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Crazy Gadgets and fun announcements, Free Coffee Too!

Today is a fun day. February is always a weird month its over far too quick, you think some of the months with 31 days could spare a day here and there, make a little sense in the world, but no. Leap years aside tomorrow starts March already!

Plenty of bits of random interesting detris littered their way across my feed reader, lego dinosaurs. Mario, Batman, and The search for ET all show up in this episode so pay attention. Not to mention a wonderful coffee section, listen in for how to get free coffee!

Random bits of detris and the slightly off color remarks caffination.tumblr.com

CaffiNation Live on Wednesday Nights at 11pm Eastern

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Geek Cruft:

• Latitude, and why i’m not your friend
• Totally Cool New Layout! Norbert’s Blog Update
• Skype in your TV? Neat Idea
• Batman foils Superman’s Collectible Supremacy
• Fauxiron Man
• Mushroom Kingdom in your ears
• 2fer! Robotic lego Dinosaurs / Crazy German Evolutionary Steampunk video
• Baba O Thinkgeek! Anything to sell gadgets
• Human Ball, I saw a water version of these
• Hyperdrive Album photo storage made huge and awesome
• Floppy Drive Pillows
• Tactile Concept device for the blind
• How to fake being hardcore, buy a smashable guitar
• Arecibo Scarf, confuse even well read geeks. Arecibo?

Food and Caffeinated Bits:

• CaffiNation Reviews: Peet’s Uzuri African Blend
• Hows about some Free Coffee? You only have till Wednesday!
• I really like these coffee cup hooks
• Wine Temp means everything
• Do you need a knockbox?
• More Beautiful Coffee as Pigment Paintings

Thanks and Stay Caffeinated People!
Stay in Touch: Phone 215-240-1319 | Twitter @caffination | Facebook Fan Page Subscribe via | RSS | iTunes | Zune

Tags: Batman, dinosaur, free coffee, Google, latitude, Lego, peets coffee, robot, skype, Steampunk, totallycooltech, TV, Uzuri

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Updated Stories, fantastic reviews and a well caffeinated evening

To say that I’m surprised would be an understatement. I honestly left the live show for dead over a year ago thinking that no one would ever come to watch a taping of my podcast let alone develope into any sort of community. Now i have people looking specifically for this, I’m both humbled that people enjoy it so much and pretty enthused about where we could go. I’m not quite stoked yet, i don’t think i’ve ever been stoked.

Tonight’s Show we talk about giant LEGO robots, massive man made machines and ghostbusters on the wii. We touch on location based problems with Google buzz and tap into the latest in serious real world problems facing the tech of today. But nothing too serious wouldn’t want anyone to learn anything too quickly now would we?

Random bits of detris and the slightly off color remarks caffination.tumblr.com

CaffiNation Live on Wednesday Nights at 11pm Eastern

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Geek Cruft:

• Youtube Decision Italian justice
• Finish your google profile yet? Here is mine
• G Profile is one thing WPI is where it’s at
• Update on Lovely school webcam incident, Hubris
• Edit images online via flash, html5 version anytime soon?
• The Blues and Jazz had a baby and named it rock and roll. then they adopted metal
• Dedicated Paint art project, thanks Mom
• George Lucas needed the money. Humidity is bad for computers… just saying
• Walmart buys Vudu
• Walmart protects the children
• Automatic dominos!
• Congrats James and Cathy! Jimmy you now need this
• Superman sells out for 1 million dollars
• Don’t cross the streams or some awesome could leak out. Wii Proton pack
• Massive Post Apocalyptic lego, its like a lego bagger 288
• 2k for a Star Destroyer  christening plate? Storm Trooper Plank Owner?

Food and Caffeinated Bits:

• CaffiNation Reviews Village Tea Company Cherry Rooibos
• thats roy bos
• Build a better kettle?
• Rad cup, radiator cup
• Touch of summer, watermelon carving, thanks MAS
• Coffee Give away

So its going to snow again, philly averages 20 inches a year we have had 65, the last snow just finally started disappearing and tonight we try to add some more ice to the fire, what a crazy year this has been. Chances and forecasts are looking for 5 – 18 inches in my area depending on your impending doom cast…

A wonderful live show was interrupted by a kid-let waking in the middle of the show, and a house in disarray. Things got back on track but only after a hunt through the bowels of a spare parts box found the mystic universal power adapter. All hail the universal adapter. Its been a long night so please excuse the crazies, unless you enjoy them then enjoy away.

