VidCon 2010 is YouTube-only


I’ll start off with the fact that I dislike discovering events during or after they happen.

If you’re like me, then you’ll be sad to know that VidCon is happening right now. According to the official VidCon website:

Vid-Con is a three-day conference bringing together the brightest lights in the billion-views-a-day community known as the online video industry. Join us at the first ever gathering of the most influential and popular independent video makers online and the communities that have made them a force in the world.

It costs between $80-$140 per person to attend (depending when you registered), and is located in Los Angeles, California.

From my perspective, it appears to be quite similar to 2009’s YouTube Live — a pile of YouTubers (creators and fans) in one location to discuss how they got started, what they do, and so on. I don’t believe there were any “Hollywood celebrities” at VidCon. However, the line between Hollywood and Internet celebrities pretty much doesn’t exist anymore.

Now. I realise that YouTube is the largest video viewing platform on the planet Earth. *Insert blah blah statistics here* That said, I don’t understand why no other video sharing platform was involved with VidCon.

Yes, I work for Viddler (a bloody rad video platform), but I’m not bitter because it doesn’t seem like we were the only service to not be involved in VidCon. And I’m certainly not out of the loop; I keep tabs on what many other video services are doing, and any (not just video) tech conferences that are happening around the world.

Nothing in VidCon’s description says it’s a YouTube-only event. Though a lot of the graphics and personalities on the website sure implies it.

A video community does not have anything to do with the service the videos are hosted on. It’s about the videos, the creators of those videos, and the fans that absorb those videos.

If VidCon was a conference for the YouTube community, then I wouldn’t be writing this post.

I’ve only seen a few bits and pieces of content created from VidCon so far, and I listened to the livestream in the background while I worked today. It doesn’t seem much different from any other tech/media-based conference. It feels like the “popular” kids are just telling the beginners/fans how they got to be where they are. That helps, but people need to do to understand.

I really hope that makes some sense.

We need more fun and less blah blah.

I’ll be attending PodCamp AZ (a free technology unconference) in November. It’s only two days, but there will be much to learn and so much frickin’ fun to be had! It’s not just a video event, but many people attending do make lots of videos. I’m just mentioning this because it will be the next social event I attend, and anyone is welcome.

What did you think about VidCon? Did you even know about it? Will you be going next year?

Short URL: http://djsteen.com/wp/p/1150

Upgrade to Backupify Plus for Free


As many of you may know I have become quite obsessed with backing up my digital data. I won’t go into my complete strategy right know, but I will give you the opportunity to backup much of your data (to the cloud) for free.

I first learned about Backupify on net@night (episode 135). At the time, they were offering 2GB of backup for free. That’s not unusual for online backup — in fact, it’s quite the norm.

The giddy thing about Backupify is that it backs up your online digital data — GMail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, WordPress (your complete database), Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, Basecamp, Hotmail, Delicious, Flickr, Photobucket, and way more.

If you think about it, most of these services are very valuable to you, and I bet you don’t have a backup of the majority of them. Even if you do, it’s best practice to have multiple backups of all important data.

Once you’ve linked each of your online accounts with Backupify, then it’s completely automated; Backupify does regular backups of all the services you link. Don’t worry, Backupify is completely secure (none of your backups are visible to anyone but you).

What happens if Google’s servers were destroyed by an act of nature (flood, etc)? I know that’s completely unlikely, but what if… You can never be sure of how long certain online services will be around, and if they only hold a single copy of your data, then you could be completely out of luck.

Are you following me here? Good. Because I have a bloody rad deal for FIVE people.

If you leave a comment on this post or @reply me on Twitter, then I’ll send you an invite to Backupify Plus.

This is completely free. There’s no money involved. Backupify is just giving away these free upgraded accounts so that people try out the service.

Your Plus (10GB) account will be active for 1 year. After that you will be downgraded to the free 2GB account. Unless, of course, you love how rad the service is and you pay to upgrade in a year.

Yes, I also get an upgrade on my Backupify account too, so everyone wins! :)

Short URL: http://djsteen.com/wp/p/1143

TPAN featured on Mevio


I started my audio podcast, The Podshow About Nothing (a.k.a. TPAN), in 2006. I listened to lots of other audio podcasts back then, and they inspired me to start my own. Back then I didn’t have any niche topics to discuss, so the show is basically just an audio blog with fairly high production value (I add chapters (it’s only available as .m4a files), sound effects (sometimes), and all kinds of independent music).

