so if you are one of these, couple of pointers to get you back on your boxee:

first, make sure you’re up to date with the great atv launcher from the atvusb-creator team, by selecting boxee, and then clicking “update”, selecting the launcher (depending on your launcher version, it may say “update launcher”).

second, your remote may have become improperly paired, so unpair and pair again.

pictures cc-by-sa gidon coussin

and of course, its a monday, bunchainvites were just sent

it may look like he is a taking a toke, but it’s actually a USB stick in dave’s hand. dave shot this quick how-to video showing how to upgrade your Apple TV to run xbmc/boxee.

let us know if you’re having trouble installing or running boxee on your Apple TV. you can also visit our forum http://forum.boxee.tv for more help.

the USB Creator still works, so users who have not installed xbmc/boxee on their Apple TV can just follow the standard process.

if you already had xbmc/boxee installed you’ll need to boot from the patchstick again (following the same steps, starting with #4). the good news it that your profile and settings of xbmc/boxee are all kept, so you just login and get back your good old boxee experience.

we just uploaded a new version of boxee for Apple TV (v3383).

what we fixed:

• no need to disable the Apple TV screensaver
• back button (i.e. Menu) on the remote reacts faster and works in all screens
• the bittorrent download manager is now working

if you already installed boxee on your Apple TV then should select “Update” under the boxee menu, restart your Apple TV and you’re good to go.

btw, Scott Davilla just posted this short video intro to xbmc/boxee on Apple TV

Here’s a cool feature: login to http://m.12seconds.tv.

Yep, you can now enjoy 12seconds content on the go. Wondering what your friends are posting while you’ve been away from your machine? Wonder no more. Grab just about any phone with a web browser like your blackberry or your iphone and enjoy 12seconds all day long.

This is our initial version so there might be a few bugs. You can see your latest updates, watch everyone or enjoy featured content. This is just the beginning of our mobile strategy! We wanted to satiate your desires for mobile updates, so here you go.

as we were just starting to work on boxee the first version of Apple TV came out.
it looked great, the boot video was amazing, but then it lacked some basic stuff (video format limitation, ability to connect to multiple sources, streaming of photos, connectivity to other Internet services, etc.). so we stuck to our Mac Minis, which are more expensive but don’t make you live in a closed garden.

when Scott Davilla told us he is working on getting xbmc/boxee to run on Apple TV we got really excited. we dusted off the Apple TV units..

earlier today Scott released the USB flash drive creator for the AppleTV, which makes it relatively easy to get your Apple TV to run xbmc/boxee.

it adds a new menu option to your Apple TV that enables the user to launch boxee (as well as keep on using the Frontrow stuff). once you run boxee on Apple TV you can do stuff like play almost any video format, get a much richer experience of browsing your media library, listen to music from last.fm, send recommendations to friends, and more. you get the full boxee experience.

how to install boxee on your Apple TV:

1. download the ATVUSB-Creator from http://code.google.com/p/atvusb-creator/
2. insert a “bootable” USB drive into your Mac (Windows and Linux versions coming soon)
3. run the ATVUSB-Creator and select which plug-ins you’d like to install
4. remove the USB drive and plug it into your Apple TV
5. power on your Apple TV and the patchstick will run the ATV bootloader
6. after the bootloader finishes, remove it and restart your Apple TV
7. it now has options for Boxee / XBMC on the main menu
8. click on Boxee, then select update (this will download boxee from the Internet)
9. once boxee is done installing, restart your Apple TV
10. disable your Apple TV screensaver (set it to ‘never’)
11. click “Boxee”, then select “Boxee” in the sub-menu to start boxee.

update from Gidon Coussin:

try to disable the default Apple TV screen saver. it may cause xbmc/boxee to freeze (or more accurately lose control of the remote)

update from Scott Davilla:

Quick Help

1) if the sha1 checksum fails, then the download of 2Z694-5428-3.dmg failed and you need to delete it from the downloads folder.

2) WARNING DO NOT RUN THE USB PATCHSTICK TWICE, there is an error that will require a AppleTV Factory Restore to fix if you run the PATCHSTICK twice. Much apologies if this has happened and a new version is on it’s way up. Once again, DO NOT RUN a patchstick made from atvusb-creator-1.0.0.b1.tar.gz TWICE.

