So everyone knows how to use Skype. Not only that, many people know what it's capable of and use it more and more. I generally just use Skype for fun, and just videochatting with family and friends. But with these little tricks I just came across I may use it more.

Call 1-800 numbers for free!
I was curious and found out that I can call any toll free number through Skype without any plan whatsover. This is a HUGE plus for me as I use my cellphone for my home phone, and toll free numbers still use my minutes. Now I have no worries about long hold times with companies I need to talk too. Just fire up Skype and I am good to go!

Hear who is calling!
With AudioID you can hear who is calling you on Skype. If your away from your computer this handy little add on announces who is calling through any source you choose.

See who is calling on your TV!
Using mcePhone, another add on for Skype. You can see your Skype caller ID on your TV. It will even give you the power to SMS with your TV's remote!

Use Skype to check in on your home!
If your at work, on vacation, or just want to check in on your family, you can use Skype ad a home monitoring system.
It's easy to do with Skype's video calling. You will need a separate Skype account, and a computer with a webcam.Using one account, set Skype to auto-answer calls and automatically start your webcam. Then just call the account you set up to auto-answer and there you have it! Fast and simple home monitoring.

I will admit it. I love finding new and interesting people to follow. Whats even better is when I can find people that are local to me. This helps me catch up on things going on in my area and can lead to many great things. I like hearing about whats going on around me, concerts that are coming to my area, local news, and more.

With Twitter Local it's easier than ever to find local "Tweople". Twitter Local gives you the ability to search by zipcode up to a 50 mile radius. You can then subscribe to an RSS feed based on your search settings. This is how I find alot of the people I follow. The only thing I wish would happen is eventually bum it up to 100 miles due to the lack of twitterers in my rural area, and maybe by state.

All in all this is a great Twitter utility, so head on over and check it out!

Hey everyone please excuse my mess. I swiched the Microcast to Utterz. Why you ask? Well two main reasons. Better quality, and it will auto-post here and to my Twitter.

I updated the old feed so it should now reflect my newest Utterz testings. Another cool thing about Utterz is I can do video as well! This could be fun!!!!

I am at a loss for words. As most of you know I have been stressed out on an emotional roller coaster waiting for my articles to see print. There have been many ups and downs over the past weeks and today it finally paid off.

Not only was my article published, but a Bio introducing me to the readers made it to the front page!!! I am ecstatic. I feel now that I have finally done something with myself. I couldn't be happier.

I have to thank my two boys and my awesome girlfriend for all of their support. And I could never forget all of my friends on Twitter for their support as well. You know who you are!

I opened my mailbox to find my new Twitter shirt from Reactee. Ever since I ordered the shirt I have been anxious to show my love for Twitter. Today I got the chance. I have been sporting it all day. I haven't seen an increase in followers yet, but that could be do to most of the people here at work are pretty much computer illiterate. If you like the shirt head on over to Reactee to get your own.

I know I may get flamed here, but to be honest I think it needs to be said. Over the past few months I have been looking for at least ONE podcast that fills my wants and needs. To be quite frank... I am still looking.

It seems that all of the "Tech" podcasts I find nowadays are around an hour or so long. You would think that this is a good thing right? Well usually it's not. Most of the time you could fit all the useful material into half the time. Seriously though, anymore the host start chatting back and forth and rambling on about things I really could care less about. Even the big name podcasts have become this. BOL, TWIT and others. Why not cut out the bull?

What do I want out of a podcast? Here are some things that would make my "perfect" podcast. When it comes to length I can go either way. I usually want a podcast that I can finish on my way to work, or as I workout. This is usually around 30 minutes, give or take. As for content, I want some hardcore tech. I want to hear about sites, apps, gadgets, tips, tricks and other things I never knew existed. And when supplying me with that information DO NOT drag it out. Give me a little info on it, where I can find it, how it benefits you and move on to the next topic.

Now I know this may or may just be my idea of a great podcast. I just wish I could find a podcast that I would grow to love, and look forward to it's next show. If ANYONE can save me from the podcast hell I am trapped in and give me some suggestions please do!

I was browsing around the internets last night and realized I had forgotten that I have 10 spare Socialthing invites. Socialthing is bascially a spinoff of friendfeed.

I myself don't really use either as I try to stay mainly up to date via Twitter. But if you like the concept of the life stream feeds of your friends, leave a comment with your email and I will shoot you an invite.

Well I have worked about all night changing the site up a bit. Still can't figure out how to get more space after my post. If anyone can help me with this I would be GREATLY appreciative!

It's getting late, I'm tired, and pretty much tired of looking at this screen. I am off to bed. Hopefully I dont decide to change the blog template again.... We will see.

Last night I was in my local Circuit City store here in Southwest Ohio. I was just browsing around and trying to keep myself from another one of my "tech impulse buys" when I got this weird feeling over me. You know the feeling when you just know there is some serious tension going on. Come to find out my feelings were correct.

