18 posts tagged “san francisco”

A bit of a gag gift designed by Tom Madden, the Knife and Fork Lift takes a different approach towards dieting from the Checkmate Appetite Intake Controller (Episode 466).  It's and knife and fork set, weighted down like a pair of dumbbells (and we're not talking about Dick and Leo).

Disclaimer
The Knife and Fork Lift carries with it a disclaimer, just as Leo's show TWiT Fit does (and as should all of Leo's shows).  The Daily Giz Wiz has its own disclaimer - created by Dan Lueders - see Episode 601.

Giz Wiz Meetup - As Planned
At the time of recording, Dick and Leo were still planning the meetup.  Eric Shank from Wild Planet would be taking along the Beat Blender, which he invented, for a demonstration.  Leo had great plans too and hoped to take  with him his Verizon MiFi ("Don't leave home without it" is Leo's new slogan), his new Olympus EP-1 Micro Four Thirds camera and Ozzy the Papillon.  To cap it all, he might a grand entrance in his Terratrike.

Giz Wiz Meetup - As it Happened
Very little of what Leo "planned" materialised.  Despite that, everyone had fun last night.  John Slanina, better known as jammerb was there and was kind enough to post a slideshow of some of the photos he took at the meetup soon after the meet-up.  Don't miss the last photograph - it's a very special Spork.

Julie Bernstein of FunCrunch has also posted her pics taken at the TWiT Cottage (during the recording session) and at the meetup.  Here's her set of photos.

Dick in Petaluma and TWiT Cottage
Dick had a grand time in California this time.  He appeared on Leo's radio show on Sunday, went on the Wine Train on Monday, had a test run in listeners Darrell and Marilyn Holmquist's new Tesla yesterday, after which he and Leo went back to the TWiT Cottage for a fun time recording next week's shows, including Episode 900.  Fans have made lovely gifts for Dick and Leo for Episode 900, and so don't miss the show.  If you can't wait, go to odtv.me to watch or download the video - but don't forget to download the audio podcasts still, as TWiT needs the numbers for podtrac and the sponsors.

Presto Saves the Day
Marcia Richardson installed the Presto OS (Episode 834) on her Toshiba laptop.  Her windows installation was attacked by a dastardly virus but she was able to continue using the machine by booting into Presto.  Finally, some good came out of the show!

Listen to Episode 893
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Find DGW Info on GizWizSearch

Clickfree's DVD Transformer is a USB dongle that has Windows software pre-installed, which searches for files on your computer for backing up and burns them on to DVDs.  You can take the software's default selections, or you can configure what files to look for and back up.  Essentially you're buying the software, but it's not restricted to any one computer.

The DVD Transformer is a kind of hybrid of previous products which Dick talked about, the Clickfree Backup Drive (Episode 629), Clickfree DVD Backup (Episode 639), and Clickfree Transformer (Episode 753).  Whereas the Clickfree Transformer backs up your data to any hard drive, the DVD Transformer backs up to DVDs.


An FM Voice for AM Radio
When Leo first started on an AM radio station, he was told that his voice wouldn't do, because he got a mellow FM voice, instead of a more in-your-face AM voice.

Living Inside Your Love
Leo recently went to a benefit concert, and met one of the artists who performed at the concert: Earl Klugh, whose Living Inside Your Love Leo had to play incessantly when Leo was on San Francisco's KKSF in about 1984 (although the song was from the 1976 album of the same name.


Backup, Backup
Leo has 14 hard drives installed in various computers in the studio, over 30 just scattered around, and even more in the rest of the TWiT Cottage.  After he lost the video recording of Episode 600, he now makes sure that everything is recorded and backed up.

Game Show Memories
Since Dick was involved in game shows other than Match Game, listeners have requested Dick to do another show in the style of his earlier Match Game Memories.  He might just do that.  A small number of Match Game Questions are still left for sale.

