One thing that is great about going to conferences is all the free swag you get. Since I go to these events as media many companies have made up gift bags especially for media members. Another thing that I’ve also noticed is that the more established your site is the better swag you get! This year I really didn’t want to pick up that much swag mainly because I never really use half of it and it is a pain to pack in my suitcase, but I did get quite a few useful things this year.
The first thing that is always a keeper in the CES press bag. This year it was a vertical messenger bag, that had room inside it for a laptop and a few other accessories. It was a decent bag, but still does not beat the rolling backpacks CES had a few years back, those were awesome! It seems like every year since then CES has been giving media cheaper and cheaper bags.
Some of the best things I received this year would have to be a new motherboard from Cyberpower, Keyboard from OCZ, Geforce 210 video card from Shuttle, a pillow from Cooler Master, a 128GB SSD from Kingston, and a 500GB hard drive I won at the night before CES party!
This was definitely a year I actually received swag that I’m going to use, maybe I’ll do a giveaway with the rest of the swag, stay tuned for that!
Everyone knows the Night Before CES Party is always the best! It’s always packed, there is a great DJ, free food and drinks and of course they have it at the best location, Palms Place. This year the party was hosted by Cooltronics, Futurelooks, and Redux. Last year we were on the 56th floor of Palms Place, but this year we were up on the 58th floor! Once again this floor only has 4 suites all of which feature 3,120 square feet of space, a pool table, full kitchen, and five 42-inch plasma TV’s. It’s the perfect place to have a party!
This year’s party it seemed like everyone knew who I was. It was not me going up and saying hi to people it was the other way around, which was actually pretty nice. I finally got to meet Cameron from TweakTown, he flew all the way from Taipei to come to CES! One thing that is great about this party is the view, you can see the entire strip from the balcony of the suite!
Well it’s that time of year again, off to Vegas for CES. This trip is always a lot of fun and it sure gives me a break from all of the holiday madness of the past month. It also is good to get out of Pittsburgh and the cold, although it is only around 50 degrees in Vegas it is sure a lot better than like 15-20 degrees in Pittsburgh, and there is no snow!
Getting through the Pittsburgh airport was very easy, there was no line at the security check at all. We went right through and were in the terminal within 10 minutes. Instead of going right to our gate Colin and I decided to grab food so we stopped in O’Briens, which is sort of like an Irish Pub. The food wasn’t that bad, I got a steak salad.
Once we boarded our plane we seriously waited for over 30 minutes waiting for them to load luggage on to the plane. After that our plane had to be de-iced, which took another 15 minutes. Takeoff was a little bumpy, but we are finally up in the air.
If you want to track my trip you can easily do that by following me on Twitter, friending me on Facebook, following my Flickr stream, or just by checking back to this blog. Also if you want to meet up when you are in Vegas please email me or shoot me a message on twitter.
I am in Vegas for CES, which I go to every year for ThinkComputers so make sure you follow the ThinkComputers twitter account as well.
I have been using Twitter for quite some time now and I really did not find out its potential until a few months ago. Many people think that Twitter is just for seeing what your friends are up to or in my case seeing what I’m having to eat, but it is really a useful resource for tracking current events and things that are going on right this minute. This is really where you see the power of Twitter and why hashtags are extremely useful.
A few months ago when the G20 was happening in Pittsburgh there was sure a lot going on in the city. There were many demonstrations, riots, and other interesting things going on. When everything first started happening I really did not have any urge to go downtown and check things out. So since I am on the computer a lot I loaded up Seesmic Desktop and put in #G20 and #Pittsburgh in a search column and the tweets that included those hashtags started coming up. As the G20 started getting closer the more and more tweets came up, I saw pictures of blackhawk helicopters over the city, pictures of protesters, etc. It was very cool, and more informative than the news about the G20 that was on TV.
