Charlie Sheen Recites His Own Poetry and 10 Other Highlights From His First Web Show, Sheen’s Korner

by Julie Miller  
from: http://www.movieline.com/

If you missed the first (and possibly only) episode of Charlie Sheen’s Internet talk show, Sheen’s Korner, don’t worry! In our quest to chronicle each and every controversial move that the Two and a Half Men star makes, Movieline tuned in and carefully documented everything that happened in the winning-est sixty minutes of web broadcast ever. There was chain-smoking! There were official sponsors! There was poetry about dead babies! And there was a segment called “Just Because They’re Bitchin’.” Trust me… you’re going to want to review the highlights.

Flanked by his long-time assistant Rick Calamaro, one of his muses and his “musical director” Simon Rex, Sheen opened his show by thanking his sponsors — SelfDiscipline.com and Tiger’s Blood — before launching his maiden web show voyage. Highlights follow.

1. Charlie does a news segment in which he only highlights news about winners — including this story about a victorious bald eagle with an unfortunate name.
“This is a story that I kind of questioned, although there is an absolute ‘win’ involved in this story but tell me, am I reading this wrong? ‘A bald eagle crashed into a windshield and has recovered. Weagle the Eagle is now flying again.’ But probably not rolling with his posse because they renamed him ‘Weagle.’ Still a win. Still winning. But let’s take some online name submissions because ‘Weagle the Eagle’ — regardless of all of the street cred that he has now — I just don’t think that name supports his winning ways.

2. Charlie takes (and autographs) a Polaroid picture of himself for an 80-year-old fan of his on Twitter.
“Josie Dimples is an 80-year-old woman who tweeted me and said that she is now ‘winning.’ She is winning inside of every bone. So, Josie Dimples, we salute you. And clearly, Josie Dimples, you are a winner. […] We’re going to shoot one Polaroid per show. I’m going to sign this before it even develops because I know that once it develops with my signature on it, it’s worth a fortune. […] I’ll make this a work of magic warlock art.”

3. Charlie interrupts his show to take a call from “the president.” Only technological problems ensue.
“OK, so that call from the president didn’t happen but I have absolute faith that it will.” [Editor’s Note: It never does.]

4. Charlie asks his audience to submit their favorite Sheenisms via Twitter.
“The past couple weeks has been me cresting on a mercury surfboard on a tsunami, headed toward them. And so, during this odyssey, there has been a lot of wordsmithing that has fallen gracefully from this beautiful hole. [Points to mouth]. So, it’s caught on like an absolute global wildfire. I mean, how couldn’t it? Duh! So, we’re asking you now, what are some of your favorite lines that this warlock brain produced?”

5. When Sheen’s Twitter followers do not remember his sayings word-for-word, he harasses them on-air.
“What is that word? This is not even a line I said. Pay closer attention, losers. As I like to say, ‘Get a job!’”

6. Charlie debuts his new tattoo which of course, says “WINNING.”

7. Charlie responds to a question about the new iPad.
“I mean, I don’t really have an opinion on that. I don’t, like, research this. Apple is winning. Certainly. It is the greatest company ever.”

8. Charlie reveals the only people he would trade places with… “for 10 minutes.”
“This is a softer segment now, called ‘Kinda Wish I Was Them… For 10 Minutes’ — which is a long time for a mad warlock genius like myself. Colin Farrell. […] Because he’s just as groovy as they get because yeah, I want to be you for 10 minutes. […] Brian ‘Fear the Beard’ Wilson. Don’t even speak. […] He’s just better than you. I don’t care who you are. […] Sean Penn. And I guess I only want to be you for the 10 minutes when fists were just making contact with those loser faces. Boom. Crush. Night, losers. Winning. Duh.”

9. After sweating profusely throughout the first 30 minutes of Sheen’s Korner, Sheen yells at his production team.
“Can we spend a little money on air conditioning here?! Or are we like ‘lower budget?’ Open a window! Or do we not want the sound in this secret chamber to escape out into the normalcy of Humanville?”

10. Charlie mocks NBC News correspondent Jeff Rossen, who interviewed Sheen last week.
“What I thought would be funny is if I took this gentleman, this media personality and I sort of turned the tables on him. I’ll lean in really close, with the good lighting on me and the bad lighting on him and say, ‘You know, Jeff, what was the foam on that first beer like?’ In the promo, I’d cut to him just blinking and looking down… because he is shamed by his actions. ‘So Jeff, tell me about that first Advil. Was it the Advil that led to the Aleve? When did you know that you hit rock bottom? When you went to the all-night CVS to score at 4 in the morning?’ He couldn’t Aleve it alone.”