I started seeing multiple associates conversing with one another and spreading out through the store. I was then becoming very suspicious of what was going on, as well as feeling slightly nervous. After a few minutes an employee came to me and asked if I had seen two males with bags. I proceeded to tell them I hadn't paid too much attention. He then started chatting with me and filled me in that two guys had just stolen five laptops.

This is were the story gets interesting. No was I amazed that I was present when this happened but I was even more astonished at how they did the "job". Allegedly the two guys had a key to the secure case the laptops are displayed. After unlocking the case they calmly placed the five laptops into aluminium lined bags. Keep in mind they did this while two other customers were in the same isle! Then after having them in their possesion they proceeded to walk to the front of the store. Right before reaching the exit the second suspect distraqcted the nearest employee as the one with the laptops snuck out the door. While that was happening one of the customers alerted managment and they tried to catch them. This was unsuccesful as they ran and had a car waiting out front and took off. No licences plates, and an unclear subscription of the vehicle. These guys just got away with over $5000 in merchandise. Better yet it was the third Circuit City store they hit that day.

My question is what goes through these peoples minds? Do they not have any values? I find it amazing how they were told to be so calm. People like this are what brings society down. Simply put work for your things like the rest of us do....... What scumbags. I hope they get whats coming to them.

I was lucky enough to catch up with jeffisageek on Twitter earlier today to get some input on how he does his microcast. What is a microcast? Well, basically it's a podcast in short format. I am going to use my microcast for fun really. 2-10min posts from my Blackberry and no pressure to post a cast on a certain schedule. I think I will enjoy the freedom of the microcast to where I can talk about anything and everything I want, and not be restricted to one niche. We will see how it lasts. If you want you can check it out HERE. If you like it subscribe! I will have a link in the sidebar soon.

This is how I set up my microcast per jeffisageeks suggestions. I use Cinch from Blogtalkradio to record the microcasts from my phone, and it atomatically posts it to an RSS feed. I took and burned that feed through feedburner, and that is where you can subscribe! I am not sure anyone will listen, but it's just another form of media for me.

What I would really like to do with the microcast feed is find a way to have the RSS feed auto post to here at tw3nty3ight.com when I post a new microcast. If anyone knows a way I can do that through Blogger please shoot me a message! I have already done pretty much the same thing with my Twitter account by using Twitterfeed. Twitterfeed posts an update to Twitter when there is new content added to the RSS feeds you supply. Pretty neat little tool that I recommend checking out.

Have you heard of Startup Schwag? If your a T-Shirt lover this site is a must visit. Startup Schwag is basically a T-Shirt club for us geeks, and internet lovers alike. This is how it works.....

Each month you get a T-Shirt that features only the best startups of Web 2.0, along with 5 free stickers. I have been in this for two months now and have loved both shirts I have received. The first was a sharp looking Opera shirt. The second is my favorite of the two, which is a Ustream.tv shirt. As for the stickers I have been using them to dress up my file cabinet here at work.

I must admit for $14.95 + Shipping, this club is fun and has me waiting around the middle of each month anticipating whats in the newest bag.

I made my first ever trip to an IKEA store yesterday. This was not just any usual IKEA store experience. This was the opening weekend for this IKEA in West Chester, Ohio. I will say this, the place is huge!

Overall I had a great time, But I hate going to cool places like this cause it makes me wish I had more money than I really do. There were so many things there I wanted it was rediculous. As I walked through their store I wanted to completly refurnish my home with nothing but IKEA furnishings.

After all was said and done we left with a salad spinner and a bath rug. All in all it was a great time, and can't wait until it calms down so we can go back and get an even better look.

So have no clue what Yahoo Pipes is, let alone what it does? Well I will explain it in a very simple way. What Yahoo Pipes did for me was take all of the feeds I had on my startpage on yourminis.com and mash them all into one feed. It takes some tweaking but if you take your time you can create your own custom feed from multiple original feeds.

This really cleaned up my startpage and gave me some much needed real estate. Now my page looks cleaner and I don't have to sort through multiple widgets for the content I don't want to miss! 

I know there are probably many other things you can do with Yahoo Pipes but this is what I use it for. Also, if you want to share any tips leave a comment!

Try it out and let me know how it works for you!

A few days ago I contacted my local newspaper regarding them not having a section on anything tech related. In about an hour I received a response stating that they were interested in filing a spot for something like that, and asked if would be interested. I inclined that I was and they requested that I send them some samples of articles I have written.

I submitted almost all of my tech related articles that are here on this blog and the rest is history. I am now the newest columnist for the Wilmington News Journal! I have been working all weekend in preps for this new venture. I setup the blog where all my articles will be posted in related to my section in the paper. You can find it over at www.billyfairchild.com

I have two new fresh articles and pretty much everything in place for when I have to submit them on Monday. My section will be published on every Tuesday & Thursday. Basically I am just elated about it and think it's a huge step for me!