A Petaluma Nobody
Jim Driscoll from Atlanta, who was looking forward to Episode 7795 in his last letter (Episode 534), met recently in the San Francisco Bay area a colleague who lives in a little town called Petaluma.  Jim asked her if she knew Leo.  "Leo who?"  Jim went on to astonish her with his intimate knowledge of the Butter and Eggs Parade.


Listen to Episode 851
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Another gadget from the Miami Boat Show, the Garmin GPSMAP 640 is a dual mode GPS device which can be used as a marine chartplotter and a city GPS turn-by-turn navigator.  When placed in the marine mount or automotive mount (which come included with the device), it will switch automatically to the appropriate mode.  It has a 5.2-inch touch screen, 800 x 480 pixels, an SD card slot, waterproof, preloaded with BlueChart g2 marine data (such as tides and currents, depth contours) and City Navigator NA maps.

Workaholics
When TWiTLive was off the air recently for a couple of days, Leo found himself at a loose end home and became a little unbearable to Jennifer.  Dick likewise is a workaholic who has not taken a vacation for years.

A Fireplace for TWiT Cottage
Dick's friend Dennis Wunderlin (aka Dexterity Dennis) has a fireplace insert from Dimplex, and Dick recommends it to Leo for the old fireplace at TWiT Cottage.  Leo saw one in action on Valentine's Day in a San Francisco hotel and plans to get one for the Californian summer.  At least that will give him something to talk about on another TTTT.

Respect for the Sea
Dick was once out in the sea in his boat when it was hit by a huge wave and the boat was tossed straight up.  Since then, he's had a lot of respect for the sea.  He now has a smaller 22 feet boat and he seldom ventures out into the ocean unless it's really calm.

Christmas Gift on Valentine's Day
Ludwik of GizWizSearch is such a friend to DGW that Dick decided to send him a Christmas package of GizWiz goodies.  Dick sent it by priority mail and the parcel arrived safely in Poland for Ludwik on Valentine's Day.  Leo suggests that Dick sell a Ludwik Prize Pack.  Dick thinks a Bernie Madoff Treasure Pack might be a better idea.

A Choice for Tomorrow's Gadget
Dick has prepared a gadget for tomorrow's show, but a parcel has just arrived too.  Leo will have the choice.


Listen to Episode 773
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 A suggestion from a listener Caleb Mixson.  The Intra-Oral Mini-USB Tooth Camera is shaped like a toothbrush, and when connected to a PC via USB, will power on (with 4 white LED lights to illuminate your teeth) and can take 800 x 600 pictures of your teeth.  Windows only, and no Vista support.  You can use it on your skin too!

Although the gadget is described as a wireless tooth camera on TWiT and in the MP3 Tag information, the gadget today is a wired USB tooth camera.  There are wireless tooth cameras out there, such as the Chinavasion Wireless Dental Camera, which are more expensive.

Favourite Episodes Vote Results
Results of the Favourite Episodes Vote held by Ludwik Trammer at GizWizSearch are out.  It's a tight race at the top.  Leo's hot favourites the Spork and the Toothpick Bird were narrowly edged out by Dick's UroClub.

There were exactly 666 votes.  Rumour has it that there have been unusually intense voting activities from IP addresses traceable to around Amsterdam Avenue and 83rd Street in New York City, and Petaluma in California, although at this stage the rumour cannot be verified.

Here is Ludwik's announcement:

"So ladies and gentleman - 10 favorite Daily Giz Wiz episodes of all time (from 10 to 1):

10. Cruzin' Cooler (Episode 101)
An ice chest you can ride on, with gas or electric models.

9. GFX-100 Indoor Dish Antenna (Episode 670)
From about 1990, the GFX-100 Indoor Antenna distinguished itself by its advertisement.  "No cable fees because you're not getting cable."  "No sateliite fees because you're not using satellite technolgy."  "Works indoors like ordinary rabbit ears."  "Captures signals right out of the air!"

8.  A Visit To The Gadget Warehouse (Episode 246)
A special episode on Dick's Gadget Warehouse recorded in the warehouse itself when Leo was in New York City filming Regis & Kelly.

