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!

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!

Last night Jay Leno had a very special guest on his show:  Barack Obama!  Whether you like the man or not, or whether you voted for him or not, the interview apparently was an interesting one!  I won’t go into the details because you can hit up the news or YouTube for that.  I just want your oppinion!

He said some interesting things during the interview, one of which was a joke concerning the Special Olympics where he compares it with his bowling game.  Now, as careless as the remark could have been, he arguably did not mean any disrespect towards people with disabilities OR the Special Olympics, if you give him the benefit of the doubt.  However, as the President of the United States, he MUST know the power of his words.  AND he must know the prestige, power, and importance of the office which he holds.

I have several questions concerning this interview:

1. Do you think the President has any business on a late night talk show?
2. Do you think the effects of the interview will be positive or negative?
3. Do you think there could have been a better way to garnish support for any of his policies or plans?
4. Do you think the President should be held to a higher standard for the things he says than the average American?

Let me know in the comments!

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I have not known Matt Rodela for too long.  I starting following his blog, yfncg.com, some time ago and have been enjoying learning about his business endeavors.  As you will learn in this my second “techie” interview, Matt is an Enterprise Systems Analyst and is in the process of starting his own consulting business.

Bio:

I have 7 years experience in the information technology industry, including 4 years in the US army as a trumpet player and computer technician. I have a degree in Information Systems and several technology certifications including Network+ and MCP.

Along with starting and running my part time computer consulting business, I also keep busy with my “day job” as an Enterprise Systems Analyst for a pharmaceutical company and moonlight as a singer/songwriter at http://www.mattrodela.com. I try to apply the lessons I’ve learned from my military, musical, and corporate experiences to find out-of-the-box and productive ways to achieve
success while juggling multiple creative and business opportunities.

I write about my experiences running a part-time computer consulting business on my blog http://www.yfncg.com.

I grew up in Southern California, but currently live in Maryland with my goldfish Rufus.

Do you mind being called a “techie” friend?

Not at all. I embrace my “techiness” and have earned good money from it to date!

How long have you been interested in technology or computers?

Ever since my parents bought our first family computer back in the
late 80′s! I was so fascinated by how it worked and what it could do.

Do people in your life (friends or relatives) seem to turn to you for computer related problems?

My family mostly. Most of my friends are fairly tech savvy so they
can handle things themselves!

If so, does this bother you?

Not at all. I like feeling useful and its been great practice for my business.

If someone would contact you for assistance, what kind of steps should they take before asking for help?

At least try rebooting the computer. An amazing amount of issues can be fixed by a simple reboot. Also, it doesn’t hurt to put your issue into google and see what comes up, that’s how I do half of MY OWN research anyway! Shhhh, don’t tell anyone!

Where do you see the internet in 10 years?

I see it being very transparent and ubiquitous. It will be everywhere we need it to be and it will be the place where we store all of our applications, data, and information.

Related to the last question, where do you see computers in 10 years?

I think personal computing will have nearly evaporated into the “cloud”. Instead of having a PC at home, you’ll have multiple ways to access your chunk of the cloud like cell phones, netbooks, tv’s, and even appliances.

Your opinion on:

Best OS?

They all have their own benefits. For corporations, it’s Windows. For personal use, I think OS X offers the best usability. For techies, Linux is fun to play with and offers the most flexibility.

Best Web browser?

Firefox for sure. It’s open-source nature allows it to have great plug-ins written for it. I haven’t tried Google’s Chrome browser yet, but plan on checking it out soon. IT seems to have great promise.

Best free/paid antivirus program (can include other areas such as anit-spyware and cleaning programs if you like)?

This changes so frequently it’s hard to keep up. But right now my favorite free antivirus program is AVG and my favorite paid one is Kaspersky. They both seem to strike the best balance between being safe yet un-obtrusive.

Best search engine?

There’s no question it’s google. Others have tried to offer more, but the simplicity and straightforwardness of google keeps me coming back.

What are the top 3-5 websites you visit regularly?

• www.cnet.com – To keep up-to-date with the latest trends in consumer electronics.
• www.technibble.com – To keep up-to-date with the latest trends in computer repair and consulting.
• www.pandora.com – Better than any radio station! Where I find new music based on musicians I already like. I’t always on in the background when I work on the computer at home.
• www.igoogle.com – Since I’m a google nut, I like using igoogle as a way to consolidate all of my various google applications in one place at a glance.

Thank you, Matt, for taking the time out to thoughtfully answer these questions!

