Hey, 2010 is finally upon us!  A new year coming is a great cause to celebrate!  This past year has been exciting for me and my online endeavors (in no particular order)!

• I began a corny little photo blog on Posterous.com,
• I began to write for one of my favorite tech blogs, MakeUseOf.com!
• I began Tweeting (finally)
• We had an interesting series of Techie Interviews
• We did some testing of Google Voice and Gmail
• I tested Wetoku a few times (a really cool online video interviewing tool)
• We also got to witness a great new Christian blog (GodlySheep.com) start up by my good friend and fellow blogger Brett Barner
• Part of the year I did pretty good keeping up with Timmyjohnboy.com but I also have become lazy during some points (please forgive me).
• I also helped build a few other sites and pages including a church’s site for a friend (firstbaptistfernwood.com – still needs some theme work) and the teen site for Friendship Baptist Church (friendshipbaptist.us/teens)

Sounds pretty busy huh?  It was a blast!  Keep following because I’m sure there is much more to come!

I want to thank those of you who have not forsaken following Timmyjohnboy.com!  MANY of the email subscribers that joined us from last New Year’s contest are still subscribed so my only conclusion is that you’re still readers!

I want to have a contest to kick off 2010!

In the past year I had two contests (I believe), the New Years contest asking for people to subscribe for email updates and another contest looking for Twitter followers.  This time there are a few hoops I’d like to see people jump through, so hang on to your socks!

What do I need to do?

To enter, all you have to do is subscribe to my feed!  In fact, you can even unsubscribe after the contest ends!  Leave it to me to make you WANT to stay on!  Choose either to subscribe to receive updates in your email OR subscribe to the feed in a feed reader!  THEN stop back by this post and wish a Happy New Year to all my readers (and me of course!).  When the contest ends, I’ll randomly choose a winner from commenters that are subscribers.  If you leave your happy wishes via an audio comment or webcam comment, and you win, I’ll add a $5 Amazon.com gift card! NOTE:  YOU MUST ENTER THE CONTEST CODE GIVEN IN THE FOOTER OF EACH POST IN THE FEED - In other words, when you subscribe and you begin to receive updates via email or feed reader, you’ll find a special contest code at the bottom of each post. When you get the code, enter it into the TEXT of your comment NOT the audio or video comment!

What will I win?

You will be entering to win a brand new t-shirt from my Zazzle store!  There are SEVERAL shirts to choose from but for some reason thePing Pong shirts sell the best.  To be totally honest, the winner will actually be receiving a Zazzle gift card which I HOPE will in turn want to purchase a t-shirt from my Zazzle store!  Remember, if your comment is either audio or via webcam, and you win, you’ll ALSO get the $5 Amazon.com gift card!

When will it start/end?

The contest starts NOW January 1, 2010!  I will end 2 weeks later, January 15, at exactly 11:59PM EST so any comments left after that time will not be counted!  The next day I will contact the winner and make an announcement as soon as contact is made!

OK, in summary:

1. Enter by subscribing and find the contest code, comment on this post wishing me a Happy New Year (entering the code into the text area of the comment)
2. Enter to win a free shirt from Zazzle (actually a Zazzle gift card) – BONUS: If the winner has left an Audio or Webcam comment, they’ll also get a $5 Amazon gift card!
3. Contest dates: Begins January 1, 2010 and ends January 15, 2010 at 11:59PM EST

Look forward to hearing from ya’ll!!!!

Today I had the opportunity to interview Brett Barner, blogger from GodlySheep.com.  Let me tell you a bit about what they’ve got going on over there!

GodlySheep.com is a blog with a goal of helping churches and individuals.  Well… um… watch the interview and let Brett explain it!

You can check out GodlySheep.com and follow them on Twitter: @GodlySheep.  Brett will also be a guest blogger on here every so often so keep yer eyes open for a fresh voice!  He’s somewhat new to blogging but from what I’ve seen so far, he’s a great writer (as are the other writers on GodlySheep.com).