11. Charlie closes Sheen’s Korner with his own poem, ‘The Big White Phone,’ which he tried to sell years ago, “before people realized how bitchin’ I am. It sold six copies.”
‘In the twisted times of a rotten game,
Where flood waters raised coffins from pain.
Where the worms of freedom have all gone insane,
I plucked them or sucked them from the heart of my brain.
When the edge of confusion appears in disarray,
It’s an act of delusion dead babies would say.
When the clock’s final ticking exposes your day,
It’s your balls that will be clipping from the dock of the bay.
When leaders ring true in the eye of the mass,
Their blood turns cold blue while the dogs eat the grass.
Their painful decay sends a snake up your ass,
The act of delay they promise will pass.
Until we find from true release the volume of our moans,
They pack our bags with sullen peace while their children sleep alone.
When these acts of truth arrive in time,
Please read them high in tone.
I’ll be heaving bile in a vicious style,
As I talk to the big white phone.”

Charlie Sheen Sets New Guinness World Record for Twitter

 by Todd Wasserman 

from http://mashable.com/

Charlie Sheen may or may not be “winning,” in life, but he has won a rare honor: the “Fastest Time to Reach 1 Million Followers” Guinness World Record.

Guinness community manager Dan Barrett says the agency “just researched and approved” the record this morning. According to Barrett, Sheen reached that milestone in 25 hours and 17 minutes. As of this writing, Sheen’s Twitter account, @CharlieSheen, has close to 1.2 million followers. Guinness did not have a previous record for that category, Barrett says. Sheen also set a Guinness record for “Highest Paid TV Actor Per Episode — Current” at $1.25 million.

Sheen joined Twitter March 1. In a matter of minutes, Sheen acquired more than 60,000 followers and a Klout score of 57 — without even tweeting. According to a report in Advertising Age, Sheen was able to get his account verified so quickly because Internet startup Ad.ly brokered his account with Twitter.
Sheen, of course, has been all over the news since he publicly disparaged Chuck Lorre, producer of Sheen’s successful sitcom Two and a Half Men in a bizarre interview with Alex Jones of InfoWars last month. Since then, Sheen has been interviewed by various other high-profile outlets making equally odd statements. The public meltdown has made Sheen a continual trending topic on Twitter and the subject of several YouTube parodies.

For Guinness, this is the second high-profile application of the brand’s records system to social media. Last month, the Nabisco cookie brand Oreo and rapper Lil Wayne squared off for the record for the most Facebook likes. Lil Wayne won that contest handily.
Image courtesy of Flickr, Ash90291.

Help Tim Burton Write A Story On Twitter

From: http://www.movieline.com/

Tim Burton has started a collaborative storytelling project that anyone can contribute to…provided they use only 127 characters and that they are selected. Burton posted the opening to a story about his character Stainboy on Twitter, and starting today, users can post follow-up passages. The best posts will be selected and posted on the twitter feed, culminating in some sort of complete Stainboy short story on December 6th. The adventure begins with mysterious goo…

It seems like Burton could have worked on his syntax a bit more for the opening line of a short story, but you get the idea. Burton first introduced the Stainboy character in a series of Flash animation shorts in 2000.

Thousands of submissions have already appeared on the Burton Story site, but none have been posted to the Twitter account yet. The tweets are split between those responding to Burton’s first post and several probably very stressed-out people who are trying to build a story out of every submission. From what I can tell, that one has something to do with kittens at this point.

[Burton Story via Badass Digest]

Flipboard Launches as the iPad’s Social Media Magazine

By: Ben Parr

With backing from several heavy hitters and an acquisition, Flipboard has kicked off its quest to become the new and vibrant way you browse your social media streams.

Flipboard, which is now available in the iPad app store, is a start-up that calls itself the “world’s first social magazine.” It connects to your social media accounts — primarily Facebook () and Twitter () — and utilizes that information to create an interface that will feel familiar if you’re a magazine lover. It officially launches today.

Flipboard takes popular news sources (specifically the ones you choose) as well as your Twitter and Facebook feed to provide to create a unique web browsing experience. Moving through the interface is a simple as flipping the page. Items shared on Facebook are suddenly turned into magazine articles and multimedia is immediately made front-and-center.

Here’s an example of what you might find simply browsing through your Twitter and Facebook feeds via Flipboard:

Coinciding with the Flipboard launch are two big announcements: first, the startup has raised $10.5 million in a Series A round including KPCB, Index Ventures, The Chernin Group, Jack Dorsey (Twitter’s creator), Dustin Moskovitz (Facebook’s co-founder) and Aston Kutcher.

Second, it has acquired Ellerdale, a real-time web intelligence startup, and made co-founder Arthur van Hoff its CTO. Ellerdale’s semantic analysts technology will help Flipboard choose and organize the most relevant stories for the readers.

I am thoroughly impressed from our first run with Flipboard. It is simply gorgeous and a pleasure to browse. I could the app open for hours just watching my feeds pass by. If I wanted to scan the key news from my social networks, this is the way I would want to do it.

Would you use an app like this to browse your social media feeds? Let us know what you think of the app in the comments.

John Mayer Duets With 11-Year-Old Fan

by Lindsay Robertson in Stop The Presses!

Singer John Mayer found himself in hot water earlier this month after he famously dished about private details regarding exes Jennifer Aniston and Jessica Simpson, and even worse, was widely accused of racism for other comments he made in a Playboy interview. Repeated apologies and tearful onstage apologies did little to curtail the damage done to his reputation.

