GeekGirl Quickie: Screenium!

I scream, you scream, we all scream for SCREENIUM! Hey GeekGirl Gang!

Check out this GeekGirl Quickie where I talk about my latest find, an A/V capturing software for your computer called Screenium! So, what did you think? Do you have Screenium? Love it? Hate it? Know of it for PC? (Still looking into that for ya!) Post in the Comments section below or Tweet at me!




Click on the image below to download Screenium and learn more about it:


Keep checking back for more great news and brand spankin' new videos, sponsored by Roddenberry.com!

And remember, you can always email me at geek.girl@earthlink.net - I love to hear from you!

To follow me on Twitter, click here: http://twitter.com/GeekGirlKnows
To check out my YouTube Channel, click HERE.
To check out my MySpace and become my friend, click HERE.

Cheers,
GeekGirl

Episode 10.1: Allow me to introduce myself... (UPDATED!)

Hey GeekGirl Gang and Newbies!

I just updated the video on YouTube with fun annotations (you can't do it until the video is done processing!) Check it out again if you've already watched it-the phrenology head and the laptop always have something to say, and I give you little bits of info in pop-ups along the way that you won't get anywhere else and are exclusive to the YouTube videos!) Or, if you are new here, welcome and check out the video I made just for YOU!







Keep checking back for more great news and brand spankin' new videos, sponsored by Roddenberry.com!

email me at geek.girl@earthlink.net

To follow me on Twitter, click here: http://twitter.com/GeekGirlKnows
To check out my YouTube Channel, click HERE.
To check out my MySpace and become my friend, click HERE.

Cheers,

GeekGirl

GeekGirl Quickie 4: Universal Cell Phone Charger Announcement!

Hey Gang:

So the wait is over. The Tech News announcement that excited me so much that I had to do a GeekGirl Quickie about it is finally finished! Don't know what I'm talking about? Find out by watching this video!

To check out my YouTube Channel, click HERE.
To check out my MySpace and become my friend, click HERE.

And make sure to subscribe to my videos on iTunes (click HERE for my iTunes Podcast Home Page, and then click "subscribe")...they are FREE and you can take me with you on your iPod. :)

Cheers,

GeekGirl

Cheers, GeekGirl

YOU GUESS: GeekGirl Quickie Coming Up Later Today!

Hey Gang! I'm working on a GeekGirl Quickie RIGHT NOW that will post later today! What's it about, you ask? Well, I heard some tech news last week that excited me and I just had to share with all of you! But, you will have to keep checking back here today for the video to find out! In the meantime, if you think you are in the know with Tech news and you want to guess what I'm excited about, take a stab at it in the COMMENTS section below! Tell me what you think it is and if you guess correctly before I click "export" on the video, I will give you a shout-out in it! It doesn't get more interactive than that. :)

To check out my YouTube Channel, click HERE.
To check out my MySpace and become my friend, click HERE.

And make sure to subscribe to my videos on iTunes (click HERE for my iTunes Podcast Home Page, and then click "subscribe")...they are FREE and you can take me with you on your iPod. :)

Cheers,

GeekGirl

Cheers, GeekGirl

GeekGirl Quickie 3: Travel Gads!

Hey Geek Guys and Gals!

As promised, here is the QUICKIE that I shot right before I left on my trip to Bali, Indonesia. I didn't have time to finish editing & uploading it before I went, so I finished it this week, right when I got back! I talk about some fun gadgets that I call "travel essentials" that complement my high-tech, plugged-in life. Check it out and let me know your thoughts:




I'm working on Episode 7, a topic that I can proudly say was suggested by a GeekGirl blog buddy, and it's going to focus on the ubiquitous iPhone. If you have any gripes about the iPhone, either the previous versions or the latest & greatest, email them to me at geek.girl@earthlink.net. I'd especially love some VIDEO QUESTIONS emailed to me in any format as long as the file size doesn't exceed 7 MB (or, upload your question to YouTube and send me a link!) and I just MIGHT include your video question in the next podcast! (PS-the video question can be about ANYTHING that you think I might be able to answer for you!)

