NEW YORK, Jan. 8 /PRNewswire/ —

Nickelodeon will offer its premiere interactive broadband video destination, TurboNick, as the premiere kids offering on the soon-to-debut Windows Vista platform, available to consumers on January 30. Nickelodeon’s TurboNick offers a unique interactive experience with the best of Nickelodeon programming and games. [...]]]> …from the what-I’ve-been-up-to-for-the-last-6-months-dept…this one’s mine, boys!

NEW YORK, Jan. 8 /PRNewswire/ —

Nickelodeon will offer its premiere interactive broadband video destination, TurboNick, as the premiere kids offering on the soon-to-debut Windows Vista platform, available to consumers on January 30. Nickelodeon’s TurboNick offers a unique interactive experience with the best of Nickelodeon programming and games. The TurboNick launch on Media Center for Windows Vista takes convergence to a new level as it will be the first time users can experience TurboNick with the click of a remote. TurboNick on Windows Vista is available for demonstration at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

“This is the latest entertainment platform on which we are able to extend our programming and content offerings for kids and families,” said Steve Youngwood, Executive Vice President Digital Media for Nickelodeon and MTVN Kids and Family Group. “We are thrilled to be the first kids offering on Media Center for Windows Vista as we are always looking to better our consumers’ experiences. This launch gives audiences a brand new way to interact with their favorite Nickelodeon shows.”

“We’re excited to provide fantastic kids’ programming on Windows Vista with Nickelodeon’s TurboNick application for Media Center,” said Brad Goldberg, general manager of Windows Client at Microsoft Corp. “Through our close work together we are helping to provide technologies that will connect, entertain and hopefully surprise users by how easy this next generation of computing makes their lives.”

TurboNick on Windows Vista, which was produced by Nickelodeon’s online team and designed and developed in conjunction with the full-service interactive agency Schematic, offers a completely interactive experience and a comprehensive collection of Nick content, with hundreds of clips in addition to full length Nicktoons including SpongeBob SquarePants, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and current and classic live action hits from Zoey 101 to The Amanda Show. It also includes content from special events like the Kids’ Choice Awards. Plus, TurboNick goes behind-the-scenes with TEENick, and features online exclusives, celebrity interviews, and extended versions of kids’ favorite shows.

With TurboNick on Windows Vista, users are able to search through a massive video catalog of Nickelodeon content either by browsing the channels, shows or favorite Nickelodeon characters. Users can also create their own personalized playlists (“MySnags”), rate video content, take trivia challenges, or play games based on Nickelodeon property based content. Those consumers that have a video tuner cards for Media Center for Windows Vista can view Nickelodeon television live on their computer through TurboNick.

Windows Vista delivers the ultimate experience for today’s consumer, making their digital lifestyle easier and their experiences safer, better connected, and more entertaining. Along with a whole new wave of PC hardware, software and services designed to build on its advances, Windows Vista is designed to enhance today’s digital lifestyles whether at home, at work, or on the go. Windows Vista helps make everyday PC tasks and controls — from booting up the computer to finding files — faster and easier.

Nickelodeon recently launched TurboNick 2.0 on Nick.com, its broadband video platform with unparalleled features including continuous video streaming, customized play lists, content in multiple languages, the ability to search the broad Nickelodeon content library, and more. Kids now have the opportunity to control their individual entertainment experiences and become “programmers” with mash-up applications, the ability to rate videos, or interactive games. TurboNick 2.0 allows access to hundreds of Nick long and short form programming videos online, including select new episodes immediately after they air on the network. In 2006, TurboNick generated close to 250 million content streams, and averages five million monthly unique visitors (source: Omniture SiteCatalyst).

Nickelodeon, now in its 27th year, is the number-one entertainment brand for kids. It has built a diverse, global business by putting kids first in everything it does. The company includes television programming and production in the United States and around the world, plus consumer products, online, recreation, books, magazines and feature films. Nickelodeon’s U.S. television network is seen in almost 92 million households and has been the number-one- rated basic cable network almost 12 consecutive years. Nickelodeon and all related titles, characters and logos are trademarks of Viacom Inc.

OK then, for 2007 here’s my first tech/dev post — here’s a link to Adobe Lab’s Apollo which, in case you’ve been living under a rock for the last year or so, happens to be a cool and interesting [...]]]> Happy New Year, folks! Here’s a good old fashioned tech post and update, SnowBrain style.

OK then, for 2007 here’s my first tech/dev post — here’s a link to Adobe Lab’s Apollo which, in case you’ve been living under a rock for the last year or so, happens to be a cool and interesting API for leveraging your webtastic dev talents to create desktop (yes, I said desktop) rich internet apps that run cross platform (yes, I said cross platform). This means that you will still have a place in society as a web developer/designer/geek when browsers finally collapse and fall into the sun, as we all hope and pray that they will. Head on over and sign up for the Beta now.

As for me? I’m pretty much out of the coding front lines, but to stay active I’m looking into Visual Basic Express for prototyping products. Lately, among 1000 other things, I’ve been working with a team creating a MCML based application that will be showcased soon and then released to the public as part of a much larger software effort. It’s been one hell of a year.

Best to you and yours for 2007! Bring on the tech!

I guess my only thing with this is – why? Isn’t a user best served by only using one operating system – at max, two (with one of these being Linux)? And pardon me, but it’s my opinion that the average Mac user hasn’t the interest or inclination to run Linux [...]]]> Article here.

I guess my only thing with this is – why? Isn’t a user best served by only using one operating system – at max, two (with one of these being Linux)? And pardon me, but it’s my opinion that the average Mac user hasn’t the interest or inclination to run Linux OR Windows.* That’s what makes the Mac work – it’s simple, intuitive, and no-nonsense.

In reality, it’s generating confusion and angst amongst Jobs’ slavering masses of art box zealots. For example – I’ve had at least three Mac users complain to me that now that Windows can boot on the Mac, it will ‘be more open to viruses’. Ummmmm..

1) it’s ‘virii’
2) no, your Mac can’t suddenly recognize Win virii just because Windows is now on your Mac.

Great sigh of frustration and much gnashing of teeth. You shall all be my slaves when I serve our machine overlords as twisted and evil human henchman. The Mac users will all get the worst of my vengeance. Anyone with a pink or green mini-iPod had better just run away now.

For hard core Linux or even Windows users, this could prove to be very attractive – but I don’t see it on the Mac user side of things. I want to know when I can build me an AMD Opteron powered 64 bit XP beast that will also boot OSX. For, you see, I don’t want to pay $2k + for Apple’s hardware when I can build a bitchin Micro ATX machine for $700.