But Mayer may have found redemption in the form of an act of kindness toward a fellow musician: an 11-year-old named Austin Christy. The boy's dreams came true at a John Mayer concert in Philadelphia on Sunday night, when the celebrity singer-guitarist invited young Christy onstage to play a song in front of over 25,000 fans.

Mayer's gesture was prompted by his tween fan's clever attention-grabbing tactic. Austin, who says he's been practicing Mayer's songs for over two years, showed up at Sunday's show carrying a homemade sign that displayed a hand-drawn guitar and the plea "Can I play 'Belief" with you?" Mayer couldn't resist.

In a popular YouTube video of the random act of concert kindness, Austin calmly shares the stage with Mayer, acutely focused on his performance of the song:

"I was really excited. I was thinking that it wasn't real," the New Jersey sixth-grader gushed to a reporter after the show.

Christy also told the Courier Post Online, "I thought it was pretty cool because a lot of other artists wanted to play with him and he picked an 11-year-old out of a lot better artists."

Austin says he learned the particular song he played, "Belief," for his mom JoAnna, who was there with him in the front row when his pleas were answered.

And Mayer didn't share just his stage with Austin. Afterwards, the multimillion-album-selling artist gave the boy the red Squier guitar and guitar picks that Austin had borrowed from Mayer for the performance.

Mayer signed the guitar's base: "To Austin, You rock. Keep playing. See you at your show."

The incident sparked so much goodwill from fans that when Austin and his mom finally headed home from what was surely one of the best nights of their lives, they were escorted by bodyguards to help them through the crowd of smiling fans.

If John Mayer's Twitter activity is any indication, the singer, who has been uncharacteristically silent since the aftermath of the Playboy scandal, had his own spirits boosted by his act of onstage kindness.

Just hours after his performance with his young-musician fan, he tweeted, "8 out of 8 band members agree, Philly is always an awesome show. XO J"

Trent Reznor Celebrates 20 Years of NIN’s “Pretty Hate Machine”

After over three months of dormancy, Trent Reznor’s Twitter page was resurrected last night as the Nine Inch Nails frontman celebrated the 20th anniversary of his debut album Pretty Hate Machine. “Happy birthday, old friend. Pretty Hate Machine turns 20,” Reznor wrote, his first tweet since quitting Twitter following a July 17th message that read, “I believe I’ve done all I care to do here at this point. Flesh and reality and silence are calling.” Reznor’s call out to his first LP helped make #PrettyHateMachine a Twitter Trending Topic last night.

Check out photos of NIN’s last-ever live gig.

Pretty Hate Machine was released on October 20th, 1989 on TVT Records, introducing music fans to hits like “Head Like a Hole,” “Down In It,” “Terrible Lie” and other synth-goth classics. The New Rolling Stone Album Guide awarded PHM four-and-a-half stars, crediting Nine Inch Nails for being “on to something that no one else had quite figured out yet” and labeling Reznor as “an artist already near the top of his game.”

If you’re looking to celebrate Pretty Hate Machine’s 20th anniversary by downloading the album off a digital service, you’re out of luck: The official NIN Twitter announced yesterday that a legal download isn’t available since the band doesn’t own the rights to PHM, but import copies of the CD are available. (The rights issue has always made finding a physical copy of PHM in stores quite difficult over the past decade.) Reznor retired NIN as a touring band last month, capping the band’s live run with an epic final gig in Los Angeles.

More NIN live: onstage shots from the band’s tour with Jane’s Addiction.

Fittingly, the same week we’re celebrating the 20th anniversary of a song called “Ringfinger,” Reznor married Mariqueen Maandig in a ceremony this weekend, Rolling Stone reported.

Meghan McCain posted this Boobtastic (PIC) on Twitter

imgur.com — The photo was re-hosted in the event she decided to delete it, but this picture was tweeted by Megan McCain to tell the world about her "spontaneous" (she used the quotation marks) night in with a book, a webcam and her breasts pushed together.

Sh*t My Dad Says may be the best thing to come from Twitter

twitter.com — I'm 28. I live with my 73-year-old dad. He is awesome. I just write down ***** that he says.

"You need to flush the toilet more than once...No, YOU, YOU specifically need to. You know what, use a different toilet. This is my toilet."4:07 PM Aug 23rd from web

"Don't touch the bacon, it's not done yet. You let me handle the bacon, and i'll let you handle..what ever it is you do. I guess nothing."

click here to subscribe to this twitter feed

Tweets from the beyond: John Quincy Adams Twittering

200 years later, sixth president's diary excerpts posted as tweets

By Sharon Gaudin

Computerworld - First the White House got a Twitter account and then, earlier this year, an astronaut became the first person to Twitter from space.

Now, someone's actually Twittering...from the grave?

Well, kind of.

Starting today, the Massachusetts Historical Society will be offering up excerpts from John Quincy Adams' line-a-day diary as tweets. The diary entries track Adams' voyage to Russia, which kicked off on Aug. 5, 1809. Two hundred years after Adams' journey began, accounts of his trip and his ensuing work as the first American ambassador to Russia will be chronicled daily on Twitter.