3) And take the spaces out of the name of the folder name in atvusb-creator-1.0.b2.tar.gz

we designed boxee to be an entertainment focused experience. we assumed many people will use boxee on Mac Minis or laptops that are connected to big displays, so we put lots of emphasis on things looking good when you’re 10 foot away. we also figured the most relevant input device will be a remote control (giving extra attention to the Apple Remote).

we realized some people will use boxee on their laptops and will want the keyboard to work, or they’d use a wireless keyboard, so we mapped several keys on the keyboard to allow easy navigation.

but we’re getting lots of requests/complaints about the lack of mouse support, and some people are really passionate about it…

the people have spoken, and we must listen. the next alpha release will be mouse friendly.

One of our awesome 12ers, Mike Atherton, better known as Sizemore, is a well respected writer and social media badass. Every year he is invited to the London Film Festival and asked to review tons of films. As he says on his blog, “I’m happiest writing about film, but can turn my hand to most topics.” A quick check of his blog will you tell you that he loves film, technology, photography and humor. During this Film Festival season, Sizemore has to sit down and watch 3 films a day for a couple weeks! It’s a tough job. He eats a lot of popcorn.

We’re really excited that Sizemore is planning to do 12second reviews of those exclusive films for our benefit!

“I have no idea yet how I’ll boil down some of the best cinema in the
world to only 12 seconds, but I’m looking forward to kicking this off.”

We’re looking forward to it too. If you want to keep up with Sizemore on 12seconds, you can check out his channel and follow him here. Thanks Mike!

I wanted to share a really cool thing I found tonight that you can take advantage of in the coming weeks. No matter where you are in the world, the elections in the United States are very important. There are several scheduled debates by the Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates. These are generally well covered by all the major television networks. So far this has been a one-way experience. Other than the arguments that may erupt with your spouse, the debates aren’t exactly “interactive.” Until now.

Current, which is an amazing user-directed news television service, teamed up with Twitter to provide something that is very unique. They call it: Hack the Debate.

Here’s an overview:

It’s really cool to watch user-generated commentary stream live across the screen as the debaters are going at it. It definitely made me feel like I was in the room with millions of people. In fact, at times, the commentary became more interesting than the debate itself. Give it a chance next Thursday when the Vice Presidents have it out.

Hey, this is Beach. First I don’t really like the word “users” to define people who use a web site, I mean not all of you are drug addicts. Second, I know that you probably think that Sol and I use the word “Awesome” quite a bit. We also say “dude”, “rad”, and “sweet”. I’m not sure if it’s our California upbringing or our lack of vocabulary, but when we get excited about something… these words tend to come out. 

With that said, I just wanted to take this time to say that you guys (12seconds’ users) are awesome! It is so cool to see what all of you are doing with the site. So great, in fact, that it’s getting difficult to keep up with it all! This is a good problem to have for sure, but I wanted to let you know that we care about what you guys are doing, and it means so much to us that you are finding 12seconds a fun place to be. Just last night with a quick glance, I saw part of a Sigur Ros concert in detroit, had great seats at a Giants game, and learned that Clay Aiken is gay! All of these were posted within moments of each other! It warms the cockles of my heart. 

I’m not sure if you all know this, but everyone who works on 12seconds has a day job. We do everything in our spare time, in the morning, at lunch, and late into the evenings. It’s fun for us for sure, but since the site is growing so fast, we’re wishing we had more time to devote to welcoming people to the site and helping everyone out. We do our best, but it’s very important to us that everyone feels like they are part of the 12seconds family. So, if you feel so inclined, help us out and welcome new people to the site, give folks some love, tell them how good looking they are (because it’s true), and bring people on board. I’m not asking this because this is some kind of business thing, I’m asking because it’s important to us and everyone that people feel comfortable and part of something that’s… well awesome! And it’s awesome because of you.

Thanks everyone! 

Love, beach

Yar. Hoist the mizzen. Raise the topsail. And post a 12 in Pirate Speak, me hearties.

Today is Talk Like a Pirate Day on 12seconds (and internationally, around the world.) And to celebrate the fun, we’re inviting everyone to post, even if you don’t have a 12seconds account. But ye have to talk like a pirate.

For those who do post, you’ll be invited to join the 12seconds alpha, as booty for your piracy. (That’s naval piracy, not digital piracy.) Also, everyone who participate will get a special, 12seconds pirate award. Avast!!

So join the fun and talk like a pirate. We won’t tell anyone. Promise. (Never trust a pirate.)