The last episode I recorded with Leah Noreman in New York while I was there in July, 2008. Due to my traveling that year (yeah, lame excuse, I know) I didn’t end up getting that hour-long episode edited and published online until November 2008.

It’s been over a year and a half since that episode has been online. Other work and projects have hindered my ability to work on producing episodes over that time period. Yeah, I know, another lame excuse.

Surprisingly, people (not just my close friends and family) really do love the show. I even made a few hundred bucks from sponsors (GoDaddy and such) when I did the show.

*Ponders: I really have to record another episode soon.*

Anywho, last night I saw a tweet from Corey Harris (host of TechHijack) that stated I was featured on Mevio’s (the network I host TPAN on) front page. Baffled, I looked a the screenshot included in Corey’s tweet, and sure enough there was TPAN’s logo under the featured section. Fancy that!

TPAN featured on Mevio's front page

I can only conclude that Mevio uses an automated featuring tool rather than a person/employee curating the featured list. In contrast, at Viddler I carefully pick each featured video and Community Spotlight by watching the video, and discovering more about the creator, and so on. If you’d ever like your video featured on Viddler, then give me a tinkle.

I’m writing this post because a few people were wondering how I got featured on Mevio. Yup, it was nothing special. All I did was have a show on the network. I’m still chuckling about it.

Short URL: http://djsteen.com/wp/p/1105

What happened to Dumb and Dumber suits?


Ever since I saw the movie Dumb & Dumber I’ve wanted the orange suit that Lloyd (Jim Carrey’s character) wears in a party scene.

I’ve always loved wearing suits and formal wear. I liked to wear ties even before Avril Lavigne made it ‘hip’; though she probably influenced me to wear them more.

When I saw the suits in Dumb & Dumber I fell in love. I imagined myself wearing the orange one, but I also thought I’d look smashing in the light blue one. I wanted one of them — if not, both.

The first use case I came up with was my grade 12 formal. Me. Orange. Spunkalicious. That didn’t end up happening, but I did go to that formal in my chocolate-brown suit and my hair was dyed (with Fudge — the permanent stuff) aqua-green. Why? Because my date (naturally a red-head) had her hair dyed brown and she was wearing an aqua-green dress. I know, I know, it was awesome!

After high school I was determined to have the orange suit custom-made for me. I was willing to pay up to $1,000 for someone to make it for me. I called around to various tailors to see if they would be able to make the suit for me and I did find some interest but I never followed up with them because I didn’t trust that any of them would be capable of making the suit to look exactly like the one in the film (this includes the top hat, cane, and shoes — all orange in colour).

Then, one day, I discovered dumbanddumbercostumes.com (I believe that was the URL; it appears the site is no longer around (for now)). They had the orange and light blue suits (I mean, tuxedos) from Dumb & Dumber. It included the top hat, shoes, cane, and socks. All of the items were 95% accurately replicated from those seen in the film. I was excited to say the least! Oh, and they were priced around $250 — that’s a really reasonable price!

I held off on purchasing the suit/tuxedo/outfit for a while because I didn’t really have any event I could wear it to.

At the end of 2009 one of my best friends got married and I asked if I could wear the orange suit to her wedding. She didn’t really give me a definitive answer, but she didn’t say “go for it!”, so I held off on the idea.

A few days ago I went to look at the website again just to see if they were priced the same or if anything had changed. I couldn’t find the website. I looked through my browser’s history (I keep all the history), my Delicious bookmarks, my Gnolia bookmarks, and anywhere else I may have saved the information. Google results showed dumbanddumbercostumes.com, but nothing was at that URL. I was saddened.

After a few more web searches I finally came across brightcoloredtuxedos.com. It seems that the same people that operated dumbanddumbercostumes.com are now operating Bright Colored Tuxedos, and they’ve added a bunch more colours! They have every colour of the rainbow. Yeah, it’s awesome!

They still have the orange and light blue suittuxedos. And they’re currently priced at US$219 to buy (you can also rent them at US$125 for 1-3 days). Again, I’m excited!