"We'll be posting [Adams'] exact words (his entries really do work perfectly as 140-character tweets), and, where possible, we will augment the posts with maps showing his location (thank him for providing regular latitude and longitude readings), links to longer diary entries, and other information," Jeremy Dibbell, a librarian with the Massachusetts Historical Society, wrote in a blog post. "His short entries are surprisingly rich, full of wonderful details about his reading, meals, weather, and shipboard activities."

Adams, the nation's sixth president, was the son of the second president, John Adams. Serving as a U.S. senator, the second presidential Adams also was a successful secretary of state, working out a deal to acquire Florida from Spain and helping to create the Monroe Doctrine.

And it seems that Adams was ahead of his time, writing his journal entries in nearly perfect 140-character quips - perfect for the microblogging site Twitter.

"This is an exciting opportunity for us to test out some new technological tools and to create a transcription of the line-a-day diaries, which will be useful for future projects, as well," said Dibbell. "We certainly hope others will find [Adams'] journey as fascinating as we do, so please follow him on Twitter."

Last month, a first-time novelist struggling to find a publisher for his book began releasing it 140 characters at a time on Twitter. Author Matt Stewart is in the process of publishing his novel, The French Revolution on Twitter. It appears to be the first full-length novel to be released one tweet at a time.

Earlier this year, NASA astronaut Mike Massimino was the first person to Twitter from space. Massimino sent out tweets during his voyage in May on the space shuttle Atlantis.

Mom-and-Pop Operators Turn to Social Media

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

Published: July 22, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO — Three weeks after Curtis Kimball opened his crème brûlée cart in San Francisco, he noticed a stranger among the friends in line for his desserts. How had the man discovered the cart? He had read about it on Twitter.

Enlarge This Image

Peter DaSilva for The New York Times

Curtis Kimball, owner of a crème brûlée cart in San Francisco, uses Twitter to drive his customers to his changing location.

Multimedia

Today's Business: Claire Cain Miller on Twitter and Small Businesses

Times Topics: Twitter

For Mr. Kimball, who conceded that he “hadn’t really understood the purpose of Twitter,” the beauty of digital word-of-mouth marketing was immediately clear. He signed up for an account and has more than 5,400 followers who wait for him to post the current location of his itinerant cart and list the flavors of the day, like lavender and orange creamsicle.

“I would love to say that I just had a really good idea and strategy, but Twitter has been pretty essential to my success,” he said. He has quit his day job as a carpenter to keep up with the demand.

Much has been made of how big companies like Dell, Starbucks and Comcast use Twitter to promote their products and answer customers’ questions. But today, small businesses outnumber the big ones on the free microblogging service, and in many ways, Twitter is an even more useful tool for them.

For many mom-and-pop shops with no ad budget, Twitter has become their sole means of marketing. It is far easier to set up and update a Twitter account than to maintain a Web page. And because small-business owners tend to work at the cash register, not in a cubicle in the marketing department, Twitter’s intimacy suits them well.

“We think of these social media tools as being in the realm of the sophisticated, multiplatform marketers like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, but a lot of these supersmall businesses are gravitating toward them because they are accessible, free and very simple,” said Greg Sterling, an analyst who studies the Internet’s influence on shopping and local businesses.

Small businesses typically get more than half of their customers through word of mouth, he said, and Twitter is the digital manifestation of that. Twitter users broadcast messages of up to 140 characters in length, and the culture of the service encourages people to spread news to friends in their own network.

Umi, a sushi restaurant in San Francisco, sometimes gets five new customers a night who learned about it on Twitter, said Shamus Booth, a co-owner.

He twitters about the fresh fish of the night — “The O-Toro (bluefin tuna belly) tonight is some of the most rich and buttery tuna I’ve had,” he recently wrote — and offers free seaweed salads to people who mention Twitter.

Twitter is not just for businesses that want to lure customers with mouth-watering descriptions of food. For Cynthia Sutton-Stolle, the co-owner of Silver Barn Antiques in tiny Columbus, Tex., Twitter has been a way to find both suppliers and customers nationwide.

Since she joined Twitter in February, she has connected with people making lamps and candles that she subsequently ordered for her shop and has sold a few thousand dollars of merchandise to people outside Columbus, including to a woman in New Jersey shopping for graduation gifts.

“We don’t even have our Web site done, and we weren’t even trying to start an e-commerce business,” Ms. Sutton-Stolle said. “Twitter has been a real valuable tool because it’s made us national instead of a little-bitty store in a little-bitty town.”

Scott Seaman of Blowing Rock, N.C., also uses Twitter to expand his customer base beyond his town of about 1,500 residents. Mr. Seaman is a partner at Christopher’s Wine and Cheese shop and owns a bed and breakfast in town. He sets up searches on TweetDeck, a Web application that helps people manage their Twitter messages, to start conversations with people talking about his town or the mountain nearby. One person he met on Twitter booked a room at his inn, and a woman in Dallas ordered sake from his shop.