Oh, and some mateys across the Internet Seas have shared the news about Talk Like a Pirate Day on 12seconds.

The official Talk Like a Pirate Site, for one (scroll way down.)

The Inquisitr

Techcrunch

VentureBeat

very impressive!!

i don’t think i’ll ever reach this level.. my frothing skills are getting better, but i am a lost cause in terms of my drawing abilities..

Did you see it? One of the coolest notebooks of all time? The one that HP is going to put up against the MacBook Air? The one that’s all carbon fiber with backlit keys? It has a little something on it called Voodoo IOS which gets you online seconds after you hit the power button. Sound familiar? It should because Voodoo IOS is Splashtop. That’s right, we teamed up with the folks over at HP to bring the Voodoo Envy something that is both unique and incredibly functional - just like the notebook itself.

There are a lot of things that get me very excited about Splashtop. We have a team of brilliant engineers who have made it possible for our OEM partners to make Splashtop their own. Different OEMs have different target markets and goals. We give them the ability to customize the Splashtop experience for their users. With HP Voodoo you have an example of a team that wanted to give a very slick, high-end experience to really match the spirit and soul of some incredible industrial design.

We’ve already been getting great feedback on this product. Here’s a live overview on a pre-production version that Laptop Magazine did on YouTube:

As we search the web for feedback, we see this from Now Magazine.

It has a staggeringly meaty specs and a super-strong outer casing, but its greatest feature is the Voodoo IOS (Instant-On Solution), which offers instant access to your Internet browser and Skype without having to fully boot up Windows.

G4 did some great coverage of the Voodoo and the IOS (it gets good around 3:40):

If you’re unboxing a Voodoo Envy and take a video, let us know and we’ll feature it on the blog! Congratulations everyone on a great launch of another exciting product.

in case we win the competition we will split the $50K prize with team-xbmc, which could help with setting up next year’s DEV CON as well as maybe an XBMC USER CON?

while many people have upgraded their Mac OS to Leopard (10.5) there are still a good number of Tigers (10.4) out there, so we’re happy to announce that the latest version of boxee for mac (released today) supports Tiger.

looking forward to hearing from you on our forums or by email to support [at] boxee d0t tv.

bug fixes:

• performance boost for video/music library - browsing your library of movies, tv shows and music should be a bit faster now
• SMB optimizations and bug fixes - this is an on going battle, trying to get SMB working properly over your local network. this version should scan your folders faster and streaming of HD videos should also work better
• keymap changes - removed the long jump from remote’s right/left
• fixed: erasing the library - in case your library gets corrupted for whatever reason you can erase it via the Settings screen. now it will actually erase it..
• fixed: resolution reverting from full screen to windowed - some of you experienced situations where playing a video reverted to Window mode
• fixed: sometimes boxee would not start scanning an SMB share - in some cased boxee did not start scanning a new SMB share until you restart it

Ahoy mateys! This Friday, September 19th, is International Talk Like a Pirate Day! So yes, you guessed it… the 12second challenge on Friday will be… Talk Like A Pirate! Now get ye land lubbers ready t’ practicin’ t’ talk like a pirate! Everyone who participates will receive a special 12seconds pirate award! Arrrr!

Hey 12ers,

We got a lot of great 12er feedback on Replies. Some was good, some was meh. What we realized (fairly quickly) was that we toyed with the simplicity that is 12seconds. So, we’ve made some specific changes today that will allow streamline things a bit. They will all go live later tonight when traffic dies off a bit (we’ll have to take the site down for a few moments).

1. Replies will no longer show up in your main feed nor in your channel

We did this because without any context both the main feed (your “home”) and the channel page become nonsensical.

2. Replies will no longer be tweeted

Again, replies don’t make much sense out of context and they make even less sense in Twitter where all you see is a reply URL. We’ll be making a button on replies that will allow you to manual tweet a reply in the future.

3. All replies will go into a “replies” tab.

We’ll be launching that later tonight. This will ONLY have replies that are directed at you.

4. Two important bugs have been fixed

You can now preview your content as much as you’d like from both the main recorder and the replies recorder. They will play back every time and post properly.

Remember - replies WILL show up on the page where you left the reply and every reply has it’s own single video page.

Thanks again to everyone who gave us awesome, supportive feedback.

We can’t do this without you. Now, please go and record some 12s and continue to tell us how we can make this site awesome, addictive, useful and fun.