That's all for now, gang.
To check out my YouTube Channel, click HERE.
To check out my MySpace and become my friend, click HERE.

And make sure to subscribe to my videos on iTunes (click HERE for my iTunes Podcast Home Page, and then click "subscribe")...they are FREE and the quality on iTunes is way better than on YouTube. Plus, you can take me with you on your iPod. :)

Cheers,

GeekGirl

Another Geek Girl Quickie!

Hey Guys!

I just got overly excited about some gadgets and decided to film another "Geek Girl Quickie" so that I could share with y'all! Stay tuned; it should post today or tomorrow (I'm putting the finishing touches on the editing and graphics now...!).

If you haven't checked out my two-part video podcast on Being Green yet, now is a great time to catch up. ;) Check both episodes out here:

Part 1:


Part 2:






Be green, friends! And don't forget to check back for a GGQ in the next two days!



To check out my YouTube Channel, click HERE.
To check out my MySpace and become my friend, click HERE.

And make sure to subscribe to my videos on iTunes (click HERE for my iTunes Podcast Home Page, and then click "subscribe")...they are FREE and the quality on iTunes is way better than on YouTube. Plus, you can take me with you on your iPod. :)

Cheers,

Geek Girl

Geek Girl's Day Job

Hey Blog Buddies!

This is just a quickie, but I wanted you to all to check out this great behind-the-scenes featurette that I just produced for the show I produce over on NBC.com/TonightShow. It features John Melendez "aka "Stuttering John", Ross "the Intern" Mathews, and Geek Girl doing what we do best--goofing off while "working." This was just a really fun peek behind the scenes of the show that we do, so I wanted you all to see it too! Click on the image below to check it out--you have to watch a 30 second commercial first, and then the video will play in the main window:



Hope you guys like it! And while you're there, click on the "videos" tab at the top to see all of the cool, behind the scenes stuff we have been doing giving people a never-before-seen peek behind the scenes at the Tonight Show with Jay Leno!

I'm going to have some exciting Geek Girl news coming up in the next few weeks, and of course, more video podcasts, so stay tuned and keep your questions coming!

To check out my YouTube Channel, click HERE.
To check out my MySpace and become my friend, click HERE.
And make sure to subscribe to my videos on iTunes...they are FREE and the quality on iTunes is way better than on YouTube. Plus, you can take me with you on your iPod. :)

Cheers, Geek Girl

Another Geek Girl Quickie-Episode 5.1: FlipCam Fun!

Hi Blog Buddies! So, I'm in production on some more exciting Geek Girl podcasts and have been busy answering your questions (thanks for sending them in! Remember that no question is too small or too big, and I'll always admit if I don't know the answer, but I'll help you find it!). Anywhoo, I was sitting at home after work the other night, and a friend/neighbor/co-worker of mine was going to come over for some 1-on-1 Geek Girl lessons on using his FlipCam with his brand new Mac (he JUST switched from PC--can we all say "Yay Bob!"?). The problem was that the FlipCam he had was made for use with PC's, and so was the software that came with it. Geek Girl to the rescue! I decided to do another impromptu Video Blog (notice the lack of my usual logo background and my Geek Girl glasses!) to share the process with all of you as well, just in case you're having the same issues! But don't worry if you're a PC user, understanding the basic principles in the process will be helpful for you no matter what platform you work on. So, here it is!





So make sure you email me at geek.girl@earthlink.net with your questions & comments!

To check out my YouTube Channel, click HERE.
To check out my MySpace and become my friend, click HERE.
And make sure to subscribe to my videos on iTunes...they are FREE and the quality on iTunes is way better than on YouTube. Plus, you can take me with you on your iPod. :)

Cheers,

Geek Girl

OCD Quickie and 1st Official Geek Girl Poll: Circus Ponies Notebook 2.1

Hi Blog Buds!

