There hasn’t been an idea out there for a while that I’ve gotten truly excited about. That has all changed with the introduction of a new business started by an entrepreneur named Shearer. The company name? Powercast. If you haven’t heard of them yet, trust me, you will.

What Is It?

Wireless technology has really developed over the last 10 years, its made our lives easier and cleaner…but there has always been one wire left over, the power plug. That’s where a new patented, FCC-approved technology comes in that was invented by Powercast. The technology is wireless power. By utilizing a receiver plugged into the wall, and a receiver chip on the unit, it can act as if it is plugged in up to 3 feet away. The receiver converts radio waves in to DC electricity.

So imagine having your PDA/Cell phone in your pocket, and as soon as you sit down or get in the car it’s automatically charging. Imagine LED lighting in your house with no wires. Imagine medical devices such as pacemakers, that never have to be replaced. I think you can see where I’m going here, the technology is limitless in applications.

Limitations

I’ve already mentioned the 3-foot limitation, but there is also a power limitation. At this time, the technology can only power smaller devices up such as phones, PDAs, LED lights, etc. Something like a TV, computer monitor, or laptop cannot be utilize this technology…yet. The amount of power consumption by devices is getting better by the year. As power consumption goes down, the possibility of wireless power for that device goes up. Lets say I’m Dell. I’m going to do everything in my power to create a laptop that will only need enough power that it can work through wireless power, because I know my laptop will have the edge over other companies, which means it will sell. This thought process will drive many companies to work harder and faster to use less energy for their devices. This is a good thing!

When & How Much?

It sounds like something out of the future, but we’re going to start seeing products released this year, yes, 2007. Powercast has already signed over 100 nondisclosure agreements with companies to develop products. One of the first products will be an LED stick from Phillips. We should expect to see many more products in 2008, such as computer peripherals.

It gets better. The technology is cheap to manufacturer! The actual chip in the product (the whole bread and butter) only costs about $5 to make. I’m sure products will bring a premium because the technology is so new, but we shouldn’t expect to see something like a $1,000 cellphone that can do this…expect your normal prices.

How Do I Plan On Monetizing?

I will be closely watching this company, and I hope that they get an IPO. I just dabble in the stock market, but I only invest in companies which I personally believe in. Powercast has the opportunity to easily be one of the richest companies in the world, it will be very exciting to watch their growth.

I was reading a post over at ProBlogger in regards to the debate between disabling comments or not on low traffic blogs. Should sites with low traffic disable their comments? There are two main arguments for each side.

Enable

You don’t want to promote the fact that your blog has low traffic. People will see “0 comments” on a lot of posts and think just this. This negative affect could keep people from coming back or from posting comments at all. It’s a known fact that discussion will likely cause more discussion.

Disable

If you disable comments you are obviously losing the ability for users to interact with you and readers through the site, plus you are losing valuable content. The main goal is to turn somebody who is just reading a post on your site into a dedicated reader, and comments definitely help do that.

I believe that there are two options to choose from in terms of the best thing to do:

1) You can turn your comments off completely until you are at the point where you are generating 100-200 unique visitors/day. By the time you are consistently generating this amount of traffic, it should be enough that people will naturally make comments in key posts.

2) This option ties into option 1, as you should do this as well. Rather than your comments link saying something like “0 comments” or “No comments”, change it to “Post a comment” when there are no comments. This method doesn’t advertise the fact that nobody has commented on your post. Another option (the route I chose) is to choose something like “Be the first to comment” which does advertise that you have no comments, but also entices your readers to be the first to add their thoughts.

How Do I Change The Text?

This method works for Wordpress. Simply go to your theme editor, and edit your main index template. Depending on the theme that you are using, there may be some variations…so feel free to post comments with questions, and I can help you out. Search for the word comments, and you should be able to find the line of code that displays the output. I changed mine to this:

<?php comments_popup_link(’Be the first to comment &#187;‘, ‘1 Comment &#187;’, ‘% Comments &#187;’); ?>

The first line there between the ‘?? ‘ is what Wordpress will output when there are 0 comments. Simply editing that text can make a powerful change on your blog.