As one of the first protests was getting broke up by riot police twitter was going crazy! People were explaining it as it was happening and telling people who were stuck in the crossfire where to go. Reading all of these tweets I felt like I was really there in all of the action! It was like I was in a war room overseeing the battle! Like I said it was better than watching the news!
I finally decided to go down to check out the action the second night of the protests. With my iPhone I was able to still track the hastags and found out where the protests where happening and was able to know where to go to be safe and out of the line of police, who were basically taking arresting anyone who was out that night.
This really shows what a useful resource Twitter is and how it can keep you safe! It will be fun to track things going on at CES when I’m there in just a few days!
Wow it’s 2010! Not only a new year, but a new decade! This past year was a very good year for me, there were all kinds of ups, downs, and in between’s. If you have a blog you know how great it is that you are able to look back on things you have done and be able to see the good times, reflect on your mistakes, and just remember some things you may have forgot. So here is my 2009 year in review, hope you all enjoy it!
2009 started off like most year’s with my trip to Las Vegas for CES. Some of the highlights from that trip were the Night before CES Party, IANteract Dinner at Rum Jungle, and the PC Race for Charity. While in Vegas I also experienced my first In-N-Out Burger! It’s the best fast food ever!
The Steelers won their 6th Super Bowl! They have won more Super Bowls (6) than any other NFL team! I talked about being productive on the road. It is very important, the first couple times I tried to do work while on the road it did not work out so well!
I’m really hate negative people and I hate when I get in a negative so I gave you some ideas about how to get out of a negative mood. Celebrating St. Patty’s day in Pittsburgh is something I think everyone should experience, it was so much fun! Crazy Mocha is a local Pittsburgh coffee company and I started going there a lot.
It is always nice to get out of town, so I took a small trip to Great Falls Park and Washington, DC. I definitely need to go back there soon! As many of you know I’m a big hockey fan so I went to Pittsburgh’s first NHL Tweetup. I discovered another great sushi place, Sushi Too in Shadyside. When you work online your income streams can change a lot so I let everyone know what was making me money in 2009.
Twitter really exploded in 2009 and I showed you how to easily get 1000 followers. Brand recognition is very important and I talked about how to get that brand recognition. Star Trek was a big movie in 2009 and I gave you my thoughts on it.
The Pittsburgh Penguins have been building their team for the past few years and it all payed off when they won the Stanley Cup this past year! Since I’m a hockey fan I went crazy! I was out that night too and Pittsburgh was sure a party city! Working from home can be annoying so I told you some of the things I do to escape.
Since the Pens won the Stanley Cup they had a parade downtown, you know I wouldn’t be missing that! I moved once again, this time to a more urban area very close to the city, I really like my new apartment. I was invited to Pittsburgh’s first TasteCasting at Melange Bistro Bar and it was great. I was able to give myself a vacation this year. I went to Myrtle Beach with some friends and it was a blast!
I turned 25 this year and it really gave me some time to reflect on the past 5-10 years of my life. Over the past year I really started getting into tea and now I drink it almost daily. I went to another Pittsburgh TasteCasting, this time it was at Castaways Outside Inn.
The G20 Summit was held in Pittsburgh this past year and those few days were full of surprises. It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience! I started using Seesmic Desktop in 2009 and I’m still using it. The best twitter app that I’ve ever used! This summer was really a fun one for me and I did so many things, Labor Day weekend was no exception!
I finally attended PodCamp this year in Pittsburgh and it was definitely worth it! I can’t wait to go next year! I hung out quite a few times at Schenley Plaza over the summer, it is a great place to relax and even work since they have WiFi! I did some maintenance on the blog and I changed the header image to ones that rotate every hour with different sayings on them.
bit.ly is a great URL shortening service and I use it basically every day. ThinkComputers finally got a new redesign and we moved the site over to WordPress. It was an annoying process, but totally worth it! Everyone likes ThinkComputers so much better now!
Well that was my year, crazy to think that I’ve been blogging since 2005. Here is to 2010!
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