Splashtop was covered last week in USA Today. Normally, I don’t blog about coverage that we’re getting because it’s kind of repetitive. But, there are two reasons that I wanted to mention this coverage:

1. It’s USA Today - an important, very mainstream publication.
2. There were a lot of comments

Here’s a little snippet of the article:

An instant-on feature, such as Splashtop, gets around the problem by avoiding Microsoft Windows. Push the button, and in a few seconds, a Linux-based “mini-operating system” is activated. It lets you use some popular tools, such as an Internet browser, Web e-mail and instant messaging, as well as make Skype phone calls and open attachments.

The feature also extends the battery power, since only a small portion of the laptop’s computing power is consumed, (Mark) Lee (DeviceVM CEO) says.

The author, Roger Yu, asked “How much does the slow bootup on your laptop bother you?”

I was surprised at how many responses this question got. While I know that slow bootups are a consumer pain-point, I didn’t realize how much discussion would ensue. There were nearly 70 responses which is a lot. Of course some of it turned into a Mac vs. PC discussion. But, I’ve filtered out some of my favorite comments…

The long boot-up time really bothers me. I’ve got a wifi, two-user laptop at home (secondary to the master desktop.) Booting up the former is a lengthy process, which I start when going down to breakfast….

After booting windows vista I usually leave it on as long as possible on my Dell laptop. A 4 to 5 minute boot time is a mind blower and a test on my nerves.

This one is my favorite…

It is a PAIN to start up my laptop. It takes at least 5-10 minutes and it is only 2 years old in Jan. I am all for the instant start-up. Really, all i use are web-based programs anyway. Also - In stand-by I am still consuming electric power to some degree. What about being eco-friendly and cutting back on energy usage?

Great job to Mark Lee, our CEO, for giving a great interview.

We’ve been working away trying to fix bugs and make the site more usable. But today we get to launch a BIG feature.

VIDEO REPLIES

As one of the most requested features on Uservoice, video replies has been a priority for some time. We’re really excited to launch video replies because it will allow for a greater level of communication and conversation on the site. If you see something you want to reply to, click the “record a reply” link underneath the video. Bam! A recorder will load for you to record your reply. You’ll note replies in the feed shaded green with an “@” symbol. You’ll even be able to watch reply videos in a thumbnail player underneath the main video. The team that made this happen should be proud (good job dudes).

Go play! Please reply to this video before Sol heads out to a party tonight.

The Good Stuff

Do you know we have the incredibly talented rapper, QP on 12seconds? He has the two most dedicated songs on Facebook. Check him out. He even embedded the 12seconds widget. Maybe you should too? Meanwhile one of our founders had US Presidential Candidate, Senator John McCain over at his house. Loudmouthman had a baby. FYI: We’ve reserved the username “loudmouthkid.” Finally JoshBradley weathered tropical storm Hanna with his giant attack-dog, Ollie.

Skateboard Winners

Last week we had an invite-o-rama and the reward was a sweet limited edition 12seconds skateboard. The goal was to invite as many people as possible. I’m happy to announce our two big winners:

Arielwaldman and 3amjosh

Shred in good health. We take no responsibility for any “mishaps” or skateboard oriented tomfoolery.

Hey 12ers!

Enough said.

By now I’m sure you’re aware of Google Chrome, a new web browser launched by Google. At DeviceVM, we are keenly aware of everything that happens in the Browser space, because for our lightning fast environment, the browser is the killer application. Just as an FYI, our current browser, called the Splashtop Browser, is based on Mozilla’s browser (Firefox) and optimized to run super fast and limit security risks in the Splashtop environment.

Now, I could go into all the amazing features of Google Chrome because there are many. But, I’m going to let the experts at PCWorld take care of that. To quote PCWorld:

Chrome’s design bridges the gap between desktop and so-called “cloud computing.” At the touch of a button, Chrome lets you make a desktop, Start menu, or QuickLaunch shortcut to any Web page or Web application, blurring the line between what’s online and what’s inside your PC. For example, I created a desktop shortcut for Google Maps. When you create a shortcut for a Web application, Chrome strips away all of the toolbars and tabs from the window, leaving you with something that feels much more like a desktop application than like a Web application or page.

This is certainly the beginning of something monumental. This is where we’ll see a shift in the marketplace. It’s no secret that Google believes the future of most, if not all, computing resides in the browser. What the PCWorld quote above is referring to is something called an SSB or Site Specific Browser. The basic idea is to turn a website (or web application like Flickr or Facebook) into something that behaves more like a traditional application. This means that Google believes more and more you’ll be accessing your main applications via web browser.