Thanks and Stay Caffeinated People!
Stay in Touch: Phone 215-240-1319 | Twitter @caffination | Facebook Fan Page Subscribe via | RSS | iTunes | Zune

Tags: bagger 288, free coffee, kettle, Lego, nanny state, Review, robot, Rooibos, star destroyer, Star Wars, Tea, Village Tea Company Review, Walmart

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You know… I’m disappointed in the geeks

Believe it or not today was my monday and it felt like it. The whole fam, save for me, went down for the count starting last friday. So we’ve been doing shots of lysol, and rubbing alcohol around these parts.

Great Conversation leads to fantastic stories and information. A wonderfully full episode. Brimming over with awesome and topped with humor and rampaging cats.

I’m focusing on putting more content on the blog as a whole, updates daily and one off fun news and design stories all week long. Its like a to go portion of my special brand of crazy. However for the random bits of detris and the slightly off color remarks caffination.tumblr.com will still hold sway.

CaffiNation Live on Wednesday Nights at 11pm Eastern

Sponsor: GotoMeeting Hold your meetings online for just $49/mo.
Try GoToMeeting FREE for 30 days

Geek Cruft:

• TDIT: Gutenberg’s Legacy. Project Gutenberg
• Edison would be proud, Replica Gramophone
• Lego Wallet?
• Lego Rubic’s Cube Solver
• Massive Lego Airbus a380! Touchscreen enabled With Snakes
• From Awesome, to horrifying, Lego Attack Spider
• Take it with you Simon Says, my best score was 26
• Cell Phone Range extender, get a signal in a CAVE
• Its On! Multitouch comes to Nexus One
• G-Blade. A Butterfly Knife for Shaving. I’d love it!
• AV Geeks Unite, Awesome Connector Shirt
• Bittorent leaks for Lost, but no one bit
• Ship-Wrecked 1925 Bugatti
• JooJoo throws a gauntlet
• Data Permanence is a problem, Heiroglyphs beat Hardrives

Food and Caffeinated Bits:

• Pizza Plotter? where do i sign up?
• Coffee Not Linked to tinnitus
• Ethiopian Coffee Sorting Video
• Coffee Taste tests of major brands surprise no one in coffee community
• Coffee Analytics. Interesting Idea
• Caffeinated Chaw? ummm…. yuk

What you may have missed this week

• Fold-able Power
• Coffee and Chocolate
• Hot Mugs, Cool Art
• Wardriving Made Easy

Thanks and Stay Caffeinated People!

Stay in Touch: Phone 215-240-1319 | Twitter @caffination | Facebook Fan Page

Subscribe via | RSS | iTunes | Zune

Tags: android, Coffee, coffee geeks, Google, gramophone, gutenberg, Lego, Nexus One, robot, shaving, simon, torrent

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Shortened Holiday Broadcast, Vacation for your tired earlobes

With the vacation in full swing and the majority of the family visiting done by now we are slowly getting back online. For the past few days my interactions in a virtual sense were supplanted by the sharing of good old fashioned face to face Christmas cheer. As it is our custom every year we made the rounds and are now a spent people. The boy was overall very well behaved and Santa was very good to him.

On tonights show you’ll hear about a few of the more awesome stories to leak through. We have a couple Holiday story holdovers to mention and we’ll let you get back to your family.

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas. We got quite a few geek worthy gifts and stories to share. But we also have some rather fun news to share. If you don’t happened to follow any other the other social media avenues that the CaffiNation Walks it may be new to you so listen in.

CaffiNation Live on Wednesday Nights at 11pm Eastern

Sponsor: Try GotoMeeting free for 30 days! For this special offer

visit www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts Enjoy the show!

• Back Channel: All the Cruft, non of the Chaff now with more fluff
• Where else can you find me? www.paulrjmuller.com

Geek Cruft

• TPN Weekly. How to be family tech support
• If it looks like a Roomba but isn’t
• Ceiling mounted robot fires ping ping balls
• Boldly swimming where no man swum before
• tree changes color with your tweets
• What happens to trees after the holiday?

Food and Caffeinated Bits:

• Mountain Dew Tree (For Norbert, but only if they use Code Red)
• 1000 Beert Bottles and a good load of Christmas Cheer Later
• 5-Piece Bar Tool Set. In a bottle*
• My Mac, My Coffee, Wonder if it uses DRM? It Sorta does
• Star Wars wine stoppers

Care to contribute?

Feel free to send in any recipes, reviews or like minded articles and I’ll gladly post it with a link back to your site!

Thanks and Stay Caffeinated People!