Brett, thanks for the interview and happy blogging!

Tonight I had the opportunity to have a little chat with Dave over at Wetoku.com (based in Seoul,South Korea) and I think you’ll be interested in some of the topics, including a few things coming down the pipes!

If you don’t know yet, Wetoku is a cool new web app which makes web-based video interviews easy and fun.  Dave gave the readers of MakeUseOf.com (whom I’ve been writing for) invites into the private beta so check out my article: How to conduct video interviews with Wetoku.  Here’s the interview:

Some of the topics discussed:

• Why Wetoku is a great idea
• Wetoku’s quality issues being dealt with
• Wetoku’s soon release from private beta
• Wetoku features being requested by users
• Wetoku features being worked on
• Features soon to be released to the masses

If you try out Wetoku for yourself, the folks over there would LOVE feedback, positive AND negative!  They’re in beta which means they’re still working out kinks and YOU can help!

Oh, and if you’d like to do an interview with me, let me know (in comments here or head to the contact page)!  I’m loving this “interview” thing!

This time I wrangled my sister, Tracy to do some tests on wetoku, the REALLY neat (did you hear that David?) new service, wetoku.  They were really nice enough to me to allow me to test some of the upcoming “Pro” features.  Tonight we tested the difference in quality of the video settings (Normal=16kbps, High=32kbps, and Higher=66kbps).  The first video is “Normal.”

If you notice, the video is pixelated.  Even when we are not moving, the picture is a bit pixelated.  When the video is seen in full screen mode, it’s almost like playing an old video game.  Give no mind to the silly wagging of our heads.  It’s just our way of testing motion!

The “High” setting is a lot better, in my opinion.  There is minimal pixelation and even when enlarging the video, the picture is still fine.

During the test of the “Higher” setting, we experienced some blurring instead of pixelation.  The video is still acceptable even for full screen.  Personally I like the “High” setting.  The minimal pixelation is not much of a trade off for the absence of the blurring.  Just my opinion.

As far as my overall opinion so far, I thoroughly enjoy using wetoku and I think they are heading in an awesome (did you hear that one too, Dave?) direction!  When I was told about some of the “pro” features coming out in private beta in October, it was plain to see that they are definitely listening to the public’s opinions.  I’ve heard people ask for better video and, WHAMO!  Better video!  People have been asking about video editing abilities, well, rumor has it there’s another WHAMO coming!  Also going to be tested is the ability to upload re-roll and post-roll video, custom watermark, and a customizable embeddable player.

There are a few things I’ve noticed so far that I think would be good to add, including multiple recordings per interview sitting (unless I missed something) and the ability to download the video for local safekeeping and for sharing on social video networks like YouTube.

They’re not done yet so keep cheering them on and keep giving them feedback!  Good job so far wetoku!

Tonight I finally was able to test a new web app by the name of Wetoku.com.  Wetoku.com is in the process of making video interviewing amazingly simple for the everyday blogger (like myself!).  They are still in private beta but I asked them nice and they gave me an invite!

In the video you’ll find myself (the interviewer) and a long time geek-friend of mine Abelardo (the interviewee) talking about various topics.  You’ll also notice that my volume is way too low which I believe is my fault but bear with me and turn up the volume.  AND I noticed that the timing is off.  Other than that, let me know what you think of the interview, the discussion AND the technical quality, in the comments.

Some of the topics discussed:

1. Safety on the Internet (specifically for kids)
2. WordPress and other blogging stuff
3. Social Networks (Facebook, Twitter, and hosted possibilities such as Drupal and BuddyPress)
4. Data backup (blog and otherwise)
5. Opera, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Safari (some more than others)
6. AND my blog design and a new css option

I believe the chat went well.  It usually does with a good friend, right?  There are a few options I’d like to see added to Wetoku like some editing abilites and the like, but all in all the service is a great idea!  Will I use it more?  Definitely!

Thanks, Abelardo, for the time and the chat!