It's the first ever Daily Giz Wiz Meet-up! Right in San Francisco.

On Tuesday, August 11th, I'll be live at TWiT Cottage to record Daily Giz Wiz episode #900! Then that evening, Leo Laporte, Dane Golden (Yes, that Dane Golden!) and The Giz Wiz will head into San Francisco for our very first meet-up!

PLACE: Jillian's Billiards in the Sony Metreon across from Moscone Convention Center. Accessible by car and Bart. Jillian's has lots of stuff going on!    http://sanfrancisco.jilliansbilliards.com/

TIME: We'll be coming from recording Daily Giz Wiz 900 in Petaluma. Dane said we'll arrive at Jillians between 6:00 & 6:30 PM. That way people coming directly from work won't have to hang around and can go directly to Jillians. Leo will join us a bit later because he has one more Netcast to record after the Daily Giz Wiz. There's no official end time, but if you need one, let's say 9 PM. That's 2.5 to 3 hours of rubbing elbows. It can go longer with no problem as far as Jillians is concerned.

Jillians / 101 4th Street / San Francisco /  415.369.6100  415.369.6100 Phone

This will be fun!  Dick De
I was here. And will there!

Please pass this info on to your friends. Or strangers, if you have no friends. But you will have friends after this meet-up! Follow me so you get new details as we quickly as possible: www.twitter.com/thegizwiz.

Eric Shank, inventor of those high tech Spy Gear toys from Wild Planet, will be joining us too. Now we need YOU!

Update on August 12, 2009 by The Giz Wiz

It's over, and it was great!

Food, drink, pictures, autographs, chats & not one bar fight. Well, not one big bar fight anyway! Thanks to everyone who dropped by! It was my first meetup & it was so much fun to meet the faces behind the names, and to just chat with fans of the DGW!

On this Turn The Table Tuesday, Leo talks about a product road warriors will want. It’s Verizon MiFi.

Tuesday, August 11^th, 2009, Netcast 892

Photo from our friends at Engadget showing iPhone so you can judge size of MiFi on left.WiFi, yes. But Leo also has MiFi from Verizon. Leo says Sprint offers their own version. MiFi is a tiny, battery powered EVDO modem a little bigger than a credit card and about ¼” thick. Put this device on the  desk in your hotel room and turn it on. It quickly find Verizon’s 3G network and lets you create a mini-Mi-Fi wireless network right there in your room. Browse the web with your laptop, iPod Touch or any other gadget that uses Wi-Fi. Leo loves this gadget a lot. Your friends within about 30 feet can access the Mi-Fi signal too. Battery life is about 5 hours in use, and then you simply recharge it. It's a cellular modem so you won't have the fast speeds you’re used to at home or your office. The card, depending on your plan, rebate, special offers, etc. can cost from about $50 to $100. And, of course, there are monthly access fees. The $40-a-month plan limits you to just 250MB (not for the business user!) But if you go up another $20, $60 will get you 5GB. Since you can share the connection with up to five devices, make sure you're not over generous sharing! If the slower speed doesn’t bother you and you travel a lot, this device can pay for yourself very quickly. Hotels often charge $10 to $13 per day for WiFi and often it's iffy in use. With MiFi you have Internet access anywhere you go. You’re your own “hotspot”! And Verizon is known as one of the better networks for coverage and service.

Hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw892

Clickfree Transformer for iPod – Launches today, August 10th!