*Affiliate Links

Stay in Touch: Phone 215-240-1319 | Twitter @caffination | Facebook Fan Page
Subscribe via | RSS |  iTunes | Zune

Tags: beer bottle tree, code red, Coffee, Mac, mountain dew, recycled trees, robot, roomba, tweet

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Big changes under a New OS, Scary Fun Coming this week

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—

So I took the plunge in work and at home and upgraded to windows 7 for two very different reasons. In work I need to test the software students might come in with, and our design application had a notoriously bad time prepping versions for Vista. So this time around i wanted to do a blanket test to see what might happen to the different high end applications we run. At home the machine was in dire need of a refresh. And this staved off the inevitable for now. I’m working on a post to cover what happened but overall I’m impressed in a way I was nto expecting to be.

All of that being said This episode has some scary fun stuff in preparation for Halloween. The usual assortment of costume and pumpkin articles are coupled with some awesome DIY Ideas. Enjoy the feast.

I had an awesome time doing TPN Weekly at the start of this past week.

There is a new contest from Jeffery Powers over at Podcast Madness, Enter the code blogsimple for a chance to win a year-long subscription to Mozy, a web backup solution. Listen to the show for a second chance to enter. Lots of shows are involved and each one of us has a different code so be sure to head over to Podcastmadness.com to see the rest of the gang. Hurray time is running out you only have till October 31st!

Enjoy the show!

• Back Channel: All the Cruft, non of the Chaff now with more fluff
• Where else can you find me? www.paulrjmuller.com
• CaffiNation Approved TPN Weekly Episode 27

Geek Cruft

• Get Serious about being Green, the dog needs to go?
• Spooky Fun Comic Book, Edgar A Poe
• There’s Still Time For DIY Halloween Decor
• Guy On Craigslist Seeks Amputee For Halloween Costume
  • instead of judging the dude, how about we ask an amputee?
• 20 Robot Halloween Costumes
• Pie of Sauron
• “Working” Apple iPhone Costumes 2k of awesome
• iMac Cylon Mask
• Honking Pumpkin
• Self Sustaining Zombie Head
• Hulu to charge for content the real scary thought h/t MAS

Food and Caffeinated Bits:

• Color Trends: Coffee Packaging
• Vashon Island Coffee Museum Photos
• The Teapot Effect
• Coffee Reviews in plain English
• Hot Cocoa vs. Drinking Chocolate
• Coffee and liver disease
• Drinks exceed legal caffeine limit, what would we do here
• Kellogg’s publicity stunt or waste of money
• Diet Friendly Kirby Cupcakes
• Caffe Inn crazy Espresso Machine design concept

Want to contribute?

Feel free to send in any recipes, reviews or like minded articles and I’ll gladly post it with a link back to your lair!

Thanks and Stay Caffeinated People!

Stay in Touch: Phone 215-240-1319 | Twitter @caffination | Facebook Fan Page

Subscribe via |  RSS |  iTunes | Zune

Tags: blood, Carbon Footprint, cewbacca, costume, eadgar allan poe, Halloween, laser, Pumpkin, pumpkin carving, robot, sauron, Zombie

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Apologies for last show.

Technical difficulties won’t trouble this episode, we hope

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—

So apologies are in order if you listened to the last show you know by now that we had some minor to major issues with the audio skipping pretty much throughout the episode. I’ll explain what happened and why so you don’t fall into the same trap I did. But all that Aside we’re gearing up for Podcamp Philly and I’ll have some fun downloads in the coming week for you to see before people at the event do. I’m making some surprises that I hope will go over well.

This show has lots of lego love, a great web-comic i just re discovered and a ton of Coffee Geekery to go around. We discuss the seriousness of Net Neutrality, the lighthearted Robot Foozeball, the heretical nature of the Beatles and the sacrosanct nature of good coffee in Seattle. Its a tall order for a short format show, but I think we covered good ground.

The push for Podcamp Philly is on. We’re really excited to bring the event to Temple University on October 3rd and 4th. Hopefully I’ll see you there! Are you wondering why you should go to a Podcamp?

Enjoy the show!