7.  Key Buoy (Episode 149)
Dick and Leo call the Key Buoy a marvel of engineering.  If you go boating and accidentally drop your keys into the sea, the key buoy will expand and eject an upright 14" bright orange air tube above the water. The episode also includes an important health advisory.

6.  Vat19's Talking Photo Album (Episode 463)
From VAT19, this photo album holds a total of 24 4" x 6" photos and you can record a 10-second message, description or commentary for each page which can be played by pressing the "Play" button. Despite Leo's ADD condition, always trying to do ten things at a time, he seldom slips up really badly. But this time Leo just doesn't get it. One of Dick's favourite episodes.

5.  A Tribute to William M. Gaines (Episode 76)
The first DGW not to feature a gadget, this is a tribute to William M. Gaines, the founder of Mad Magazine.  Dick has created a website in his memory at www.williammgaines.com.

4.  Zelco PurseGuard Ultra (Episode 406)
The PurseGuard Ultra is an anti-theft hanger which you put near the edge of a table, from which you can hang a handbag, shoulder bag, backpack or your shopping.  It sounds an alarm if anyone tries to lift the bag off the hanger. It's not often that Leo gets a real chance to trash Dick's gadgets, and Leo isn't about to let it slip away.

3.  Titanium Spork (Episode 182)
A hot favourite, on Halloween. Dick calls it El Crappo Plus, but the audience love it, and it still gets talked about in fan emails.

2.  Toothpick Bird (Episode 282)
Exactly 100 episodes after the Spork comes another piece of crap from under Leo's desk. Leo was to have his revenge in Episode 413 when Dick gives us another bird, Squawkers McCaw.

... and the title of the favorite Daily Giz Wiz episode of all time goes to...

1.  UroClub (Episode 598)
The UroClub gives true meaning to the word "portapotty".  Made to resemble a golf club in appearance, it is a hollow tube with a cap which unscrews, to help a male golfer who can't find a restroom nearby to answer the call of nature.

Congratulations!

Ludwik"

The UroClub
As Dane Golden puts it on TWiT, "You're in the right place when you go golfing with the UroClub."  Check out Episode 598 again, and also Episode 601 for a listener's reaction while answering a different call of duty.

In celebration of the UroClub's victory, here's a new DGW Avatar:



Favourite Episodes of 2009?
Ludwik wasn't planning on having another vote for 2009, but heck, if Dick says there is one, then there will be one.  Maybe.  On every page of each episode on Ludwik's GizWizSearch, in the Episode Information section, there is a Vote, with 5 stars for rating.  Just click the number of stars you think the episode should get, and that's your vote.  You can rate as many episodes as you please.  So type in the episode number and click the stars, just for the fun of it.

GizWizSearch and InsideDGW
Dick gets the two sites a little mixed up today, about what's happening where, and who's doing what.  Who can blame him?  Leo tries desperately to put him back on track.  If you want to vote, go to GizWizSearch.  For everything else, go to GizWizSearch, too.

Third Anniversary Coming Up
DGW started on Monday 20 February 2006 with the Docupen, and the 3rd Anniversary is just around the corner.

WTHII 0901
The January '09 WTHII gadget picture was turned upside down by Dick.  Answers include a Marie Antoinette Lego head, a Halloween Frankenstein mask, and a pasta extruder,



It's the Airyusha Robotan Toilet Paper Holder.  You can read about it on The Green Head, and buy it on audiocubes.com.  As you might imagine, it's Japanese-made.




Listen to Episode 759
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Thanks to a reminder by listener Steve Horlick, originally from Brooklyn who now lives in Gillette, Wyoming, Dick talks about the Panasonic CPA - the Check Printing Accountant.  From 15 to 20 years ago, this gadget looked like a thick calculator, which could print out your cheques (you would have to type in the details on the tiny qwerty keyboard), and even balance your cheque book.  Dick saw the demo, did not want to try it for himself, and did not want one for himself, not even for the Gadget Warehouse.

