I can't be at the MacWorld Apple Keynote today so I was planning on watching the live coverage at MacRumors. Every year they have live coverage of information and pictures during the keynotes that I have enjoyed. Well, I was enjoying it until they announced that Steve Job's just died. by dsandler At first I thought I had missed something and that this update during the MacRumors coverage was some joke made by the presenter then I saw more random comments being updated and then the F-BOMB was dropped. Moments later the site when down and my darkest fears were true. I was going to miss the keynote. I guess Gizmodo will be getting all the traffic from the live feed now. Sorry MacRumors. Brooks_it, I couldn't have said it better myself.

Twitter users started getting hit with direct messages early Saturday afternoon by a phishing scam aimed at grabbing Twitter login and passwords. I tried to track down the original warning but all I found was this from Chris Pirillo. Could be he was the first to let the Twitterverse know and if so, thank you Chris. The message is still being found on some accounts and it's unclear if Twitter has been able to find the cause. How Did It Work? It looks as though this particular scam sent out emails resembling those you might receive from Twitter if you get email notifications of your Direct Messages. The email said, "hey! check out this funny blog about you..." and then provided a link. That link redirected to a site masquerading as the Twitter front page. If you didn't look at the URL of this false Twitter page, then you might not have noticed that it was actually just a page on the domain access-logins.com which was also faking Facebook's front page. We immediately reported the offending domain (and warned our friends at Facebook). The site is now on OpenDNS' and Google's reported phishing lists. - Twitter Blog Twitter Becomes the Target I figured it was only ...

Arguably one of the funniest shows on TV this decade. The Office is an Emmy-Award winning American television sitcom airing on NBC and developed by Greg Daniels. It is an American adaptation of the BBC series with the same name and depicts the everyday lives of office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. Unlike many American sitcoms, The Office is shot in a single-camera setup, without a studio audience or a laugh track, and is made in the form of a documentary, or "mockumentary". Although fictional and scripted, the presence of the camera is openly acknowledged by the series' characters. I should really hire a Virtual Assistant to collect stuff like this for me but I wanted to see what random characthers I could find using Twitter. What better to start off with than a stitch busting comedy like The Office. JimHalpert http://twitter.com/JimHalpert MichaelScott http://twitter.com/MichaelScott dwightkschrute http://twitter.com/dwightkschrute

I use Flickr as my online photo bucket. I was using ImageShack or something before but when I found Flickr, I was amazed. I like it so much I actually pay for a Pro account. Some nights I spend an hour or more just surfing the Flickr highway finding new pictures. One of the reasons I love Flickr is it's an online photo diary of people. There are so many great pictures to browse through. In many of my posts, I am using pictures from people on Flickr. High quality and never a lack of content to pull from, Flickr is awesome. Here are some of my Flickr favorites. ...

I do a lot of surfing. Some for entertainment, some for blogging research. I have been using StumbleUpon as my social bookmarking tool this year and I wanted to share with you all of my favorite links from the past year broken into categories. If you have a Twitter account, I'd be happy to follow your updates. http://twitter.com/koka_sexton This is a very large list and probably something you may want to bookmark yourself so you can reference it later. From SEO tips, blogging news, website development links and a ton more. I am posting a link list of every great blog post I have come across in 2008. How to use Twitter as a Twool - Guy Kawasaki Arts/History Excite - Excite Today - This Day in History Photoset of the day (~60 photos) | FreakyMartin.com Stop looking at my bottom on Flickr - Photo Sharing! Mantis on Flickr - Photo Sharing! Blik + Nintendo = Awesome on Flickr - Photo Sharing! Life in Balance on Flickr - Photo Sharing! 1950s - 1970s Advertising - a set on Flickr The Best License Plate Ever on Flickr - Photo Sharing! 40 Photoshop Tutorials for Lighting and Abstract Effects Turtles 25 on Flickr - Photo Sharing! The World of Gummy Bears - a set on Flickr Mckinsey ...

First, Happy New Year everyone! It was a great one and I'm looking forward to 2009. That being said, I was surprised to wake up on 1/1/09 and see an email in my box from YouTube saying that a video I had in my account was removed because it violated copyright laws. Dear Koka Sexton, Video Disabled A copyright owner has claimed it owns some or all of the audio content in your video 101st Airborne Iraq. The audio content identified in your video is In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins. We regret to inform you that your video has been blocked from playback due to a music rights issue. I hardly use YouTube. I have a few movies in the account but for the most part I use the service to look at other peoples videos like SXEPHIL, iJustine and funny stuff like the Retared Policeman. I have ten times as movies added as favorites than I have actually available through me. The background of of the 101st Airborne in Iraq video is an easy one. When I was stationed overseas, one of the things some of the troops did when they weren't dodging IEDs and ambushes was create short videos of ...