The extra traffic has come despite his rarely pitching his own businesses on Twitter. “To me, that’s a turn-off,” he said. Instead of marketing to customers, small-business owners should use the same persona they have offline, he advised. “Be the small shopkeeper down the street that everyone knows by name.”

Chris Mann, the owner of Woodhouse Day Spa in Cincinnati, twitters about discounts for massages and manicures every Tuesday. Twitter beats e-mail promotions because he can send tweets from his phone in a meeting and “every single business sends out an e-mail,” he said.

Even if a shop’s customers are not on Twitter, the service can be useful for entrepreneurs, said Becky McCray, who runs a liquor store and cattle ranch in Oklahoma and publishes a blog called Small Biz Survival.

In towns like hers, with only 5,000 people, small-business owners can feel isolated, she said. But on Twitter, she has learned business tax tips from an accountant, marketing tips from a consultant in Tennessee and start-up tips from the founder of several tech companies.

Anamitra Banerji, who manages commercial products at Twitter, said that when he joined the company from Yahoo in March, “I thought this was a place where large businesses were. What I’m finding more and more, to my surprise every single day, is business of all kinds.”

Twitter, which does not yet make money, is now concentrating on teaching businesses how they can join and use it, Mr. Banerji said, and the company plans to publish case studies. He is also developing products that Twitter can sell to businesses of all sizes this year, including features to verify businesses’ accounts and analyze traffic to their Twitter profiles.

According to Mr. Banerji, small-business owners like Twitter because they can talk directly to customers in a way that they were able to do only in person before. “We’re finding the emotional distance between businesses and their customers is shortening quite a bit,” he said.

Woman Kills Self to Avoid Eviction, Tweets Just Before Death

By Eric Barton

Heather Newnam's photo from her Twitter account.

Here's a story that brings home just how morbid this housing crisis can be: Heather Newnam of Tamarac shot herself yesterday instead of letting cops evict her for failing to pay her rent.

It's a depressing tale, but perhaps what's more depressing is reading what amounts to Newnam's final public words on her Twitter account. Writing under the name rsangel04, bits of Newnam's life played out in her posts. Then she seemed to foretell her own death in this final post at 7:04 p.m. on June 24. She sent this from her cell phone:

Rich get richer, poor get poorer, families on the street, govt doesn't care. God bless the usa, but can He save it?

What's even sadder is that previous posts seem to show Newnam in a better place, talking about going to the tattoo convention and watching the TV show Rescue Me. The day before that last message, she wrote:

five minutes til Rescue Me, Woo Hoo! then bed, Im beat

Newnam's photo from Facebook.

A few days before that, she tweets about having a tooth pulled and using tequila to kill the pain. She writes about hating Florida, wonders what tattoo she should get next, and talks about watching her husband play a videogame.

The site gives only a few clues about the financial state she's in, like this post from June 3:

this working shit sucks! When do I get to hit the lotto?

According to the Broward Sheriff's Office, Newnam shot herself at 1 p.m. yesterday when a real estate agent, a locksmith, and movers showed up at the home at 6902 NW 79th St. in Tamarac. Newnam told them she needed to secure her dogs before they could come in. Then they heard a gunshot. The SWAT team showed up, and at 4 p.m., they found her dead.

Details of her life are also played out on her Facebook page, where she writes that she worked in sales for Success Resource Group in Oakland Park. Her profile describes a woman who lived a happy life before Monday. In the line for her favorite quote, she wrote:

""I live to love, and laugh alot, and that's all I need"

Tony Hawk Skates The White House

Tony Hawk Skates The Halls Of The White House / courtesy twitpic

We were following the twitter stream of @tonyhawk today and came across this twitpic of Tony doing a manual down the halls of the white house. It appears that Tony was at the White House today for Cnn’s First Fathers event. Apparantly Ashtun Kutcher sent this tweet to Tony which basically called him out to skateboard in the white house.

With the permission of the White House officials, Tony Hawk skated the grand foyer and the nearby Old Executive Office Building. Hawk also sent out a few other tweets from today like “The Prez addressing all of us fathers before we split up to visit DC charities,” and “D Wade & Etan T make me feel short.”

Ashton Kutcher dares Tony Hawk To Skateboard in the White House

The Top 6 Game-Changing Features of Google Wave

by Ben Parr

Without a doubt, the product that has the entire web buzzing right now is Google Wave (), the search giant’s newly announced communication platform. Earlier this week, we brought you detailed information on the new Google () product in our article Google Wave: A Complete Guide, but now we want to explore exactly why everyone is so excited about Google Wave.

You’ve probably heard people talk about Google Wave being a game-changer, a disruptive product, or maybe even as an email killer. But while keywords and phrases like these grab people’s attention, they don’t explain why or how Google Wave could be a paradigm-shifter. In this article, we explore these questions by highlighting some of Google Wave’s most unique and promising features. By exploring these features, we can better understand the potential of this new technology.

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1. Wiki-style functionality

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The feature: While Google Wave works a lot like email or IM, there is a huge difference: you can edit not only your messages, but the messages of anybody within your wave. You can reply to messages within a conversation string and reorganize conversations.