The Five Boroughs of New York
Dick and Leo discuss what is a "borough" in New York.  Find out a bit more from Wikipedia.

Landing on the Hudson River
Dick was alerted to the landing by Chesley Sullenberger of the US Airways jet on the Hudson River, but was advised that boat owners should not go down the river to where the jet landed.  So Dick doesn't have photos of the landing for us, but he has photos of the Hudson 24 hours after the landing!  Almost as good.  See Dick's photos on smugmug.

Butter and Margarine
Leo tries to lure Dick to this year's Butter and Eggs Day at Petaluma, on Saturday, 25 April 2009, with Petaluma's Cutest Little Chick.  Leo explains again how the perpetual parade works.  Everyone in town will be in the parade, except Leo, as he has to do the radio show.  Jennifer will be in it, doing her zumba class.  The theme of this year's 28th Annual Parade is "Recycle, Reuse, Remember".

The Fragrance of Petaluma
Two times of the year, in the spring and the fall, Petaluma has a fragrance pervading the town.  It's when the farmers lay down the fertilisers.  If you can't get enough of Petaluma talk by Dick and Leo, try the Petaluma Ristorante in Manhattan.

Mad In Your Eye
Dick has uncovered a case of trade paperbacks "Here's Mad In Your Eye".  Available at BuyMadStuff.

Stop Scrolling
One used to have to keep scrolling down on Dick's website to see all his stuff.  With a little help from Ludwik and GoToMeeting, Dick has finally given his stuff its own pages.

Nerdy Pleasure
Listener Andrew started watching Leo on ZDTV back in his high school days, when it was a nerdy pleasure for him.  A few years ago he was glad to find Leo's new podcasting empire.  He has recently discovered a gadget which is exactly what he has for a long time been hoping for and would very much like Leo to do a review of it.  It's the Car Camera Voyager Pro with GPS Logger from Brick House Security.  It has an internal "event" sensor for detecting speed, braking, acceleration and impact.  It constantly records a video, with GPS logging, on to an SD card, and will retain 10 seconds prior to and 30 seconds after an "event".  Plug the SD card into a computer and you can watch the video with your car's GPS location.



Another Record
Dick and Leo are enjoying themselves in this recording session.  Yesterday was a half-hour show, and today, at 33:55, this is the longest episode of DGW.


Listen to Episode 755
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Link: A Short History of Pocket TV

From 1984, Panasonic released this Travelvision TR-1030 in Japan, selling for ¥29,800 (which was worth about US$125, according to Wikipedia's historical exhange rate of the Yen).  It was a black and white portable television set. Its dimensions were about 3" wide, 1.5" high, and 6" deep, with a 1.5" screen.  There was also a 1.3x magnifying lens add-on which increased the screen to about 2".  Panasonic started with the model TR-1010 in 1981, and Dick got his model in 1985.  It was still using a CRT for display, and was then the world's smallest CRT TV.

With the imminent conversion to digital TV, these old analogue portable TVs are not going to work, although you can get a Winegard portable battery pack for one of their digital TV converters.  For details, go back to Episode 675.

Ken Ronckovitz heard Leo surmise that they would still be doing podcasts in 2020.  Ken suggests that they can do that now.  Just pick any current gadget, laugh about it and they will have all the Gadget Warehouse podcasts they need for 2020.

Ken started listening to some of the old shows and heard the old Visa ads.  He thinks Leo should remind the sponsors that their ads keep on getting new listeners.  Leo knows that only too well, but sadly sponsors only pay for downloads in the first 3 months, and only for those in the US (when 30% of TWiT's audience are from outside the US).

Dick has posted the DGW "Future of TWiT" Button (see Episode 747) and the Inauguration Avatar on his website.  You can't buy the Button, but you can buy GizWizBiz Caps with LED lights from Dick.

