Seems like it was only yesterday that ad execs were pitching a flurry of educational videos which sought to capture the hearts and minds of America’s youth through hip-hop; one of my personal favorites being the Wendy’s training video, Grill Skills. Now, thanks to the good folks at the Chicagoist, I’m adding this video to the top of that list.

Note to the RIAA: take a page from the gaming industry play book of the 90’s; add a dash of entertainment to your shame…..shamertainment. Why not get Metallica to create a PSA on file sharing, “The Thing That Should Not Be (Copied)?”

P.S. We ARE the posse of the future.

Ever since I saw I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, I’ve always imagine myself struttin’ down the street with a funk band behind me, telling people, “They’re my theme music.”

Thanks to the iPod (and now iPhone), I get to live that memory, or at the very least I can do my best Bee Gees impersonation.

All that aside, given my new business venture, I feel the need for a corporate theme song. Perhaps something like the one that Apple created for its 1984 roll-out of the Macintosh computer. Wow.

It’s worth a read of the YouTube liner notes to get the full context. Thanks, Sandy, for passing the gem along.

(Pictured above: Kristen Nicole of 606tech.com and a Llama)

This past Thursday, I attended my first Tech Cocktail, a quarterly Chicago technology meetup, organized by Frank Gruber and Eric Olson. I have to say, as someone new to these type of events, it was great and incredibly worthwhile. What finer way to spend a Thursday night than to drink free draft beer from a glow-in-the-dark mug, while engaging in uber-dweeb conversations with some of Chicago’s brightest technology minds?

Just last month, Sandy and I attended the Chicago Beta meetup at Goose Island Brewery. Organized monthly, Chicago Beta provides a forum for local startups to present themselves in a 60-second pitch to fellow startup peers. As good luck would have it, Tappity won the pitch award, which included an upcoming interview on BusinessPOV.com and 2 free classes at Digital Bootcamp.

Now, I’ve always been told that "networking" is the key to becoming a successful business person. To some, that means being a social whore, slathering the world with their business cards, and hoping to find a person or organization who will propel them to riches, or in some cases a mouth full of gold-capped teeth. But to me, and what has become apparent over the last few weeks, is that networking has less to do with the success of your business and more joy of connecting to people with like minds. Through TC4, Chicago Beta and SXSW, I’ve met some great friends, who are sharing in the same experiences that I am, trying to create websites from nothing, and learning the ropes of establishing a small business. Chicago provides a wonderful, non-competitive environment for technology, and it’s apparent when you attend one of these meetups.

For those who live in Chicago, I highly recommend attending one of the meetups listed above. For those who live elsewhere, take a moment to learn about meetups in your area — it’ll be well worth your collective whiles.

Via Downlaod Squad: Mobile web making you want to tap-out? Tappity thinks they can help. This free online service lets users check out mobile web pages that are stored in your unique personal mobile Tappity pages. Mobile homepages can be set so that users can search from whatever engine they frequently use, whether it’s Google Local, Wikipedia, or Flickr. Since you set your zip code, information will be relevant to your location.

Read the full article here

PLEASE NOTE: This tutorial only skims the surface of what Tappity.com can do. Most people use it as a way to find price comparison, movie times, sports scores, or whatever it is they’re trying to locate on the web, using their mobile phone. The tutorial below is just a hack to allow Digg users to see their stats. If you’re not THAT into seeing Digg stats, I suggest signing up and using Tappity for its intended purpose. It’s a great tool for anyone using a web-enabled phone.

How many times have you submitted a story, then gone out to lunch, only to ask yourself, “I wonder how many people have Dugg my stuff?”

Okay, for the general public, the answer is probably “Never”, but for some of us checking Diggs is a part of our daily routine (it’s alright to admit it….you’re amongst friends) . And now, in a few easy steps, you can squelch out the last computer-free moments of your life to monitor your Digg submissions from a mobile phone. There aren’t any grandiose requirements…any web-enabled phone will do.

1. If you’re not already a member, sign up for a free Tappity account.

   For those who aren’t already familiar with Tappity, it’s a customizable mobile homepage and search engine, like Google Mobile, Yahoo Go 2.0, or Netvibes2Go, except with Tappity, users can submit and rate the mobile sites themselves. That’ll come into play in a second.

2. Once logged in to Tappity, click on the “submit new site” button, located in the header bar near “find more sites”.
3. Digg provides an RSS feed of your submitted stories (as well as ones you’ve dugg, commented on, etc.), at the top of each of your profile pages, by the icon. Obtain your “submitted” feed by right-clicking on the icon and copying the link location, or, if you don’t feel like heading back to Digg right now, you can just modify this example URL, and replace “[your username]” with your Digg username:

   http://digg.com/rss/[your username]/index1.xml

4. Submit your feed to Tappity as a Link. Click Continue.
5. On the following page, you’ll be asked to enter things like a Title, Description and Tags. Frankly you can put whatever you like in there — no one will see these, other than you. What IS important, and I cannot stress this enough: Make sure that you are submitting this as a Private Link and that Mobified is set to “Yes”.

   What the heck am I doing? You are submitting your RSS feed as a private link, so that no other users can add this to their homepage. And “mobifying” a link means that you’re passing it through Tappity’s mobile transcoder, so it turns your RSS feed into a mobile-friendly web page.

6. Preview your page before submitting. If all goes well, you should see your submitted stories, along with the number of Diggs and Comments. Note: It may take a few seconds for the Preview to Generate. This isn’t due to a problem with the preview window, it’s because Digg’s site is sometimes slow to dynamically create the RSS feed.
7. Once you are sure that the Preview is working, and you’ve double checked that it is a Private, Mobified link, go ahead and submit it. The link will be automatically added to your Tappity homepage.
8. Now, go to mobile.tappity.com on your phone’s browser. If this is the first time you’re visiting Tappity, you’ll have to enter your username and password to access your personalized homepage. Once there, scroll down to your Links section and voila!, your Digg Stats Link will be present, available for clickin’.

That’s about it. Enjoy your mobile Digg stats, and be careful to lookup while crossing the street.