Update: Part 2 has been posted where I look at companies that start with H-O. Part 3 has also been posted where I look at companies that start with P-Z. I have also compiled a best of the best list.

I spent the time to look through 414 websites of publicly traded companies in the technology sector starting with the letters A-G, and chose the 45 best designs. This is part 1 of 5, covering each range of letters, and then I plan on having the best of all designs to come up with a final list of best corporate designs in the tech sector. These companies obviously all have money and a budget to make a killer site, lets see what can be done. More site after the jump:

3COM

Activision

Actuate

Adobe

Akamai

Aladdin

Alcatel-Lucent

Apple

Applied Innovation Inc.

Continue Reading »

I tried two new restaurants this weekend that I thought I’d share:

Ted’s Montana Grill

Ted’s Montana Grill is owned by Ted Turner, yes the same guy you’re thinking. I was told by a co-worker to try this place because they had a really good burger. It’s not your ordinary burger though, it’s made from bison (buffalo) meat. I’ve never had bison before, so I decided to give it a shot after doing some indoor go-karting. I must say, this ended up being one of my top 3 burgers of all time. Bison meat tasted so good, it was more lean than beef so after eating a big burger I felt a good full.

For under $11, it won’t break the bank, but will offer a finer dining experience. Ted’s is located in the mid-east and eastern US, I definitely recommend trying to bison burger.

J.R.’s Stockyards Inn

The second place I went to was J.R.’s Stockyards Inn, located in McLean, VA. My friend was with me, and really wanted to go as he stated they had an excellent prime rib sandwich. The restaurant is bit more upscale, so when we got there we found out that sandwiches were not allowed to be served in the dining area. We moved to the bar, and ordered our sandwiches. I got the chicken sandwich, which was really good. The cheese was melted perfectly, which I love.

If you have any recommendations for dining in the Northern Virginia area, I’m always all ears!

There are some very interesting rumors going around in the ad serving technology market today. DoubleClick, which is the ad server for huge sites such as Yahoo! and AOL, may be bought out by Microsoft…or even Google.

The company was purchased by a private-equity firm for $1.2 billion, but it looks like they are interesting in selling the company, or even creating an IPO for an estimated $2.0 billion. Microsoft is said to be one of the top choices for picking up DoubleClick. What would this mean for competing publishers such as Yahoo! and AOL?

The most interesting part of the news is that there are rumors of Google developing its own ad server that would compete with the likes of DoubleClick’s system. The ad server system would be nothing like AdWords, but it would allow publishers to traffic any kind of ads, regardless of it being from Google or not. The questions to ask is:

• Will it cost money?
• If it’s free, how will Google monetize on it?
  • My guess is that publishers would be required to run at least a certain percentage of Google ad inventory
• Who will the customers be?
  • Is it mean for any site that needs an ad server? Or will it be for corporate companies such as AOL and Yahoo!? Or will it meet both markets?

Whatever happens, the next few months will definitely be interesting in the ad serving world.

We know that one of the most important aspects of running a successful blog is write content consistently. Read my article on the most optimal number of posts per day to learn more. So what’s the best way to come up with new content, and how can you manage that? I’ll explain my techniques in detail.

I get a lot of my ideas from other sites and blogs on my RSS feed. If you don’t already have a list of RSS feeds that you subscribe to, sign up at Google Reader, go to your favorite sites, and start adding their feeds. I’ll get other ideas based on my own experiences, so if I figure out a solution to a constant problem or something cool happens in my life, etc, I’ll normally want to write something about it.

I always want to make sure that I have enough content for every day, so you don’t want to think of 20 things to write about and post them all in one day, just to have nothing other days. When I think of a new topic I want to write about, I’ll go to the write post section of my Wordpress admin, enter a headline and add any notes such as URLs in the body section. Once you click save (make sure not to hit publish or it will go live on your site), it will become a draft. I’ve blurred the contents, but you can see I have a ton of ideas for posts that you will eventually see in the future:

When I feel like writing some content, I will go to the manage page of my Wordpress admin and I can see a list of all of my draft topics. I can simply choose whichever I want to write about, and get to it.