Monday, August 10th, 2009

We’ve done many Clickfree devices on the Daily Giz Wiz. This company is like SanDisk, constantly coming up with clever new gizmos. The latest is the Clickfree Transformer for iPod. It's a Transformer that lets you backup computer files to unused storage space on your iPod or iPhone. And Clickfree makes it clear it's just for backing up files. It’s not for backing up programs or any part of your operating system. When I plugged my little transformer into a USB port on my computer and then connected my iPod to device, a message popped up to say: "your iPod is set to read only. Please download iTunes.” Since I have a tiny 1GB Shuffle, I decided not to move forward since there would be very little space to save anything on my Shuffle. But today’s iPods and iPhones have far more robust memory capacities. You most likely have iTunes on your iPod/iPhone and plenty of spare memory. Clickfree will use that spare memory as a place to backup files that you select via on an on-screen Clickfree menu. That’s great for folks always on the road because you'll have your music, contacts, and your backed up files. Then there's something Clickfree called a "bonus feature” which is very useful. It sort of works in reverse of the first operation discussed here. Instead of copying from your computer to the iPod/iPhone, Clickfree lets you copy music from your iPod to your computer. Works on Vista, Win XP & Win 2000. Price is $49.95. I did a web search & although several websites said you can “pre-order” today (8/11) is official on sale date.

www.clickfree.com

Hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw891

And the Beat Didn’t Go On! Another inventive gadget from Wild Planet.

Back to Dick’s Gadget Warehouse, Friday, August 7^th, 2009 Netcast 890

Beat Blenders were a very high tech musical gadget for kids; actually anyone who liked music and gadgets! It lived for just one year. It came out in fall 2004; won all sorts of awards, but didn’t survive. Wild Planet’s Eric Shank, the guy behind Skeleflex and Spy Gear stuff created it. Beat Blenders were an easy-to-use hand-held music system that let you create songs by layering and looping pre-recorded tracks. After mastering one Beat Blender, you could showcase your skills by linking additional Beat Blender units together to make your songs longer. A cable from one Beat Blender just plugged into the next one and they automatically played in sequence. Beat Blenders sold for as little as $9.99 each! You could collect and connect all six Beat Blender genres for a full and strange musical experience. Each unit was a mini studio with multiple drum, bass and guitar measures. You scrolled through the sounds and created your own favorite combinations. Then you adjusted the tempo, selected the drum, rhythm and lead components for each measure. Then the Beat Blender would play your picks consecutively and repeatedly, allowing you to add and edit. Beat Blenders launched six models - two licensed units, Hot Hits featuring music from recording artists Smash Mouth, Lil’ Romeo, North Mississippi Allstars and Vengaboys; and sounds from Shrek 2; as well as genre-specific music in the categories of Hip Hop, Techno, Alternative Rock, and Power Rock. (However no Giz Wiz theme were composed on a Beat Blender because they were ahead of their time!)

More on inventor Eric Shank:  http://www.wizardworld.com/ericshank.html

Hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw890

Here’s one of the first fully digital portable TV’s.

Thursday, August 6^th, 2009, Netcast 889

Early June 2009 that old clunky analog portable TV of yours became a large paperweight as digital TV took over completely. Now the new Haier HLT10 portable LCD TV gives you the ability to enjoy your favorite television programs anywhere again. This handy little portable TV has a 10.2-inch LCD high-resolution display that switches between a 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratio. It has a built-in ATSC/NTSC tuner and built in stereo speakers. It also offers audio & video in, so you can take it on a trip and watch video you’ve shot by hooking the output from your camcorder to the HLT10 A/V in. Leo plans on using one for a monitor on the road when they’re shooting video for TWiT. Watch TV late at night with headphones plugged right into the HLT10. The rechargeable battery (included) offers up to 2.5-hours of life between charges. The TV comes with two stands, one of which is removable. One holds the TV a few inches off the desk or counter. The other is a stand that folds out from behind the set if you prefer it to take up less room. The HLT10 includes an AC power adapter, a car adapter and a remote control. It also includes a single rod antenna which offered only very limited reception when I tried it. Once I hooked it up to plain old rabbit ears on my boat, I received 10 HD channels. The picture quality is very good. You can also hook this unit to cable, satellite, or an external outdoor antenna, even watch videos stored on your iPod. $179.95. The photo shown is the new model with the removable stand. There are photos of the first prototype floating around that look a bit different. But this is the production model.

 http://www.haieramerica.com/en/product/HLT10 

This is the lowest price I could find - $159. (But I never bought anything here.)  

http://tinyurl.com/ls8tg7

 Hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw889