management site Plaxo, which has begun dabbling in social networking with its new-ish Pulse service, has announced that it has opened up a piece of its source code to developers and anyone else who might want to play around with it. The company has released the code for its new "Online Identity Consolidator," which can automatically discover a user's social-networking accounts across the Web and embed their related RSS feeds on a Plaxo Pulse profile.

It's only a small piece of Plaxo's overall architecture, but considering the service's vocal mission of openness and … Read more

MediaMaster's Facebook app close to perfect for music sharing

MediaMaster is one of many companies worth keeping an eye on, mainly for the potential of having your entire music library available anywhere you go, as long as you've got an Internet connection. Their Facebook app, which went live just a few weeks ago, is a prime example of a great use of the service.

The app lets you set up a huge playlist of music, and serve it up right on your profile in a miniplayer. Anyone who comes by your profile can then get the full quality versions of the tracks streamed in whatever order you set … Read more