Why it’s game-changing: There was a perfect example of how this changes communication during Google’s demo of the product. A group of people are trying to plan a group dinner, and want to see who can come or not. In email, you have a string of emails with yes or no, which can get messy.

In Wave, you can edit the original message with a section with who can or cannot go. Replies can be made within a conversation string, rather than at the end, making conversations a great deal easier to track.

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2. Wave Extensions

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The feature: Wave extensions are 3rd-party improvements or applications within Google Wave. There are two types: gadgets and robots. Gadgets are just like Facebook () applications, so you can run an app like an online game or a project management tool from within Wave. Robots are smart, automated conversation participants. They can detect keywords and respond, bring in outside information from services like Twitter (), and more.

Why it’s game-changing: It’s game-changing just as the Facebook platform or the Twitter application boom has been paradigm-shifting for both companies. Imagine only needing to have Google Wave open to manage your Facebook, Twitter, project management, email, and even your video games. You can make Google Wave your all-in-one communication tool.

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3. Drag-and-drop file uploads

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The feature: In email, you have to search for files, and then attach them before sending. Then you need to open them up when you actually receive the email. Google Wave ignores that entire process by allowing users to drag files from the desktop and dropping them. Anyone can then see the files as they’re being uploaded. Images are shown in an album format, music can be played, and docs can be quickly shared

Why it’s game-changing: Drag-and-drop file uploads makes Google Wave not only a communication platform, but a useful project management system. Companies could use Google Wave as their communication and file-sharing platform. Combined with Wave Extensions, you could build an entire project management platform and time management system better than anything on the market.

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4. Wave Embeds

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The feature: Wave Embeds is just like what it says - you can embed any wave onto a website. Embeds can be customized and used for a multitude of purposes.

Why it’s game-changing: Embedding is not only an easy way to share conversations with millions of people, but is in fact a way to replace a lot of forms of communication. Instead of a chatroom, you can add a Wave on your company’s website and do customer service through it. Instead of static comments, imagine real-time conversations via Waves. Conversations are easily shared with embeds.

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5. Playback

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The feature: If you’re added to an email conversation late into the game, it can be a pain to parse all of the back-and-forth within an email conversation. With Wave’s playback feature, you can actually see how the entire conversation developed from the start, making it incredibly easy to catch up on conversations.

Why it’s game-changing: Playback clarifies any conversation and makes it simple to get anyone up-to-speed. Instead of “check your email,” it will become “just playback the wave” and you will have all the information that you need. You could get someone up-to-speed within minutes, rather than hours.

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6. Open-source

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The feature: Google Wave is not only extendable, but is an open-source project. This means two big things. First, developers can build their own version of Google Wave. Second, Google Wave can be hosted on your own server - just like an Exchange email server.

Why it’s game-changing: You may not think of open-source as a feature, but this may be the most important aspect of Google Wave. Open-source code fosters innovation by allowing developers to improve and correct code. Developers have the freedom to create a Wave server for their company or to create a branded version of Wave.

Open-source is central to Google’s strategy to foster quick adoption. And if people start using or even switching over to Google Wave, then it could very well be the game-changing communication tool that everyone has been waiting for.

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3 Easy Ways To Restart Your Computer Over The Internet

By Ryan Dube

I am very obsessed with technology, and I like to push the limits of whatever technology currently exists. Personally, I think it’s very cool that there are lots of remote access tools out there, like the 7 free ones listed in Aibek’s article on Screen-Sharing and Remote Access applications or the remote mobile VNC app I wrote about recently that lets you access your computer with your mobile phone.

However, there are circumstances when connecting to a PC isn’t easy or even possible, yet you still need the ability to reboot your web server or file-sharing server at home because an application is locked up or the server isn’t responding. These days, doing a remote computer restart is fast and easy - and it’s now even possible to do so from any web browser or by using the popular micro-blogging tool known as Twitter.

1. How To Perform a Basic Remote Computer Restart - Shutdown.exe

For those of you who don’t already know how to remotely reboot a computer, the simplest approach if you’re sitting on the same network as the target PC is to make use of the Windows shutdown.exe tool. The Microsoft support page makes the command a bit more complicated than it really needs to be, because there are a number of “switches” available so that you can tailor the shutdown command.

Essentially, from a command prompt or an application, you can issue the shutdown command using the syntax: shutdown -r -f -m \remotecomputerIP -t 00

• -m \remotecomputerIP - substitute remotecomputerIP with either the network name or IP address of the computer
• -r forces a restart
• -f forces all running applications to close
• -t 00 tells the command to restart without any time delay (zero seconds)

Depending on your reason for remotely restarting, you’ll want to use these commands carefully. For example, if you just want to set up an application that does a regular reboot every two or three days, you may want to consider allowing a user who’s currently on the computer to cancel the reboot, or at least allow them the option to save whatever they’re currently working on.