Check out this quote by Sergei Brin (Google Co-Founder):

“We (Web users) want a very lightweight, fast engine for running applications.”‘

That’s where DeviceVM’s Splashtop comes in. CNET’s Dave Rosenberg noted this the other day:

A very interesting use case would be to integrate Chrome with something like DeviceVM, which provides an “instant-on” application set to bypass the operating system to get users up and running with a subset of applications immediately.

Splashtop and Google Chrome is the future of computing. Get to your favorite web applications seconds after hitting the power button. We don’t burden your system with lots of legacy applications - we take a fresh approach to your computing experience. With Splashtop you get just what you need (and what you want) - web applications running quickly and efficiently, optimized for safety and power conservation. We have a team that focuses on nothing but making sure the “fast engine for running applications” is available. The way we compute will change forever when Splashtop and Google Chrome collide.

12seconds user and all around super fellow, Kevin Thompson has created a cool hack to send Qik videos to 12seconds! We love Qik and think this is a great way to merge the two services. It also provides a cool way to update 12seconds using an iPhone! Check out Kevin’s blog to see how to do it. 

Transfer Videos from Qik to 12seconds

I was catching up with a friend at a bar in the East Village on Thursday night when “The Passenger” by Iggy Pop came on. I was sitting next to a dude with a tuba and encouraged him to accompany. Wasn’t much of an arm twist for him to start bellowing the chorus on his tuba and within seconds two of his buddies joined in with their NOLA version of this absolute classic. Everyone in the bar was on their feet. Awesome.

The last few weeks have been awesome for 12seconds. We now have thousands of members making an insane amount of 12s everyday. We’ve had fake earthquakes, stop animation, concerts, crunking and unappreciative children. With all this action, who has time to go to the bathroom?

Nevertheless, we’ve carved out some time to do a little work, and today we are launching the first version of the 12seconds API.

We truly want to be the platform for video status and there’s no better way to do that then to allow other services to integrate 12seconds seamlessly. If you think 12seconds can be the video platform for your service, we’re excited to work with you. So please go play with our initial API and find a new way to extend, advance, change, modify, tweak, enhance, engage or otherwise adapt our service, we’d love it.

You can access our API here. Be aware that this is the first version of the API, and we’re struggling hard to keep it in sync with our feature set while simultaneously planning for the future. You can think of it as an alpha API. We have much more coming. While we’ve tried to anticipate how, when and why you might want to utilize 12seconds, we probably definitely haven’t thought of everything. So when the API changes, we’ll let you know so that you can keep in step with our growth and advancements.

Several friends, neighbors and partners have already accessed and used our API, and we’re pleased to share this announcement with them.

TweetDeck, a killer Adobe Air client for services like Twitter has used our API to follow 12seconds channels and play videos right in the client. In fact, you don’t even have to be a registered 12seconds user to enjoy 12seconds on TweetDeck. Just click any new 12seconds URL and it’ll play right in your client. Awesome!

Blippr, the super-cool micro review site has integrated 12seconds into their product to allow users to record a 12second video review in tandem with (or instead of) a 160 character text review. If your review requires a little more emotion or the usage of your thumbs (up or down), 12seconds and Blippr is a great combo!

Phreadz, an amazing site out of London, UK has integrated 12seconds into their video conversation service. Need a conversation starter? Import a 12second video directly into Phreadz and let the conversation begin!

Don’t forget to check out our API here [http://12seconds.tv/developers]. And if you want an invite to 12seconds we’re going to be opening up a bunch over the next week so click here and leave us your email.

Our partners have issued their own announcement’s, check them out as well:

Blippr’s post.

Phreadz’s post.

Tweetdeck’s post.

We’ve also seen some members of the press pick up the announcement. Here are some of their posts:

Techcrunch

Inquisitr

VentureBeat

CNET

Mashable

ReadWriteWeb (say that 5 times fast)

Face Reviews

Programmable Web

Everyone’s been talking about Splashtop on the new Asus Eee Box but we’re not allowed to say anything until it’s all “official-like.” It drives me crazy - I always have the scoop on this stuff and I’m not allowed to say anything!