• Back Channel: All the Cruft, non of the Chaff
• Where else can you find me? www.paulrjmuller.com

News in brief

• The Beatles ‘bigger than Jesus’ on Google
• Font Nerd Alert Arial versus Helvetica
• Police Play Wii Bowling During Drug Raid
• Nerd Merit Badges
• Finally Cell Phone Companies listen, a simple phone
• Nintendo Remembers how to print money and drops the price of the Wii
• Podcamp Philly October 3rd and 4th @ Temple University

Geek Cruft

• Net Neutrality, what it does and does not mean
• MaruBot Table Soccer Uses RC Robots to replace iconic table soccer players
• Bell Alarm Clock, this is the type of alert i neeed in the AM
• James May’s Lego House has been demolished, Destruction
• LEGO cello actually works, Creation
• Buddhist Leader Says fraging is brings one closer to the gateless gate
• Microsoft’s Courier Tablet

Food and Caffeinated Bits:

• New Coffee Project Research Below, Glimpse Here
  • All About Coffee, by William H. Ukers
  • History of coffee – Wikistyle
• Girl Genius knows how to do coffee up right, I have friend who are good with tools
• OTTO Stove Top Espresso Coffee Maker, beautiful design
• Coffee-and-mad-science party video, Neat but a bit off on the coffee part
• Certain Coffee Curmudgeon Makes news with his Roast Declaration
• My Goodness Happy 250th birthday Guinness
• WMF1 Coffee Pad Machine, neat but fails the usability test
  

Want to contribute?

Feel free to send in any recipes, reviews or like minded articles and I’ll gladly post it with a link back to your lair!

Thanks and Stay Caffeinated People!

Tags: beatles, Buhdist gamers, CaffiNation Paul Rj Muller, caffination podcast, Coffee, Espresso, font nerds, Foozeball, heresy, Lego, otto, podcamp philly, robot, tablet pc, Tea

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Getting hard to see through all this mental fog

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—

Tonight we’re not running behind schedule so much as we’re procrastinating splendidly. I’ve been putting off doing the show tonight for a ton of different reasons. but either way we’re trying something new. Rather than releasing the show as soon as its done I’ll be posting it the next day at 12:30, Eastern. So from now on Monday and Thursday lunch hour will debut the next version of the Caffination.

Things to look forward to? Well this week i have two neat reviews coming out on for a product and another for a place. I’ll also be posting a recipe for my Veggie chili so you can join in on the fun at home. So many more things to talk about so why don’t you listen in.

Today we’ll be discussing Legos, Robots, iPods, Bananas, and Copyright. Anythings fair game in this episode.

Enjoy the show!

• Back Channel: All the Cruft, non of the Chaff
• Where else can you find me? www.paulrjmuller.com

News in brief

• File Sharers pay it forward and backward
• Yet crazy bad patent and trademark law still stick
• RiP! was fantastic give it a try
• DJ AM, passes, should he still be in the game

Geek Cruft

• Like Eve from Wall-E la Petite Prince loves him some plants
• Lego universe?
• Next gen business card? Or just silly, Poken
• MC Hammer and Zombies
• NES Cart used as an external hard drive, awesome stuff
• Brute force hacking of an iPod via robot assistance
• NYC to commission bike helmets that don’t look horrible
• Video Link: Google as a Roomate
• Video Link: Ze Frank’s TED Talk

Food and Caffeinated Bits:

• As a Coffee Guy… this article has good and bad points… Consider the source
• Old Patents: Banana Ice Cream injector
• Massive Warhammer Cake
• Via @weeklyroast top 5 worst coffee for you
• Clean things with Coffee filters? Works great for eyeglasses and scanners
• I should try this for coffee, Around the League (NHL) in 30 beers

Thanks and Stay Caffeinated People!

Tags: apple, copyleft, copyright, dj am, ipod, Lego, remix manifesto, robot, ze frank

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The press pot died today… or was it yesterday

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visit www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts

—

Some days you just can’t do it. you can’t pull your scattered thoughts into a seemingly sensible format for a talk show. Today is one of those days but I have an excuse, you see my coffee pot broke this morning… Now don’t start wailing and nashing your teeth yet i have plenty of coffee creation methods at hand but my recent love of the Press Pot coffee had me in a very foul humor after the glass broke.

So that nonsense aside and a wonderful weekend with the family behind me i turn now to the task at hand giving you some semblance of an episode to entertain you on your travels about thew front half of the week. An Existential masterpiece of an episode from a producer who just doesn’t feel all there right now.

A belated congrats to Jeffery Powers of the Geekazine Podcast for hitting show number 100 this past week! Keep up the good work!

Enjoy the show and Stay Caffeinated!

• Back Channel: All the Cruft, non of the Chaff
• Where else can you find me? www.paulrjmuller.com

News in brief

• Facebook Buys Friendfeed… Limited scope for this deal
• PS3 Price Drop, Xbox 360 Price Drop

Geek Cruft

• Steampunk Skull Mouse, you’re all sheep now
• Move from Steampunk towards a new name
• Low hanging fruit and scoreboards
• Best Mario Bros Wall art EVER
• Space invaders light
• Solar UFO, Float towards a cleaner Moat
• My toothpaste doesn’t need to look at me
• Teach a robot to lie they said… this can’t end well for us

Food and Caffeinated Bits:

• Schools coming back you might need a new thermos
• French Press… I hardly knew ye
• Benefits of different brewing methods
• In the end its all coffee

Thanks and Stay Caffeinated People!