Recently I did a post about where I go to find answers online.  One of the sources I cited was my “techie” friends.  Today I want to start a series of interviews around these wonderful people with an interview of a friend of mine from school, Mark Bouchard.  For the interview I asked Mark to give us a quick bio to catch us up with what he’s up to, and then I asked him a series of questions.  I hope you enjoy!

Bio:

My name is Mark David Bouchard, Jr. I currently live in Waterford, NY (which is about 10 miles north of Albany, NY).

Since June 2006, I have been working with a small company in Saratoga Springs, NY called CORESense. At CORESense, I work on the implementation team and I work with a web programming language called PHP and database software called MySQL. CORESense provides retail Software as a Service (SAAS) which helps our clients maintain orders, customers, products, inventory, reporting, etc.

I went to college at Pensacola Christian College in 2001-2005 where I earned my BS degree in Computer Science.

Do you mind being called a “techie” friend?

No, I actually don’t mind. Sometimes I refer to myself as a “techie”. I will also accept “geek” but I DO NOT accept “nerd” because it implies poor hygiene.

How long have you been interested in technology or computers?

My initial interest in computers started back in 1997 when my Grand Mother bought a computer for me to work on. I destroyed the thing several times by rerunning the restore disks every time I killed Windows . I eventually got tired of that (and my Grand Mother didn’t appreciate losing work) and I started figuring out how to fix problems in Windows without using the restore disk. My first experience with programming was in 8th grade when I learned QBASIC. After experiencing that, I was determined to study programming at Pensacola Christian College where I took on a Computer Science degree.

Do people in your life (friends or relatives) seem to turn to you for computer related problems?

Yes, all the time. My Mom, Dad, sisters, and a few friends have turned to me for help.

If so, does this bother you?

Sometimes. Generally I don’t mind helping people fix their computers. I get really annoyed if the problem could have been prevented with something like decent virus protection software. Despite that though, I do enjoy the “detective” work of analyzing the situation and figuring out where the virus is hiding.

If someone would contact you for assistence, what kind of steps should they take before asking for help?

Generally it’s a good idea to provide reproduction steps so I can reproduce the problem you are experiencing. Sometimes people will ask me for help and say something like “The computer gave me this strange error message that said something about some disk problem.” As you can see, this question is very vague. This could be something as simple as a corrupt file to symptoms of hard disk failure. My suggestion is to write down these kinds of messages and any steps to reproduce the problem, then your “techie” friend can help you out more effectively. Also, it is a good idea to write down things you tried to do on your own to rectify the problem.

Where do you see the internet and computers in 10 years?

Being in web development and working with websites like Facebook, Google and their products, Youtube, etc. it is obvious that the web is becoming multimedia centric. This is commonly referred to as Web 2.0 and we are starting to see a lot of these new features. There is another cool technology idea called “cloud computing”. It’s the idea where people do there work over the web. A good example of this would be Google’s Docs web applications. You can compose basic documents which work with Microsoft Office using only the Internet and your web browser. I read a headline recently on slashdot.org (a geek’s technology news site) which mentioned “cloud computing” graphics processors. That is, having a centralized network on the Internet which does graphics processing outside of your computer. “Cloud computing” and Web 2.0 seem to be the wave of the future.

Your opinion on:

Best OS?

The best PC OS, in my opinion, is Ubuntu Linux. The best OS for Mac has to be whatever the latest MacOS X .

Best Web browser?

Definitely Firefox! It’s based on Mozilla and some components of Gecko (the rendering engine) which are both Open Source software that have been around for years. It also standardized tabbed browsing (though Opera has this too) and it has awesome plugins. What more can you askfor?

Best free/paid antivirus program (can include other areas such as anit-spyware and cleaning programs if you like)?

My favorite free (for home use only) anti-virus software is Avast (www.avast.com). They require you to register, but the download is free and after registration you get 14 months of free virus database upgrades. The software works quite well and I’ve seen it remove several viruses successfully recently.

I absolutely hate any Norton products. I used to like Norton, but, just like Windows Vista, modern versions of Norton are “pretty” looking bloated tools. Besides, they rip you off by charging you $50+ for the toolset.

Best search engine?

Google… period. Why? Google’s search page loads instantly and I almost find exactly what I’m looking for within the first 3 search results pages. Most often the first page has the site I’m looking for. Additionally, Google’s advertising is specifically related to what I’m looking for and it IS NOT ANNOYING!

What are the top 3-5 websites you visit regularly?

In no particular order:
- www.google.com (and gmail)
- www.facebook.com
- www.ubuntu.com
- www.slashdot.org
- www.kernelnewbies.org
- www.php.net (reference tool for work )
- www.mysql.com

Thank you, Mark, for taking the time out to thoughtfully answer these questions!