I was feeling lazy tonight and just HAD to tell you/ask you about this software I read about today, so I decided to do a quick video blog about it instead (I was sitting on my couch with my laptop in front of me, so forgive the background of my living room!) Check out the video here:





And then give me your feedback below in the COMMENTS section. Or, email me your feedback, or even video feedback, at geek.girl@earthlink.net.

To check out my YouTube Channel, click HERE.
To check out my MySpace and become my friend, click HERE.
And make sure to subscribe to my videos on iTunes...they are FREE and the quality on iTunes is way better than on YouTube. Plus, you can take me with you on your iPod. :)

Cheers!

Geek Girl

Say Hello to my Little Friend... :-)...Happy 25th Birthday, Smiley Face!

Hey there Webbies! I just came across a factoid that made me smile :) and I felt like it was theme-appropriate for this blog ;) and I've decided to report the story to share with you all. Today is the 25th anniversary of the first official usage of the digital smiley face, :-)




Click HERE for the Carnegie Mellon University's official smiley page, with details about it's history.

Where would we be today without the wonders of emoticons and other indicators of tone within otherwise mundane, on-screen text? How on earth could we possibly otherwise bridge the digital gap between an all-out LOL or LMAO and a mere smile? Here's an article from the Associated Press, published today, September 18th, 2007, detailing today's glorious anniversary:

Digital 'smiley face' turns 25
By DANIEL LOVERING, Associated Press Writer

It was a serious contribution to the electronic lexicon. :-) Twenty-five years ago, Carnegie Mellon University professor Scott E. Fahlman says, he was the first to use three keystrokes — a colon followed by a hyphen and a parenthesis — as a horizontal "smiley face" in a computer message.

To mark the anniversary Wednesday, Fahlman and his colleagues are starting an annual student contest for innovation in technology-assisted, person-to-person communication. The Smiley Award, sponsored by Yahoo Inc. carries a $500 cash prize.

Language experts say the smiley face and other emotional icons, known as emoticons, have given people a concise way in e-mail and other electronic messages of expressing sentiments that otherwise would be difficult to detect.

Fahlman posted the emoticon in a message to an online electronic bulletin board at 11:44 a.m. on Sept. 19, 1982, during a discussion about the limits of online humor and how to denote comments meant to be taken lightly. "I propose the following character sequence for joke markers: :-)," wrote Fahlman. "Read it sideways." The suggestion gave computer users a way to convey humor or positive feelings with a smile — or the opposite sentiments by reversing the parenthesis to form a frown.

Carnegie Mellon said Fahlman's smileys spread from its campus to other universities, then businesses and eventually around the world as the Internet gained popularity.

Computer science and linguistics professors contacted by The Associated Press said they were unaware of who first used the symbol.

"I've never seen any hard evidence that the :-) sequence was in use before my original post, and I've never run into anyone who actually claims to have invented it before I did," Fahlman wrote on the university's Web page dedicated to the smiley face. "But it's always possible that someone else had the same idea — it's a simple and obvious idea, after all."

Variations, such as the "wink" that uses a semicolon, emerged later. And today people can hardly imagine using computer chat programs that don't translate keystrokes into colorful graphics, said Ryan Stansifer, a computer science professor at the Florida Institute of Technology.

"Now we have so much power, we don't settle for a colon-dash-paren," he said. "You want the smiley face, so all these chatting softwares have to have them."

Instant messaging programs often contain an array of faces intended to express emotions ranging from surprise to affection to embarrassment.

"It has been fascinating to watch this phenomenon grow from a little message I tossed off in 10 minutes to something that has spread all around the world," Fahlman was quoted as saying in a university statement. "I sometimes wonder how many millions of people have typed these characters, and how many have turned their heads to one side to view a smiley, in the 25 years since this all started."

Amy Weinberg, a University of Maryland linguist and computer scientist, said emoticons such as the smiley were "definitely creeping into the way, both in business and academia, people communicate."

"In terms of things that language processing does, you have to take them into account," she said. "If you're doing almost anything ... and you have a sentence that says 'I love my boss' and then there's a smiley face, you better not take that seriously."