I have to say that I’ve been playing with the Eee Box in the office and it’s a sweet machine. I’m really excited that we’re on it because we’re a perfect match for it. The Eee Box is really focused on getting you on the web. Splashtop is, as you know, the fastest and most efficient way to go from a cold boot to a fully functional web browser. What a great match for the new Atom Processor that Intel is releasing on this device.

When CNET reviewed the Eee Box, they said:

We also like the Eee Box’s start-up software layer, called ExpressGate. Approximately 7 seconds after you power the system, ExpressGate presents you with a pre-Windows operating system with applications for browsing the Web, instant messaging, looking at photos, and making VoIP calls with Skype. The ExpressGate screen gives you a button to load Windows XP if you need to go into the more robust operating system, and if you do nothing once ExpressGate loads, it will move on directly to XP as well. This software is so handy we’d like to see it on every PC.

That’s high praise from CNET. It seems like Asus has again defined a new category with this nettop box. They’re so handy, inexpensive and useful I can see these flying off the shelves. They even include a mounting bracket so that you can mount it to the back of your monitor. How smart is that! Cheers to our friends at Asus and congratulations everyone on another incredible integration of Splashtop.

If you’d like to see the actual press release (you never know), you can find it here.

TuneUpians-

Thank you so much for coming out to the launch party with Biz Markie! What a night!!

Biz brought down the house in his custom TuneUp gear with his unreal spinning, rhyming and beat boxing skills. We feel honored to have had such an iconic legend of Hip Hop help us celebrate our launch.

As a world renowned DJ with an insane digital music collection he absolutely loves TuneUp, so stay tuned to see Biz become part of the TuneUp family in months to come.

Everyone’s been looking tired this week. It seems like all my friends at DeviceVM have been staying up late to watch the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Whilst watching last night, I got somewhat tired of the same advertisements over and over again. I got out my laptop, powered on Splashtop and (instantly) began searching for online Olympic options. I found some great resources that pointed me in the right direction so I thought I’d forward them to you…

Note: thanks to SmartMobs for most of this info…

1. Qik - Qik is a live-streaming platform for your phone. It basically allows you to take out your phone and start streaming live to the web. Pretty cool, eh? Apparently they have about 18 people roaming around Beijing doing live Qik streams. Hope they charged their batteries.

Check out the Qik Olympic Channel here.

2. Daily Motion - Daily Motion is like YouTube in Europe. There’s a lots of good content including politics, creative content and then official coverage. Daily Motion is pretty unrestrained so expect to see some risque user generated content.

Check out Daily Motion here.

3. YouTube - If you’re in a country without official Olympic Coverage check out the YouTube China/Taiwan official Olympic Channel. If you are in a country with Olympic Coverage - check out this guy who is there and submitting material to YouTube regularly.

4. Kyte is another great resource that, similarly to Qik, allows people to stream live video from their phone (and other devices) to the web. They have 9 channels with a ton of first person content.

Check it out Kyte coverage here.

5. Flickr - Nothing beats the stunning photos of events and relevant places associated with this 2008 Summer Olympics. I highly suggest you take a sneak peak at these photos - it’s almost as good as being there.

Check out Flickr photos from the 2008 Olympics here.

Enjoy your weekend!

Hope all of you had a great weekend. Things here continue to move forward at a rapid pace. We’re still in the top 5 (out of 400) music management apps on download.com which makes us feel great. We’re cranking away on bug fixes and the new features we will be rolling out based on all of your feedback.

So, to give a little more insight about the vibe here at headquarters I figured I would post a video of us rocking out between coding sessions. Hope you like listening as much as we liked playing.

I’ve been waiting a while to write a post on one of the hotter web 2.0 startups, friendfeed. When friendfeed first launched several months ago it was definitely an early adopter product. And, perhaps, I didn’t understand it well enough. We all know I love Twitter which let’s you stream short thoughts, events or links. So, I assumed that friendfeed would be an extension of the lifestreaming concept - the never-ending newsfeed which was first made popular by Facebook. And it is. But, it has become so much more.

Check out this image:

You can see that several posts by different people. Some I “follow” and others are suggested to me by friendfeed. I can subscribe to more people, block people I don’t care for and easily configure it to automatically share anything I want from 40+ services including RSS feeds, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and Digg. It’ll even let people know what you’re listening to on Pandora.

But, the thing I like best is the conversations on friendfeed that ensue when someone posts something interesting. Lately, it seems that I’ve found a ton of really interesting articles just by watching friendfeed. Once something is posted people can “like” the article or even “comment” on it. From there you get awesome debates and further information. Take for instance, this post about cases for the iPhone 3G (something I’m definitely interested in).