However, for the purpose of this article, all we really want to do is remotely force a reboot if you’re away from home and you’re in a situation where your web server isn’t responding. To do this, the command above will work. The one drawback with the “shutdown.exe” approach is that you need to be sure you are connected to your remote computer as a user that has administrator privileges. When you prefer to keep tight security on your PC or server, this isn’t always easy to accomplish.

2. Remotely Reboot Your Computer Through a Web Browser with Shutter

One of the easiest ways to get around this security quagmire is by installing a free application created by Denis Kozlov called Shutter. The cool thing about Shutter is that once you’ve got it set up on your target PC, you can perform various functions on your computer through any web browser on the Internet. First, install Shutter to your target PC or server and the initial screen that comes up will look like this.

First of all, don’t worry about the settings on this screen because these are for when you use the application locally. However, your interest is in using the application as a sort of “web server” that gives you access to your PC from any browser. To set it up, click on the Options button and choose the “Web Interface” tab.

On this screen, select “Enable,” choose a “Listen IP” from the list and enter whatever port you’d like to use. Most folks just use port 80 since it’s default, however if you want added security you can use some obscure port. Finally, choose your Username and Password (required), click save and the application is set up - it’s as easy as that! The only last step is to make sure that if you’re using a router, you open up a “hole” so that you can connect to your Shutter server through the router.

To do this, just go to your router administration control panel (usually 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1, depending on your router’s brand) and configure port forwarding as shown here.

Just make sure the IP and port you defined in Shutter is defined here and that it’s enabled. Once you save, setup is complete. Now you can go to any web browser and send not only a “restart” command to your computer, but also a whole list of other commands.

To access the Shutter service, you can just type in the IP on your local network. In my case, I’d open a browser and type “192.168.1.103:1087″ to access the web interface. From an external Internet location, like a library or from work, I simply type in my external IP assigned by the ISP followed by the port, such as “65.xxx.xxx.122:1087″ and the web interface will come up after you log in with the ID and password you defined.

Editor’s note: If you don’t know what your external IP is, just visit whatismyip.com

As you can see, the Shutter web interface lets you perform a whole list of tasks on your remote computer, including muting the volume, turning off the monitor or running a specific program. The great thing about this approach is that all of these commands are issued from the application running on your target computer, so you don’t need to perform any special security configurations to remotely trigger these commands.

3. Remotely Reboot Your Computer Through Twitter With TweetMyPC

Easily one of the coolest applications I’ve seen in a very long time, TweetMyPC is an application you can install on your target PC, just like Shutter. The difference is that in this case, the application “listens” intently to all of the “tweet” messages that you send out from your Twitter account. Whenever you issue a command such as Shutdown, Restart, or Logoff - the computer does exactly as it’s told.

Just install the application, go into settings and enter your Twitter credentials.

Click “Save and Close,” and you’re done! No complicated security configuration, no tweaking your router’s internet settings - just install the app, insert your Twitter credentials and you’re golden. Finally, go into your Twitter account and just issue your command.

The convenience of this restart technique are the awesome possibilities. Just imagine, now you can pull out your cellphone and text a Twitter “Restart” update to reboot your computer. Any place where you can access your Twitter account, you can issue one of these three commands to your remote computer. The good news is that the author of this application is in the process of developing a Mac version.

Do you know of any other cool ways to remotely reboot your PC? Share your own tips in the comments section below.

I’m Aware It Is Hot Outside, But WTF

Benny Gold captured this bit of summertime, and Plug1 sent it my way with the subject line:

im aware it is hot outside, but wtf is going on in the mish today? is it like 150 degrees? is this mid-day walk of shame?

Link.

San Francisco's current heat wave has some ladies throwing dignity out the window in the name of cooling off. This lovely walk of shame was caught on camera in the Mission District yesterday.

How One Man Travelled to New Zealand Relying on Twitterers

By Daily Mail Reporter

A brave traveller has made it all the way to New Zealand without buying a single ticket along the way.

Paul Smith - dubbed the Twitchhiker - made the 11,000-mile trip using only donations from people who use the social networking site Twitter.

He gave himself 30 days to complete the trek, and was forbidden to spend a penny on so much as a taxi journey.

On completing his epic trek he wrote on his blog: 'The Twitchhiker project showed that kindness is universal, that the whole can be infinitely greater than the sum of its parts, and that social media may begin online but it will converge with the real world whenever and wherever you let it.'

The Twitchhiker: Paul Smith made the 11,000-mile trip, relying solely on his social networking contacts, in less than 30 days

End of the road: Paul reaches Stewart Island on a cloudy day

Since leaving Gateshead on March 1, the Twitchhiker's journey has seen him cross to the Netherlands, Germany and France.

He then doubled back after being given flights from Frankfurt to Amsterdam, before crossing to New York.

Mr Smith then made his way through Washington DC, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Chicago and LA.

A final flight from LA saw the 33-year-old arrive in New Zealand with days to spare.

Paul, of Low Fell, Gateshead, told how a woman met him in Auckland before taking him home to meet her husband, who hails from Whitley Bay, North Tyneside.

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Paul said: 'He recognised that my diet for the past three weeks had been lacking in bacon and egg sandwiches, and quickly righted that wrong.

