I WANT a DROBO!

If you've never heard of DROBO, you should definitely read this. You can also win one at the Managing Your Digital Life blog. Here's why I want one:

My day to day workflow involves layout of a local paper I publish and ad design for the paper, web design for clients of the other half of my business, and web design and digital communications design work that I do for the church of which I am a member. Everything I do on a daily basis involves storing, retrieving, and incorporating digital media (primarily photos and graphics). It’s kind of like I have three jobs but it’s not as bad as it sounds since there is so much over lap.

I have two machines that I use every day. The older of the two is a 5 year old PowerBook G4 with an 80 GB hard drive (only 2.8 GB free). The newer machine is a 4 year old iMac G5 with a 160 GB drive (only 7.4 GB free). Both were large drives when I bought them. I’ve added a 500 GB external drive for backup and I also store vital files on my iDisk (when it’s working) as a backup of my backup.

How would I use a DROBO? After wiping the tears of joy from my face, I would immediately set it up as the central media storage device for my home office network so that I could free up the limited memory on each of my machines and have the peace of mind that knowing my livelihood is stored on a DROBO would bring!

Be sure to head over to the Managing Your Digital Life blog to find out more about DROBO and how you can win one!

Exercise Your Right!

Don't forget to vote for Geekbert as "Best Geek Blog" and be sure to tell your friends. Click the badge in the sidebar to cast your vote.

Kinda Cool, Kinda Creepy

Some of you may have noticed in my sidebar lately there has been a box labeled "what I am doing..." As your geekbert, I feel it is my duty to apprise you of the latest fads and trends in the world of geekery. Twitter is one of these fads. Think "away message without the chat session."

In the "olden days" (last year), the kids would spend hours typing abbr.'d messages to each other (was chatting thought up by a junior high girl who was grounded from the phone?) and then when they had to go away from the computer, they'd put up an away message for fun or just so their friends know they're not available.

Twitter is kind of like combining the away message with the chat session to make a third something called the twitter. You post what you're doing at any given time and anyone following your posts gets the message. You can choose to receive your friends' updates in three ways: you can go to their twitter page, you can have them emailed to you, or you can have them sent as a text message to your mobile number. You can also post updates by texting them to 40404 once you've signed up for an account.

So now you're asking yourself, "Why would I want this?" Good question. I've thought of two reasons I could use it. First, I think it could be a fun way to keep in touch with your closest friends. Imagine you're having a rough day and all of a sudden you get a text from your close friend that says, "Ew! There's a hair in my Big Mac!" That would brighten my day. If you are in the pre-parent stage of life, it would also be fun to send an update that says something like, "Lunch at Tim's Deli; last one there buys!"

Then there's the professional geek reason. I turned on the option to have my posts appear on the public timeline. Yes, you can actually go to twitter's public timeline and just watch posts from all over the world about what people are doing. Believe it or not, a lot of people to that. It's kinda creepy, actually. Anyway, you'll notice that I will frequently be listed as "geeking out at www.geekbert.net." I'm trying to get people with nothing better to do than read twitter posts on the public timeline to see this blog. If they have time to twitter-gawk, then perhaps they might like to read geekbert.

If you check my twitter profile, you'll see I have no friends. Don't worry; I've gotten used to it. I'm happy to just use it as a tool for shameless self-promotion. However, if you feel compelled to rescue me from this lonely existence and become my friend, let me know you've signed up and I'll add you to my list. Just remember to make your posts private if you'd like to keep them from appearing on the public timeline (unless you too would like some shameless self-promotion).

You Like Me; You Really, Really Like Me!

Thanks to Suzanne for nominating Geekbert for Best Geek Blog in the Blogger's Choice Awards. There's a badge in the sidebar you can click to submit your vote. Let your voice be heard! Go vote for geekbert.

Geekbert Cares

If you've spent any amount of time blog-slogging you know how easy it is to get lost in the blogosphere only to emerge hours later wondering how you wasted so much time. Well, be thankful you have a friend like me to suggest subscriptions to you.

If you have several blogs that you enjoy on a regular basis, you can use subscriptions to help you keep up with the latest posts all in one place. Then you only have to check one place to see if there is anything new on your favorite site(s) without getting sucked into the vortex that is the blogoshphere. Many browsers now have the ability to manage subscriptions for you. You can also use one of many online services to manage your subscriptions.

Which brings me to the reason for my post. I've recently added, out of generous consideration for your time, links in the sidebar for you to subscribe to www.geekbert.net. You can subscribe to posts (via reader or email) and comments. A few days ago, Brian asked about subscriptions to comments. I believe I have it all set up correctly. If you have any trouble with subscriptions, please let me know. And remember, Geekbert understands the value your time.