A Christmas gift to Leo from Tony Wang, sound editor of DGW, the R-Strap made by Black Rapid is a camera strap worn over a shoulder across the chest.  The camera is secured to a connector which screws into any standard tripod ring, and the connector is hooked to the strap.  The length of the strap is adjustable.



Some models, like the latest RS-4, has pockets for storing flash cards.  Leo has the RS-1 which has no pockets.  When a photo opportunity presents itself, just glide the camera up along the strap.  See the demo below from blackrapid.com:

Brick and Mortar Levenger
Chris Whitpan thanks Leo for introducing him to Levenger products (Episode 677).  He found a brick and mortar store selling Levenger in Boston, and it was a good day for the economy.  Chris works for the California Pizza Kitchen, and offers to pick up the tab should Dick or Leo visit the CPK.  Dick asks if the offer is one time only.

Leo finds out from Google, including LinkedIn, that Chris is Manager of CPK, Owner/Chef of Chris's Culinary Catering, Former owner of Kildare Irish Pub.


Listen to Episode 727
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The Kingston DataTraveler has evolved from a simple USB Thumb Drive (Episode 83), to an SD Card Reader (Episode 353), and now to a microSD Card Reader.  The DataTraveler Micro Reader has capacities of 1GB, 2GB and 4GB built-in flash memory, and opens up to reveal a microSD card slot to read and write data to and from your microSD card, now a prevalent format in cellphones.  It supports microSD-HC and Memory Stick Micro (M2) as well.  The microSD card is not included.


Kingston also offers an almost confusing array of alternatives.  The name of the model, DataTraveler, means the device includes built-in flash memory.  But you can get just the USB microSD reader (without the built-in flash memory), with a microSD card (which is the album art for this episode's mp3), or without a card.  There is also the Kingston Mobility Kit (Episode 383) which contains adapters for all the SD sub-formats.  All in a thumb drive design.

Señor Wences ...
... aka Wenceslao Moreno, was a ventriloquist who performed on shows including the Ed Sullivan Show with his puppets Johnny (Wences's hand with a blond wig), and Pedro (a head in a box), who bore a striking resemblance to the very Giz Wiz himself.  Wences died aged 103 in 1999.  You can read his entry on Wikipedia.  Here is a video on YouTube of a performance by Señor Wences.  Pedro appears in the video at the 1:30 mark.



Video Toaster on the Amiga 2000
Leo's reference to Newtek's Video Toaster in the Snappy episode (Episode 565) did not invoke any nostalgia in Paul Watson.  He still has the Video Toaster working on his original Amiga 2000, along with Final Cut Pro on his Intel Mac Pro!

For an archived video of the Video Toaster on an Amiga 2000, go back to the blog post for Episode 565.

Repurposing Lumpy
Dick suggests that Carvel's Lumpy the Whale (more commonly known as Fudgie) should be repurposed as Leo the Loopy.  To revisit Dick and Leo's repartee on Lumpy the Whale, check out Episodes 347, 357 and 535.

President and Biz Dev Guy
Apart from getting a new uniform and a No.1 Badge, Dane Golden has been promoted to President and Biz Dev Guy of TWiT.  Leo is also going to get a part-time editor to edit the shows to free up Dane so he can bring Leo his cup of broth and blanket, prune the trees and mow the lawn in the TWiT garden, and drive Dick to and from the San Francisco Airport on a stretch Volkswagen when Dick appears on TWiTLive.

To learn more about Leo's new crew at the TWiT Cottage, including Colleen and Frédérique, read his recent blog post TWiT Live Update.

Off to Nova Scotia
Dick is off to Nova Scotia today, on the Queen Mary 2, but will return to base on Tuesday to record more DGWs.


Listen to Episode 574
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Vincent DeDomenico Dies
Vince DeDomenico, son of Italian immigrants and who turned a neighbour's Armenian family recipe into the Rice-A-Roni - "The San Francisco Treat", died on 18 October 2007, write Marilyn and Daryl Holmquist.  Vince also built and ran the Napa Valley Wine Train.


Listen to Episode 440
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Read Dick's Write-Up