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Dear Veronica: Cuff links and communication!
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-981243{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-981243, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-981243{width:629px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-981243").style.display="none";}catch(e){} Hello everyone! This week, we tackle fashion for the very first time! Our main question comes to us from my friend Patrick Norton of TekThing, and answered by Evan Wolkenstein, creator of StyleForDorks.com. You can head over there to read his entire post on cufflinks and how they're worn! We also talk about our favorite communication tool here at Engadget, Slack, and I dole out some virtual hugs. It's all good. Remember, you can subscribe to the show on iTunes or via RSS, and keep sending in those questions on Twitter using #DearVeronica, or via email. See you next time!
Growing Up Geek: Veronica Belmont
Welcome to Growing Up Geek, a new feature where we take a look back at our youth, and tell stories of growing up to be the nerds that we are. We're happy to kick off the series with Veronica Belmont. I was born in the year of the ColecoVision. This isn't that unusual or interesting until you factor in that my mother was a VP at Coleco at that time. OK, well, it's still probably not that interesting unless you're me and trying to figure out the defining moments that turned you into a "geeky" adult. An abundance of video games, toys, puzzles, board games... it's a pretty awesome environment to grow up in, especially for a kid whose father also happened to work in the toy industry (he was an engineer for Hasbro in those days). For me, it was just totally normal to walk into the living room and see a pile of toys on the floor, in varying states of production and disarray. I'd take them apart, put them back together, and spend hours trying to find different ways to destroy them. Things haven't changed too much.
TUAW interviews Veronica Belmont
In our continued meanderings around Macworld we found Mahalo Daily's Veronica Belmont shooting some video of the Apple TV. Once again we asked for a little perspective on the keynote.
Leeroy Jenkins interviewed at BlizzCon
The lovely Veronica Belmont interviews Ben "Leeroy Jenkins" Schulz at BlizzCon (filmed by none other than the Joystiq network's own Conrad Quilty-Harper-- man, all my favorite bloggers were at BlizzCon, and somehow I didn't meet a single one of them). There's not much here, but just in case you didn't get to see him do the yell (twice!) at the sound-a-like contest, here it is in all its glory. I feel bad for the poor guy, who must get asked to do that yell all the time-- he's not your monkey, people!But he does (mostly) maintain that the video itself is real, and personally, I don't believe it. Yes, maybe it was a reenactment of a previous mishap, but Pals For Life members have mostly admitted that the movie itself (with the calculations and a Paladin trying to get cloth shoulders) was staged. Hilariously staged, I'll admit, but for Schulz to walk around talking like he really did just "have chicken," is misleading at least.Yeah it's just a funny movie, but you, as a WoW Insider reader, might as well know the truth. Still, I like Ben-- he seems like a good enough guy. Yell on, Leeroy!
A few of my favorite Widgets
When my machine was a rickety little 800 MHz iBook, crusted with too many hacks, apps and utilities, I just gave up on Widgets. Dashboard was a system hog on an already dog-slow machine, and I just killed it off. My MacBook Pro is another story. While I've eschewed the volume of Widgets a true power-user may install, I have my fair share. Of course, until we're able to safely and securely swap our sets of Widgets around, I just keep a certain set loaded. Yes, I've tried MultiDash, primarily to swap around when I plug in to my 24" external monitor. I would have included a link to the MultiDash page, but going there today either crashed Firefox or made Safari eat up processor. Gotta love that...Anyway, as a Widget, it was too wonky for production use, so here's what I've settled on for daily use: Apple's own calendar, weather, iTunes, calculator, and search Widgets (Dictionary, White Pages, Yellow Pages, and Address Book). The unit converter is tucked behind the sticky note Google search-- pretty much never use it since Google is built-in to every browser but Flock, although sometimes I use the Blogger one too Radar-in-Motion-- massive kudos to the poor developer who makes this, as NOAA keeps changing the protocols, formats, etc. I love this thing, but I love weather. WeatherBug-- this one has a bunch more features, but ironically doesn't work as well as R-i-M iClipLite-- what would I do without this? Very handy for storing form letters, the very ones I use every day iStat nano-- surely everyone is using this or its older sibling by now, right? Often I use it to check my IP address, but I really wish I could have it quit bugging me about updates, that is really annoying Slothcam-- I have it always tuned to the TGIFriday's camera in Times Square, great for people-watching! (You will see me on there once in a while too) Web Translator widget (uses Google)-- handy for quick language lookups, as my Spanish vocab stinks sometimes Airport Radar-- handy for checking signal strength PackageTracker-- from Monkey Labs, where they make a terrible TV Tracker... only terrible because every week they want me to update it, but it never gets faster or better, yet PackageTracker never bugs me about it iCalEvents-- super-fantastic for glancing at my hard schedule for the day Backpack widget-- from Chipt.com, this Widget has saved me so many times it is scary. If you are a serious GTD nut, you must have a Backpack widget for simple ticklers, and this does the job better than almost anything. Plus, I can access my Backpack reminders from anywhere via web, so I have a constant backup. Combined with floating reminders via Growl, and you can really tame your to-do list. an obligatory digg widget-- because I'm addicted, I'll admit (where's that Netscape widget?) Veronica Belmont-- she's not a Widget, but a spunky tech pundit for CNet and of course, I have a TUAW widget! So what's in your Dashboard?