The orange tuxedo is the next formal attire I plan on purchasing, but I just need a rad event to wear it to. Perhaps, PodCamp AZ will be a good event — it will probably be quite hot there though.

If you have a giddy event you’d like me to wear the orange tuxedo to, then give me a holler!

This post is intended to give people — like myself — information on where to buy/rent the tuxedos that were previously available at dumbanddumbercostumes.com.

Short URL: http://djsteen.com/wp/p/1073

My experience with food


Swiss Schnitzel Food has been a big part of my life. As it should be; all life needs nutrients, and many living things receive that required nutrients in the form of food.

My experience with one of the fundamental elements of life has been harder on myself and the people around me than most people on Earth; I’m picky. Granted, in the past few years I’ve met more of my fellow picky eaters, but I don’t think many of them have put their families through as much trouble as I put mine.

As I said, food as been a big part of my life. My life story. I’d love to tell you my whole life story (it’s pretty interesting), but I’m going to focus on just the food parts for this post.

When I was a baby, a toddler, and up until I was around 5-years-old I would eat just about anything my parents would feed me. Baby food, avocado, banana, kiwi fruit, milk, eggs, and many other fruit and vegetables. When I figured out that I could control what I put in my mouth I then decided that I would like much less foods.

It wasn’t always because of taste, but because of texture. All humans like different textures of clothing against their skin, and this carries over to textures of food that we put in our mouths.

One of the textures I disliked most was pasta. Only certain types of pasta though. I’ve always like regular spaghetti noodles (with some type of flavouring added to them; taste), but shell pasta, tube pasta, and many other hollow pastas have always creeped me out.

The same goes for many other mushy types of food. I decided that mash potatoes (I love roast, sliced, and fried potatoes), bananas, squash, avocado, watermelon, grapes, etc. are not for me.

I’ve been told by one of my uncles that if I was his son he wouldn’t have put up with me not liking things. I must say that my parents didn’t always put up with it. Some nights I wouldn’t get to eat dinner at all if I didn’t like what was put on my plate.

And, no, my parents are not horrible people; I had one of the best upbringings anyone could ask for. I learned much about the world from both my parents and they raised me to be the giddy person I am today.

Some days at school I would go hungry if I forgot to bring my lunch from home because I didn’t like anything (besides lollies/carob) in the canteen. (Remember, folks, I’m still discussing primary/elementary school.) My friends didn’t usually have anything tasty either; sliced or shredded ham/chicken/beef on white bread wasn’t my idea of a tasty meal.

Yes, I would eat most junk foods, but only about once or twice a day. I knew some kids that would have packets of chips (containing MSG) for recess and lunch. Not to mention the sugary drinks that rotted their newly received ‘adult teeth’.

In around grade six — I was attending a Rudolf Steiner School (referred by some of the students and parents as a ‘hippy school’) — my Mom obtained a book about all the ingredients in many foods. Particularly, what the numbers mean on the back of food packaging. My sister and I hated that book. Most of the food items in our house that contained MSG were removed. Many other items were given limited access. That’s mostly the junk food though. Let’s get back to my experiences with real foods.

My Mom would make this chicken that became known as “my favourite chicken”. It was a free range chicken breast covered in seasoned bread crumbs and cooked on the stove until the bread crumbs were a colour between dark brown and black. However, the chicken was never burnt. It was so tasty, and to this day I haven’t been able to replicate it.

After a few years of me being picky, Mom would make a meal for the family (herself, my Dad, and my Sister) and make me a separate chicken and white rice dish. I probably had chicken and rice four or five days our of the week. This was probably not the most nutritional meal to eat over and over, but it made my taste buds extremely happy and it was fairly easy for Mom to put together (she normally cooked a huge batch of it and would heat up leftovers every night).

In my high school years my culinary tastes grew far and wide. I tried (and liked) Mongolian beef/pork, supreme pizza (beef, sausage, capsicum, onion, pepperoni), lettuce (on burgers), mayonnaise (on burgers), tomato (on burgers), and many more foods that I probably take for granted that I like these days.