Tags: Albert Camus, cowboys, facebook, friendfeed, Mario, mario brothers, PS3, robot, Steampunk, The Stranger, ufo, Xbox 360

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Milestone of a show, I remain stunned by your support. Thank You

Sponsor: Try GotoMeeting free for 30 days! For this special offer
visit www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts

—

There is plenty of news to go round today as the summer picks up the pace. Can you believe we’re already halfway thorugh the summer? I saw my first back to school shopping commercial on July 12th, an all time early bird commercial. Luckily despite the economy being a bit down the news has kept flows. We have plenty to talk about in the worlds of Robots, Linux, Morse Code, and of course a ton of coffee and food bits collected at the end for you to savor.

The CaffiNation is also very proud to take part in the Summer of Podcasts Contest Head on over and check out the shows rocking the codeword this week. Listen in for the codeword for Our Show this week!

Enjoy the show and Stay Caffeinated!

• Back Channel: All the Cruft, non of the Chaff
  
• Where else can you find me? www.paulrjmuller.com

Geek Cruft

• Burger King wants your precious kinetic energy
• Linux booting in under a second? in a three minute video
• USPS to cut costs by implementing a linux package tracking solution
• Value of Private information. Rorschach Conundrum
• Cable organization doo dad
• Pittsburgh Skyscraper does Morse Code Wrong
• iPhone Server Cluster?
• Rechargeable Air Horn, for the super fans
• Carved Computer desk and keyboard
• Router turns off when no one is home
• Petro Algae, looks like soylent green
• Biomass consuming robot EATR back in the news
• Transformer cufflinks, are not more than meets the eye

Food & Caffeinated Bits

• Cook like a cave man
• Wood or Pixels you decide. Food Service geekery designed here
• Triforce Cutting board for Steve
• Space Invader Cutting board
• Toxic Mug decal
• Compact BBQ, but a little off base
• Single Serve Pantone Chip Cups

Thanks and Stay Caffeinated People!

Tags: club, Coffee, eatr, Food, Linux, milestone, morse code, pantone, robot, summer of podcasts

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Today’s Show:  Lego, Design, Color Theory, Adopt a Newb Day, Jobs, robots, photoshop, Mario, nesting dolls, energy drinks, sugar

Tonight’s show is shortened because I’m pretty sure everyone was outside enjoying the weekend. At least were the CaffiNation makes its lair, in Sunny Philadelphia. The family unplugged as a whole and took the city by storm, so everyone here is just plain plumb tuckered out. Tonight’s show takes only the best content and the funniest links from my travels the past couple of days online.

Consider this a small sampling of the awesomeness available. But we do have a ton of great little design tips and applications. We are taking this opportunity to announce Adopt a Newb Day 2009, a day dedicated to the idea of giving a little tech love to those less all knowing than you.  More to come in the next couple of days about this holiday and as always check back for some interesting articles on tap this week as well.

As always Enjoy the show and Stay Caffeinated!

Sponsor: Try GotoMeeting free for 30 days! For this special offer

visit www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts

• Store now open, CaffiNation Outpost
• Back Channel: All the Cruft, non of the Chaff
  
• Web Presence Index www.paulrjmuller.com

Follow Along with us as we talk about…

• Blog Design Guide: Part 1 the Colors
• Adopt a Newb Day 2009 is coming! 4th Annual
• Last years Adopt a Newb was quite fun
• LaidOff Camp? Interesting Idea, not one in Philly yet

Geek Cruft

• I ain’t afraid of no Retro, T shirt
• Old School looking Robot, flash drive
• Robot Stacking Toy, is awesome fun
• Robots to teach our young? and they can get freaky angry
• Legos build Themselves a Millennium Falcon
• Incredibly expensive Photoshop and Illustrator menu Magnets
• Free and Awesome Periodic Table of Shortcuts CS3, found via
• Mario Nesting Dolls

Consumable & Caffeinated Bits

• Pepsi throwback, sugar is back
• DIY Booze Creation, possibly
• Anti Energy Drink?  Sounds pretty interesting
• My take on energy drinks, revisited

Thanks and Stay Caffeinated People

Tags: adopt a newb day, color theory, cs3, Design, Energy Drinks, illustrator, Jobs, Lego, Mario, nesting dolls, photoshop, robot, robot teacher, robot toys, sugar