I did it! I finally registered www.tw3nty3ight.com . I am elated, why you ask over something so small? Well this is a big deal to me, as this is the first time I have ever registered my own domain. Oddly enough with me being a total internets fiend and tech geek.

Make sure you change you bookmarks for those that are nice to have us in theirs. Next on the agenda is for me to do some research and find someone that would be so nice to help me with a new blog/template design. If any of you reading would like to help or just point me in the right direction I would be very greatful!

I also would like to this opportunity to thank all of my readers, even though there aren't many of you at the moment. I really like seeing comments on my post and hearing your thoughts on each topics. I am seeing alot of my Twitter buddies visiting and really like seeing that. Thanks again to everyone that drops by from time to time!

I got to wondering today, what is the way most people on Twitter find the people they follow? I am sure we all have our different ways of going about this. I just think if I got some feedback on this in the comments section it could be interesting, as well as maybe help us out there discover new peeps to follow.

As for me, which I have covered before.... I use Tweetscan to search for topics that interest me. For example I usually search "Ohio" in hopes to find people that are from my area, I also use "Beta Invite" so I can add people who seem to be the first to know about newly released Beta apps.

I think it's funny to look back when I first started "tweeting" I was ignorant to the whole thing, and had no friends that had used Twitter. I went in blind and used the "Timeline" to find interesting people. After I found a few good people I started following people they follow and the rest is history.....

So my question for you is first, how did you find your first people to follow, and how do you find them now?

So I have had a whole weekend to explore and get the feel for my new 8830 WE Blackberry from Verizon. I love it! I can't see how I have lived without one. Much like switching to a Mac, the first day or so was a little aggravating but after that I fell in love. I am amazed at how connected I feel with it snugged away in it's holder on my side, or in my gentle hands. Of course just like any other gadget I have had it has Pros/Cons but I will admit the Pros are far greater than the Cons. With most of the Cons are it being a "Verizon Dumbed Down" phone.

The main things I really like about the Blackberry is the ease of messaging. Whether emailing, SMS, or alerts, they all are conveniently added to one message folder. I know alot of people out there dislike this, but I have grown to love it. And threaded SMS? OMG! I love it! Now I can stay completely on top of a SMS conversation, or a Google Talk IM session as well.

My main complaints with this phone are the low volumes of the ringers and or alerts. I have somewhat fixed this by creating ringtones and alerts through Audacity and maxing up the gain, as well as equalization. The other volume problem is it seems when using my Jawbone over Bluetooth the sounds leaves much to be desired. Something I can live with but somewhat of an inconvenience. Lastly there is no MMS on this phone... a bummer but not a necessity, as I usually just have co-workers sending me nasty pix messages anyway.

I have also found some useful programs as well listed below.....


Twitterberry

This is a MUST have for any blackberry user that uses Twitter.... The folks over at Orangatame Software have a great app going for them. The only problem with that was that I couldn't get to their site to download the app until late Sunday. It seems their site goes down alot and is only available from there. I have fixed that by adding the file to be downloaded HERE. I hope the folks at Orangatame don't mind.

BBWeather

Allows you to quickly check current weather and forecasts for locations you specify.

Crackberry Forums

Great place for anything Blackberry Related!

Pinstack

My Favorite Forums for Blackberry Software and more!

Some of my friends on Twitter, and people that know me personally have seen that I have made some major changes in the Tech side of my life since the first of the year. I have become more open minded lately with certain products I said in the past I would "never" try. This is mainly referring my switch from being a Microsoft fanboy to becoming a "Mac Newb". I must admit... I am loving it though.

The first change was going from Windows Vista on my Toshiba laptop to a Macbook. A HUGE change for sure, but yet it was amazingly easy to make the change. Now I wouldn't trade my Macbook for anything. I love the reliability of the Mac, and just how much fun it is to use one. It's unexplainable really.

The next change was last week I got me a Crack... errr Blackberry. I have to say I LOVE this thing! I am still finding fun and useful apps for it, and must say I am enjoying how it keeps me so connected while on the go. I only have two gripes. No MMS messaging, and low ringer/Bluetooth volume. Other than that it's a gift from god.

In other news, this is my first attempt at posting to Blogger via email. We will see how it works. Also, my mom had surgery last Thursday on her foot, she seems to be doing fairly well. Now she is just waiting on her next appt to see when she can ditch her crutches. I must admit I am to cause while she is laid up I have to pickup my youngest from pre-school each day and it's a long drive from work. She does alot for me and really recognizing it lately.

My Xbox gaming has really been dwindling as of late too. I really hope to get some Call Of Duty 4 action in some this week. I ahve just been so busy with other things I haven't had time. I also need o try and finish Bioshock. Then after that's complete I hope to get the newest MLB game whenever is releases.

That's pretty much it for this post, I will most likely be posting another focusing on the Blackberry later today