I could use some of that federal bail out money just about now. But how do you get your hands on some of those billions? How do you apply? How does Hank Paulson decide why Citibank lives and Lehman Brothers dies? - Vanity Fair This is brilliant. Vanity Fair leaked a copy of the Federal Bailout Request form and it went viral across the internet.

I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't hear it from a credible source. Yes, Adam Jackson is concidered credible. I saw an update about it snowing in San Francisco and would have thought it was a hoax or garbage then I saw that other Tweets were coming through saying the same thing. I don't know when the last time it was that it snowed in SF but I am sure even if it did, the news didn't break this fast!

The Twitter service can and should be used by businesses. Both small and large companies can benefit from the additional branding and communication outlet Twitter offers. Technology companies understandably seem to be the most prevalent on the service. Embracing the internet through social media seems like common sense for businesses looking to add to their exposure and have additional interaction with their customers for both comments and suggestions. There are many ways for a company to get into the social media world. Many choose to spend their time monitoring user groups on other sites to see what is being said about their product or service. The leaders are going the next step and setting up their own forum for communication. Here are some examples of companies using Twitter and their reach. http://twitter.com/delloutlet - 3007 followers https://twitter.com/vmwarefusion - 1,376 followers https://twitter.com/Gartner_inc - 2,483 followers https://twitter.com/mozybackup - 162 followers http://twitter.com/symantecnews - 60 followers http://twitter.com/NetworkWorld - 675 followers https://twitter.com/Oracle - 914 followers Besides the obvious corporate branded profiles on Twitter, employees are also getting into the mix by supporting their companies by tracking what's being said about them and helping with the conversation. Zappos the leading online shoe and accessories company is an excellent example of this. Not only does the CEO ...

I don't think it's humanly possible to keep up with all of the Twitter applications available? From Twitturly to TwitterFon over to Monitter, how can anyone keep up? Is there a wiki page that is updated with all of these? I started looking at a Twitter service called Twillo that tells you who on Twitter has the same interests as you and using their interface you can add a list of topics that you are interested in. Twillo will then do all the hard work and auto subscribe you to all the people talking about the subjects you are interested in. Every hour or so they will scan twitter to find any new people that you can join in the conversation with. Now I placed the above in bold because I wasn't paying attention and typed in a topic and within a few minutes I got a bunch of new followers. Not a bad thing but just want to make it clear. I love trying out these Twitter apps. With such a great tool like Twitter and an open API, peoples imaginations have really gone wild with ways to use the Twitter service. But I wonder when the day will come that some unruley ...

Everyone has had one of those moments when you absolutely need to make a phone call but you dread actually having to speak to the other person. Sometimes it's a relative that has a tendency to talk for hours about nothing, maybe you need to update your boss on a project but don't really want to answer a dozen questions. Usually you just bite the bullet and make the call but you cross your fingers and pray to the stars that they do not answer and you can just leave a message on their voice mail. Say goodbye to those moments. If you ever want to make a phone call and JUST leave a message, slydial is your answer. slydial is a free voice messaging service that connects you directly to someone's mobile voicemail. Don't worry, slydial calls can NOT be answered. In most cases the person you're slydialing simply receives a new voicemail alert a minute or so after you leave them a message. With some mobile phones, we are able to display a "missed call" from you (after all you did try to call them!). With this feature, the recipient's phone may emit an abbreviated "half ring" before going directly ...

In my continuing saga to understand everything about Twitter, I wanted to see how mainstream news is contributing. Twitter is a communication tool, so there is no surprise that mainstream media wants to capitalize on the service. I hardly watch TV for news unless there is a breaking story that I want to see video of. I get most of my fill of 'whats going on in the world' by going online. The online world moves much faster than the TV and Twitter moves much faster than my surfing habits. Here is a story from the Los Angeles Times discussing how Twitter beat mainstream news to breaking the story about the 5.4 earthquake in July. One of the first news tracking profiles I followed and set up mobile notifications of was called sfquake. between this and setting up Twitter Tracking on the word "earthquake" I am able to get information on earthquakes all over the world and specifically in the Bay Area. Mainstream news has been quick to get on the Twitter bandwagon. Some are moving slower than others but there are hundreds of news agencies that now post updates on breaking news. http://twitter.com/cnnbrk - CNN Breaking News has over 62,000 followers. This ...