During these high school years my Mom started her own business (an acting school — now known as Actors Creative). This meant that she had less time to do household things like cook, clean, and keep my sister and I under control. My Dad took over some of those roles on his days off work (he’s a freelance television producer/director), but my sister and I also had to learn to cover some of these ‘chores’.

After a few years I began to serve as the main cook in the house because I was the most picky eater and if I could cook a meal that I liked, then chances are the rest of the family would like it too. I would (and still do) cook delicious stir fry dishes, Thai dishes, and many other dishes that mostly revolve around chicken. I often experiment with my dishes, so you never know what you’re going to get. ;)

One of the biggest issues with being so picky is when I’d sleep over at a friends house or even just visit for the day. I would always worry about what I was going to eat, and I feel really bad when my friend’s Mom or Dad would havechoose to cook something that I’d like. I’ve spent a lot of my life answering questions like ‘Do you like [type of food]?’.

Sometimes if a person or family didn’t know I was a picky eater I would just go along with what they were making and I’d pick out the things I didn’t like. It’s an embarrassing situation to be in, but in almost all cases I’d rather be embarrassed than eat a snow pea, a pile of corn, or sliced carrot.

Now that I live out of home I continue to cook my own meals, but I still deal with being picky almost daily because sometimes I’ll visit a restaurant, or I’ll visit family/friends for a given length of time. If possible, I offer to cook for them, but sometimes that isn’t an option.

Maple Ridge One such amazing example of food that I’ve tried in recent years is different types of pasta. When I was staying with my Cousin’s family in Vancouver, Canada, his wife made some chicken tortellini pasta. The pasta was green (which I found a little weird, but I’d seen all different colours of pasta before, so I wasn’t worried), but so darn delicious. I discovered a new-found love for pasta. Gosh, I want some right now — I’m drooling.

Here’s proof that I also tried linguini pasta while I was in Victoria, Canada:

As you can see, I try to document any times that I try new foods (and drinks). One of my coworkers at Sugar Fix (I worked there 2005-2008), Katie, would encourage me to try new things, so now every time I try a new food I think of her. Hah.

Other very recent experience I had with food was when I went out to dinner to a restaurant which serves up international cuisine, named Puerto Adventura. We read some great reviews on the restaurant and noticed that the owner was also the chef and was incredibly kind.

To make a long story short, I asked the nice owner lady if I could remove the zucchinis, carrots, and broccoli because I didn’t want them to go to waste. She told me that she doesn’t do that because all the ingredients are meant to go together, and I completely respect her decision. I tried my best to finish everything; I even cut the sliced carrots in to tiny pieces and mixed it in to the garlic rice. I felt bad that I left the majority of the vegetables on my plate, but I’ve had to deal with that for most of my life, so I’m pretty used to that ‘bad’ feeling.

The point of this post is to inform my current and future friends/family to encourage me to try new things, but never force me to. And never buy me any food or drink without first consulting me. If you’re planning on purchasing me ingredients for my cooking adventures, then please respect my wishes to have those ingredients supplied by organic growers (and in the case of chicken/eggs: free range, organic, hormone-free).

My switch to mostly organic occurred when I watched the documentary “Food, Inc”. Read my review and thoughts on organic foods.

Short URL: http://djsteen.com/wp/p/1068

When Equal Rights get out of hand


Today, Brian Shaler tweeted a link to an ABC News article/video that documented a Hallmark greeting card that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is considering racist.

Watch the video for the full story, and then I’ll share my thoughts below:

I only have basic knowledge on racism (mainly toward black/African American people) in the USA, so please excuse me if I have the wrong idea about this.

The way I know the ’story’ is that black (I’m going to use colour names because I an NOT racist, and I don’t care about being politically correct) people were slaves, but then they — as with women — eventually received the same rights as everyone else.

I know that everyone is still racist to everyone. I see it in Australia (though, it occurs much less there because our country is very multicultural), I see it in America, I see it on TV (Sawyer, a character in LOST, is an example of this. He uses degrading names such as “tubby” for other characters in the show; calling people by their physical appearance.), and I see it in stupid situations like the one in the video news story above.

I have certainly called people by what they look like (if I do not know their name) just to describe them, but I am not a racist person.

