Just a quick update on the TechNest Weekly Report podcast and its future:

This Friday’s TechNest Weekly Report will focus on the topics of usability and web advertising.

More importantly, I wanted to let all the readers of TechNest Report know that I am looking for a co-host and participants for the show.  This will allow me to take the podcast into a conversation rather than a monologue (by me), making it more entertaining.  Have a co-host and/or guests will also bring some new and fresh perspectives and points of view.

So if you yourself are interested in co-hosting and/or being a guest on the show with me or know somebody who is,  please head on over to the contact page and let me know.

In case you’re wondering what’s going with the blog: I’ll have a post up later today and every day until Friday, which is podcast day.

Thanks and keep on techin’,

Update: all fixed; update your feeds.  Sorry for the hassle.

It turns out that FeedBurner is horrible at burning podcast feeds for shows whos descriptions are a bit longer than ten lines.

I’ll be working for the next hour or so to get this fixed and transfer the feed from FeedBurner to a self-hosted feed.

Keep in mind that this does not effect our other feeds (for the blog entries or for the comments).  They have changed a few days ago and can be found on the feeds page.

I’ll update this post when everything is back up and running.

Thanks for your patience,

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-c8f6b47534b7c0c7f0f34acdcad96833}

As some of you know, I use the Cutline theme for TechNest Report (which is powered by WordPress).  I’m finally ready to let you know that I have been working on some new looks based on the awesome Cutline theme and it is coming within the next week.  However, the main reason I have not made any changes live yet (and the main reason for this post) is that I have been having some problems with the 3-column right version of Cutline.  Here’s the story:  

Having a 3-column layout, it was my goal to have access to two widget columns.  Well, Cutline 3-column right 1.1 only gave me access to one of these columns in the admin area.  Cutline 1.1 also did not display all the other static pages of the site at the top (as it should).  Well, after countless hours of sticking my head into the theme editor and searching for someone online who would shed some light on my issues, I found out that version 1.33 is out.  I did not even check to see if a new version had been released earlier in my quest to solve these issues because I obtained version 1.1 only a few weeks ago and thought that an update could not come this soon.  Well, I’m glad to say that 1.33 solved both of these nuances and I’m a happy Cutline user now.  

The moral of the story here is that if anyone using Cutline as their theme and having problems accessing both sidebars and/or getting static page titles to show up below the header image, upgrade Cutline!  Just in case this statement doesn’t get Googled, let it be out in the open:

Don’t be like me and spend hours reading through your theme templates, scowering forums, and setting up new blogs!  Just upgrade and all your problems will go away. 

In other news, I will be posting pictures and video of me performing surgery on my iBook G4 and upgrading the hard disk (as well as cleaning it out).  It wasn’t as bad as one might think.  All that is needed is a table with at least a square meter of  space each way and some organizational skills.  It also doesn’t help if your internal frame is broken (superglue doesn’t help).

With that, I will retire to watch a movie.  I’ll Twitter the name.  Visual changes coming soon, as well as our very first podcast!  

Stay tuned!

I’ve been testing (more like playing around) with Plaxo Pulse – Plaxo’s social-networking/life-streaming service.  I added the Pulse feed/badge on the bottom of the left column and depending on how it goes, it might crop up to the top of the page.

Plaxo now solves one big problem: life feeds.  It takes all the web feeds of online services such as Flickr, Twitter, Pownce, Facebook, Jaiku, and so many others, and consolidates them into one life feed.  This way, my friends don’t have to go to ten different web sites and services to see what I’m up to: they can just go to one.

I heard Leo Laporte and Amber MacArthur talk about a similar service – Friend Feed – on Net at Night (episode 45) and I just happened to come across Plaxo Pulse before giving Friend Feed a try.  I will do so soon.  Also, Plaxo still does the thing that it does well at its core: connects you with people in your address book.  It takes this info and syncs it back to your address book on the desktop and mobile.  And it does this for other PIM data like calendars, tasks and notes.  Come to think of it, Plaxo is doing everything really correct here: it leaves an online version of the apps and gives you the ability to sync them up and down to your desktop apps while sharing all of this PIM stuff with your friends and colleages.  

In any case, this entire social networking aspect is new for Plaxo and I really like it so far.  I will be writing more about it after I explore it some more.  

I’ve been busy this week and am working on a CallWave review.Meanwhile, you can find my opinions on AppleInsider forums. I’ve been writing in the “Future Hardware” section and have been expressing my dissatisfaction with the current Apple notebook lineup. You can find the topics I’ve posted to here (future MacBook Pro) and here (future MacBook – non Pro).If you’re not familiar with AppleInsider, it’s a really great Apple community site that reports Apple news and has pre-announced many Apple stories accurately. They also have a great review staff and awesome forums – ones that are heavily-trafficed and where one can actually go to discuss all things Apple (and tech) with others who use their heads. (Of note: AppleInsider is in no way approved, rejected, or supported by Apple Co.) I’m aiming to have the CallWave review up on Saturday December 1st.