85% of the time I write my content ahead of time, and use the “Post Timestamp” feature to publish the post sometime in the future. For example I’m writing this on March 26th, but I’m planning to have it go live on the blog at 8am on March 28th:

Utilizing these methods will ensure you don’t forget any of your blogging ideas, and will make sure that you have continuous content.

If you have any suggestions for coming up with and managing your blog content, feel free to post your comments.

I’ve been helping my roommate upgrade the audio system in his Dodge Viper RT/10. We’re installing a Pioneer headunit and Infiniti reference speakers all-around. We’re utilizing the factory amplifiers to work with the new headunit and speakers. The early model Dodge Vipers were all hand-made, so it’s interesting to see everything underneath the panels and appreciate the work that was put into it. I figured you don’t see the insides of a Dodge Viper everyday, so I thought I’d share it with you all:

This is a shot of the interior taken apart

You can see one of the factory amplifiers in the back left corner. These are for the rear speakers, there is another amplifier for the front speakers on the right side of the trunk.

Me working on installing the rear speakers

The rear speakers are installed!

Testing to make sure the headunit powers up and works, it does! We could find an aftermarket wiring harness for a Viper, so we had to test wires from the factory harness and splice them into the Pioneer harness. We also had to make sure that we had a remote turn-on connected to the factory amplifiers in order for them to turn on when the headunit was turned on.

I’ll be making another update once everything is completed, so be on the lookout.

For anybody interested more about the car, it’s a 1993 Dodge Viper RT/10 (one of the first 500 made) with 20,xxx miles. The following major modifications are on the car:

• Viper 791XV alarm system with door poppers
• Bellanger headers
• Bellanger exhaust system
• Bellanger cats
• 3.55 gears
• Smooth tubes
• 19″ CCW 505A wheels (not installed yet)
• Eibach springs

One of the biggest keys to running a successful blog is being able to write new content on a consistent basis. At the minimum I try to post at least one piece of content per weekday to keep my readers happy. In my opinion the most optimal amount of content per day should be 2-5 posts spread out throughout the day. More than that becomes too much, and less than that is usually not enough to keep readers coming back. Keep in mind this is my personal preference. Blogs that post news (such as Engadget) should have many more posts per day just because there is way more daily content out there for them to deliver.

When I’m going through my feed reader, I usually skim through the feeds that have a ton of new posts in them (such as Digg, Engadget, etc) because I just don’t have the time to take a long look at everything there. Normally a post will have to peak my interest based on the headline and/or graphic in order to get my attention and give it a good read. Blogs that are updated 1-5 times I typically will click on and pay more attention to just because there isn’t much to sort through.

Lets take a look at some of my favorite blogs out there and see how many posts per day they make on average. I’m going to look at the number of posts made in February:

John Chow - 98 posts = 3.5/day average
TechCrunch - 149 posts = 5.3/day average
ProBlogger - 78 posts = 2.8/day average
HarpzOn - 116 posts (26 days of March) = 4.46/day average

As you can see, these all fall into my range of optimal amounts of posts per day to make a blog truly successful.

How many posts per day does your blog do? What do you feel is the most optimal? Post your comments below and let me know.

For the past two years that I’ve been living in Northern Virginia, I’ve been hearing about some great indoor go-cart track. If you know me, you know I love cars, and you know I love driving. So finally this past weekend I decided to check it out. The name of the place is called Allsports Grand Prix, and it’s located in Dulles, VA. The place is pretty much all out, you have to wear a race suit, gloves, and helmet to even get on the track. There are two types of carts, the regular one is 6.5hp and the superkart one is 9hp. This doesn’t seem like a lot, but the regular one goes about 38mph on the straight away. In order to even be able to drive the superkart, you have to be able to get 4 25 second or less laps in one race. To put that in perspective, by best time was 26.846:

Now I know you’re going to call me out on excuses, but I was getting bad times because I didn’t really know what the race line was. Plus on one of the hairpin turns, I kept spinning out. One of the officials was sitting at that corner, and when I left, I asked what I was doing wrong to keep spinning out. He said I was using my brakes, go figure! On the entire track, the brakes are not supposed to be used. The technique for the hairpin turn is to go wide, letting off the gas and turning will slow the kart down enough to make the turn. In the middle of the turn as the kart is sideways and pointing straight is when you can give it full gas again. I wish I knew this beforehand, I’m sure my times would have been much better!