The other day Rachel was discussing one of her coworkers whom is learning Arabic for a study abroad program. Rachel’s Mom immediately (but jokingly) implied that Rachel’s coworker was plotting to be a terrorist. I stood up for the millions of Arabic speakers whom have never seen or been involved (directly or indirectly) with terrorism, and explained that mainstream media wants you to think that way, but it’s the complete opposite of reality. That’s essentially like saying Australians are all dangerous because they carry around big knives (Crocodile Dundee reference); grow up and educate yourself about the world. Please.

I digress. Back to the greeting card story.

I don’t care if the person who did the voice over for the card did say “black whore”. Nothing about the card even remotely relates to African Americans that are used for sex. It’s about the universe and black holes (which are fascinating).

The thing that saddens me most is that organisations like the NAACP exist. If everyone was equal, then there wouldn’t be a need for a special community just for black people. Yes, yes, I understand that there are all kinds of communities on the internet that bond together via similar interests, thoughts, appearances, etc., but I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of an Association for the Advancement of White Tigers Living in Igloos. People really need to get over themselves and help advance the planet together.

The fact that retailers have pulled the graduation greeting card from the shelves is ridiculous and childish. Stand up for the company you sell products for and back their say on what the card actually says.

I’m done. World peace can’t come soon enough. I love you all. Even black midgets that don’t shower and live in wells.

This post was sponsored by Mitch’s latest venture Post Equal (without his knowledge).

Short URL: http://djsteen.com/wp/p/1055

How long has this hooka been a fad?


As many of you may know, I am a little sheltered from some aspects of life. The majority of my adolescence occurred in Australia, and while Australia is very influenced my the USA there are still some aspects which are filtered out.

I’ll also preface that I’ve never smoked anything, intentionally* drunk any alcohol, or done drugs ever in my life. A couple of years ago I found out this was considered ‘straight edge’, but I just call it ‘being myself’.

It wasn’t until I traveled to the USA in 2008 that I discovered hooka. In November, 2008, I was staying with Cait and Jason (their hospitality was greatly appreciated) and the latter of the two enjoyed some hookah every now and then. For the most part Jason and his buddies would respect my wishes and smoke their hookah outside.

That said, it was their apartment, so when they smoked inside I wouldn’t make much of a fuss; especially because hookah smoke has flavours and once the white smoke dissipates in the air it makes the room smell of the flavour (raspberry, mango, mint, etc).

Now, I do not condone the smoking of any substance, yet I don’t mind the fact that plant-based ones have far less of a harmful impact on the human body. However, breathing in ANY smoke is harmful and should be avoided. You would think smoke from bonfires isn’t too bad for the body considering it’s coming from raw nature (wood), but it’s actually very harmful if you breathe too much of it.

Recently, I saw a couple of American (this has to be distinguished because none of my Australian friends have ever talked about hookah) friends talking about going to hookah bars. I consulted my resident knowledgeable American college student — Rachel — and she informed me that hookah bars are like bars that serve alcohol, but they allow persons over the age of 18 or 19 (the legal drinking age in the USA is 21, and I like that) to hang out and smoke (and sometimes purchase) hookah.

I’m just amazed that a fairly freely available substance such as hooka hasn’t been on my radar until now. I’m sure Australians would love it. Although, Australians love their alcohol. In no way am I saying hookah should trickle down to Australia and become a popular underground-ish drug there too; I’m just surprised it already hasn’t.

I’m even more amazed that alcoholic beverages (which is many cases is a far more dangerous drug than marijuana or hookah) are legal in most countries. If anything should be illegal, then it should be alcohol that isn’t used for medical reasons. By golly that would save a lot of lives everywhere around the world.

Teens and adults alike need to find more fun in life itself. People like myself or Johnny Cupcakes can be inspirations for such lifestyles; we have so much fun without even needing to be in the vicinity of alcohol.

*Intentionally meaning Rachel poured me some lemonade a few weeks ago and I just figured it was regular lemonade. She told me after I drank it that it was Mike’s Hard Lemonade (contains 5% alcohol). I thought back to when I was drinking it couldn’t taste any alcohol in it at all. I didn’t like it though because it was too carbonated; real lemonade is where it’s at!

Short URL: http://djsteen.com/wp/p/1052