'After breakfast, we disappeared into the bush on Auckland's west coast and were plunged into the richest, most spectacular landscapes of my trip so far.

Midpoint: Paul enjoys the lights of New York

'For the people of Auckland, this is their back yard. For me, it was paradise.'

Paul also featured on New Zealand radio station Kiwi FM to talk about his adventure on a breakfast show.

Paul's journey, which has already raised more than £5,000 for charity, was governed by two key rules.

He set himself the task of moving on from each destination in no less than two days, and was forbidden to plan more than three days in advance.

His job as a freelance writer and new wife Jane are waiting for him in Gateshead.

His goal was Campbell Island, a remote outpost off the south coast of New Zealand, but the final hurdle was just too high. It would have relied on a ship's captain prepared to cross treacherous seas on a six day round trip for free.

Enlarge

Round the world in 30 days: Paul's route from Gateshead to New Zealand

So instead he headed for Stewart Island, population of just 400.

'I wasn’t going to see Campbell Island, but it honestly didn’t matter anymore,' he said.

'The aim was to travel as far as I could from home as possible within 30 days, and by reaching Stewart Island I’d travelled to a place the majority of New Zealanders have never set foot on.'

Twitter is a social networking website which allows its users to post information about their day-to-day activities.

People can then read other users' updates, known as 'tweets', which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters.

Users can 'follow' other Twitter users if they wish to regularly view that users' updates.

In this way, senders can restrict delivery to those users in their circle of friends.

For more information on Paul's journey visit www.twitchhiker.com

10 Celebrities You Can Talk With On Twitter

Posted by ronation

There are, of course, large numbers of “celebrity fakers” and fictional characters on Twitter as well. The accounts below are operated by the people named, or by their staff.

* The list comes with no guarantees, and some of the following may also be fakes.

1. Arnold Schwarzenegger

- http://twitter.com/schwarzenegger

- Actor and politician

2. Greg Grunberg

- http://twitter.com/greggrunberg

- Matt in Heroes

3. Jimmy Fallon

- http://twitter.com/jimmyfallon

- American comedian, actor

4. LeVar Burton

- http://twitter.com/levarburton

- Star Trek actor

5. Maria Kochetkova

- http://twitter.com/balletrusse

- Russian ballet dancer

6. Britney Spears

- http://twitter.com/britneyspears

- Pop singer

7. MC Hammer

- http://twitter.com/MCHammer

- Rapper

8. Snoop Dogg

- http://twitter.com/snoopdogg

- Rapper

9. Adam Savage

- http://twitter.com/donttrythis

- Actor/show moderator ( scientist)

10. Shaquille O’Neal

- http://twitter.com/THE_REAL_SHAQ

- basketball player, rapper

There are many other names in lists sorted at the Twitter Fan Wiki

10+ Sites To Keep You Updated Of Green News

Nowadays the internet offers a wide variety of green resources to keep you updated of environmental news and events.

It is interesting to watch this web niche evolve. Social media has brought a new generation of green resources. You can now be a green news source yourself (by participating in green social networks), become a part of huge green communities (by frequenting environmental blogs) or even watch green news using Twitter!

Let’s have a look at a few examples of new creative environmentally friendly resources to help you go green.

User-Generated Green News:

I Do the Right Thing is a user generated resource where “you can get unfiltered information about the impacts of companies on” the environment.

The green stories are rated based on the impact they produce on the society and/or environment. The process of voting for the story is as follows: you should define the impact to be positive, negative or neutral.

The companies are also rated based on the overall score of all stories they were mentioned in.

Care 2.0 is a green social networking and bookmarking site allowing users to submit and vote for green tips, news and apps.

Besides being a great news resource, it offers quite a few cool green features: you can send “leaves” to the members inspiring you or find support for your own cause by starting a petition.

Green Deals Daily will appeal to all conscious online bargain hunters. The site allows users to submit, comment and vote for online green deals. What a treat for those who want to both save money and help the environment!

Best Green Blogs:

Environmental Graffiti will appeal to all those who love beautiful imaginary. The site raises environmental awareness by posting impressive pictures of the Nature.

Tree Hugger is the most well-known green blog on the internet, I guess. Besides updating the blog with multiple news-worthy posts daily, the site also offers a very active forum, green guides and even a green job board.

The Good Human (as the name suggests) is more focused on the human aspect: what each of us can do to help save the green planet.

Green Options is an all-in-one resource of green news aggregating stories from all over the environmentally friendly sites and blogs.

Ecorazzi takes a more entertaining perspective by posting green gossip and sensational stories.

Viropop is good for all who loves online video. Besides being a green user-generated video-sharing community, it also maintains a green video blog.

Green Micro-Blogs

Lighter Footstep Twitter Profile will real-time update you of new green tips and articles.

GreenerIdeal is another cool green Twitter micro-blog to follow.

Ecopreneurist micro-blogs on news and advice on sustainable and social entrepreneurship.

GreenNews focuses on environment related news.

| by Ann Smarty