Emoticons reflect the likely original purpose of language — to enable people to express emotion, said Clifford Nass, a professor of communications at Stanford University. The emotion behind a written sentence may be hard to discern because emotion is often conveyed through tone of voice, he said.

"What emoticons do is essentially provide a mechanism to transmit emotion when you don't have the voice," Nass said.

In some ways, he added, they also give people "the ability not to think as hard about the words they're using."

Stansifer said the emoticon was part of a natural progression in communication. "I don't think the smiley face was the beginning and the end," he said. "All people at all times take advantage of whatever means of communication they have."

OK, so my only question is: who on earth was writing posts on message boards in 1982?! Who knew that they even existed back then? Pretty amazing stuff, folks.

Anyhow, new podcast coming soon, and lots of exciting posts coming up now that fall is well on it's way! Summer is officially ending, and that means lots of new gadgets, tv shows and other great stuff coming up for the holidays!

Remember, to email me your questions, or even video questions for a chance to be featured in a future podcast, email me at geek.girl@earthlink.net.

To check out my YouTube Channel, click HERE.
To check out my MySpace and become my friend, click HERE.
And make sure to subscribe to my videos on iTunes...they are FREE and the quality on iTunes is way better than on YouTube. Plus, you can take me with you on your iPod. :)

Cheers!

Geek Girl

iPod Quickie! (and a solicitation of-dare I say it-PC HELP!!)

Ok, so i can't tell you guys enough how many people I get asking me daily for help with their iPods. On the video podcast and throughout this blog, there will be plenty of help, tips, tricks & accessories that fall under the fun & wonderful category of "All Things iPod!"

So, today's tip is a simple one about how to reboot your iPod in the horrible event that it crashes, freezes, or starts to act up. Before you run wildly to wait in line at the Genius Bar at the Apple Store, try the following steps first.

When you can't eject your iPod from your computer because the computer and/or iPod have frozen, don't fret! The first rule of iPods is not to panic about iPods. :) Remove your iPod from the dock (even if it is stuck on the "Do Not Disconnect" screen) or just take it when it's frozen and lay it flat on a hard surface. (Don't worry, we're not opening it and performing surgery or anything--in fact, NEVER open your iPod. It will likely ruin your iPod and void any sort of warranty.)

Next, toggle the "Hold" switch on and off a few times. Finally, hold down the center button and the top "Menu" button of the iPod simultaneously until you see the screen go through the restart process. This consists of the screen going black, then the Apple logo will pop up semi-faded, and then you will hear/feel the hard drive restarting. Then the Apple logo will come up in full color, and the iPod should start up properly. (NOTE: it might take a little longer than normal, don't be alarmed!)

Now, there are a few other things that can go wrong with your iPod, in which case you can do a few other simple things before resorting to a full "RESTORE". This checklist includes downloading and installing the latest, most updated iTunes software, and then making sure your iPod is up-to-date and fully charged. You might sometimes also get the following icon:



if your iPod is out of juice. To recap, Charge it, Update the software, Restart it, and then if you are still having problems with it, you may need to fully RESTORE it. Here is a link to information on how to RESTORE your iPod (NOTE: this will erase everything on your iPod and restore it back to factory settings, so make sure that your music library reflects what you had on your iPod so that you can re-load all of the songs/pics/vids after you RESTORE):

RESTORE

HOUSEKEEPING ITEMS

So I want to put out a call to all of YOU bloggers and geeks out there for your suggestions, tips and questions for future posts and the podcasts that are in production RIGHT NOW! Also, I encourage you to all any alternate suggestions (or corrections) in the COMMENT section, especially in regards to equivalent PC options for completing the tasks we talk about here. (I know, I know, being a Mac Geek Girl, I can't believe I'm asking for PC help either! But it's for YOU guys!) Or, you can always email me at geek.girl@earthlink.net.

That's All for Now, folks! Stay tuned for more!

Cheers,

Geek Girl