The entire experience is really fun, but it’s something you need to do a few times in order to start getting good at it. The problem with that is that it’s really expensive, $24.50 for just 8 minutes of racing for non-members. 8 minutes gets about 16-18 laps depending on how fast you go. Annual membership is $50, and that includes a t-shirt, 8-minute race, and another 8-minute race on your birthday. It also gives you a discounted rate of $17/race whenever you do want to go. So you can tell, this sport can get really expensive, but it’s great fun! Here’s a picture of yours truly getting ready to race:

This month my blog was the “Blog Of The Month” according to John Chow. John’s blog is popular, he is ranked in the top 200 on Technorati, has almost 4,000 RSS subscribers, and is ranked the 3,537th (as of writing on this) most popular site on Alexa. So what does getting your blog featured as a dedicated post on his site do for you?

There are five major benefits from getting coverage like this:

Traffic

The most obvious benefit is a gain of traffic. Because John and I have similar interests, many of his readers would more than likely be interested in reading some of the content that I write. This brings in very targeted traffic that hopefully becomes sticky. By that I mean I expect to gain a few dedicated readers of my own. While the traffic was not a tremendous amount, I was definitely happy. Here’s a chart that shows the spike as soon as it was posted:

All said and done John’s post brought around 350 unique visitors directly to my site from 3/21-3/24. They also averaged 2.64 pages per visit, so they were definitely reading some of the content. Keep in mind, we’re only talking about people that clicked from JohnChow.com. There was also an influx of traffic from Google Reader and Bloglines (100+ uniques), this was people clicking into my site that were reading his post from their feed readers.

This traffic generated some reader interactivity as well as there were a ton of comments posted, a boost in RSS subscribers, and a few new inbound links. Plus you can’t forget the traffic that will continue to come over time.

RSS Subscribers

My RSS subscribers jumped up from 10-20 subscribers to 30-40 subscribers. I suspect this number will continually get higher as more of his readers discover that they like the content that I offer.

Name Recognition

According to the actual article on John’s site, it has had 1,772 views (views are counted when a reader specifically goes to the article, and not when they see it on the main page) and 50 comments. That’s a lot of people that may not have known who I was, that now do. My blog is new, so maybe some readers didn’t find the content that I have now to be appealing. In the future if they find something they like, they will be more inclined to stick around since there is some recognition involved.

Inbound Links

Many of the new readers have their own blogs, and mentioned something that I wrote in theirs. This brought new traffic, helps with my Google and Technorati rankings. It also introduced me to some new people and blogs I would have never seen or talked to before. This alone is one of the most valuable benefits.

Google “Trust”

When you launch a blog, Google doesn’t trust you right away. You can build that trust up by writing good content, updating frequently, and gaining trust by getting linked on sites that are trusted by Google. Understanding this method helped me get out of Google’s Sandbox in a very short time by writing content that was good enough to get linked on sites like Autoblog, John Chow, ActiveTuning, and more.

How Can You Get Featured On John Chow’s Site?

There are two main ways to get featured on John’s site.

1.) Become the blog of the month. Per John, these are the requirements:

Don??t email me asking if you can be a blog of the month. The answer will be no. Future members to the Blog of the Month will be based on how well you can grab my attention. I am looking for blogs with great content that are updated a lot.

2.) Buy a ReviewMe review. At the time of writing this, it will cost you $300 to get your site/blog/product reviewed by John for a featured post on his blog.