So, give friendfeed a try. There’s much more to it than I’ve even described here. Photographer and Blogger, Justin Korn, talks about how to get started on friendfeed and pick your friends. I think friendfeed is an endless source of great web content and conversation around web content. Let me know what you think.

To be clear, we are entrenched in music here. We have a Sonos digital jukebox with a Rhapsody subscription set up here in the office that gives all of us access to almost any song ever made. Perfect environment for us to share our favs with one another real-time. I’ll post later on the spontaneous music wars that present themselves as well.

Anyway, a few months ago, my friend Jennifer Maerz (very talented music writer) turned me (and ultimately all of us here) on to Bon Iver. Bon Iver has created some of the most beautifully haunting music I have ever heard. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing them live on several occasions and suggest you do to. Simply brilliant.

Another cool TuneUp feature is “Now Playing” that will give you access to videos like the one below while you listen to it in iTunes.

Hope you enjoy him and buy his latest CD: For Emma, Forever Ago

It was bound to happen eventually. Some smart folks over at Phoronix Forums have hacked Splashtop. Well, it’s about time…

The fact that folks want to hack Splashtop is exciting and we want to be as supportive as possible. Just because something has been “hacked” doesn’t mean it’s less safe. We want to encourage folks to explore our product and help us to make it better.

We’ve been working hard trying to get Splashtop onto as many machines as possible over the last few months through proliferation programs. The development community has been promised an SDK from us for a while. We’re very glad to see some talented developers take matters into their own hands.

In fact, we’re inspired here at Splashtop HQ and will work to get the SDK out quickly. We have an early beta version ready now and will start working with selected developers to refine and deliver a polished version. Please e-mail us at developer@splashtop.com if you’re interested in helping out with the effort…and thanks to all of you for pulling us forward!

If you’re interested in some of the coverage on the Splashtop Jailbreak, here you go:

Phoronix
Engadget
Gizmodo

Again, we’ve gotten so many love letters from you telling us how much we’ve helped your music collections. As such, we have decided to ask for your assistance in making them 3D.

Here are the Rules:

1. Make a video about how you love TuneUp (testimonial, skit, documentary, short, vignette)
2. Upload it to YouTube or Vimeo
3. Send it to us at videos@tuneupmediaDOTcom

Here’s how you win:

1. First 10 entries will receive +1 tickets to see Biz Markie
2. Best entry will receive airfare from anywhere in the US + 1 night accommodation + VIP pass for the party

Keep Cleaning (and Cover Arting and Concerting)!

The TuneUp Team

If you go to search.twitter.com you will get an interface that looks like this:

This product was created by a company called Summize which was acquired by Twitter. This is useful information if you want to impress nerdy people at a party. So, here’s a real world use of this tool. I have a friend who just started as a Graphic Designer at Whole Foods. She works at their headquarters and is a great designer. She was told that she should “get on twitter” by those she works with as the marketing team was trying to stay up on new web trends (good for them). But, as a new user to Twitter, it’s sometimes hard to find an entry point or make Twitter relevant for you.

I instructed her to go to Search.Twitter and type in “Whole Foods.” Give it a shot. This is a real-time feed of people whose tweets have the words “whole” and “foods.” Amazing! Check out these results and make sure you note the times:

It’s a real time discussion of any subject. So, think of a subject, maybe your company or baby strollers or a movie you might want to see and watch the conversation!

So, live music is super important to us here at TuneUp. As such, we created a built-in concert alert system based on your favorite artists. Click on the concert tab and check out who’s coming to town. Cool, right? Now click the links, buy tickets and go see live music. It will make you a better person.

Here’s a bit on my first show without my mother:

The Year: 1988
The Artist: RUN DMC
The Venue: Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

I had seen posters advertising the show around town and had literally worn out my “Raising Hell” cassette. After quite a bit of coaxing, moms took me and my buddy (L Dubs) to the box office at Sears which is where you had to go to buy tickets. Weird. I couldn’t sleep the night before. Butterflies the whole day at school.

Needless to say, they absolutely killed it. They opened with “King of Rock”, smoke machines, Kangols, huge gold chains, trademark laceless shell toe Adidas. Throwing high fives to each other as they swaggered across the stage. Crowd on their feet. The energy was like nothing I had ever seen or felt. I left that show