Unfortunately Lisa Brewster didn’t make it into the Mahalo VLOG Idol final, her interview is still here though.

This week it’s Jeremy Schoemaker aka. ShoeMoney’s turn to show us his desktop. It’s almost impossible to describe Shoemoney in a few lines. I’m still going to do it though.

Regular readers of Shoemoney.com know that he lost 240 lbs in 15 months, never read an entire book and that he became famous for his $132,994.97 Adsense check.

ShoeMoney is known for his posts about affiliate marketing, CPC, PPC, CPM-stuff (and other 3 letter terms) and see new schwag T-shirts.

ShoeMoney co-founded AuctionAds (now ShoppingAds, check this blog’s right upper corner) and sold it to MediaWhiz.

The very successful and exclusive Elite Retreat, which brings the best entrepreneurs in SEO, SEM and internet marketing together, is also co-founded by ShoeMoney.

He also runs ShoeMoney Media Group and hosts the weekly podcast “The ShoeMoney Show” on Webmasterradio.fm.

As always when ShoeMoney is involved it’s brief and honest. The same goes for this interview.

A few days after I mailed ShoeMoney the questions, he posted this How To Get That Interview.

What is your background picture?

Its the factory one that comes with Macosx

Why did you chose that picture?

I just never really get into background pictures.

If you have a personal and a work computer, which program do you use the most on your personal computer?

In both my personal and work computers I use terminal more then anything.

Internet Explorer or Firefox?

Firefox! Mostly because I am on a macintosh

What is your favourite program?

I favorite program or program I look forward to using would be itunes.

Thank you very much, ShoeMoney for answering my questions. Keep up the entertaining and informative posts!

If you missed Larissa Meek’s interview last week, make sure you head over there and read it. This week it’s Lisa Brewster’s turn to show me her desktop.

Lisa Brewster aka. Adora calls herself “just some girl on the internet”, but if you ask me, she is on her way to being much more than that.

Lisa is taking part in Mahalo’s VLOGIdol. She is one of the finalists and could be the host on Mahalo Daily. If you want to support Lisa, which I’ll encourage you to do, join her Facebook Fan group, send her a SASE and get a free “I want Lisa to host Mahalo Daily” sticker and give her your support here.

It’s a tough competition with a lot of talented women with both beauty and “geeky”.

Lisa is the product manager for StartUp Schwag. The Web 2.0 schwag club. Once per month they will send you a bag with schwag, usually a t-shirt and some stickers. I’d love to become a member, but it’s $25 every month because I live in Denmark. US-residents get it a lot cheaper.

If you want to learn more about Lisa and her many projects, I suggest you visit Sophistechate.com, Lisa Brewster Photography and Technarium.com.

And now for the interview:

What is your background picture?
http://www.skinbase.org/rate.php?skins=40303

Why did you chose that picture?

I’ve always been a fan of basic black, but when I got my Thinkpad I wanted something warmer and slightly feminine. My work computer, however, has a picture of a neurotic kitten wielding a chainsaw.

If you have a personal and a work computer, which program do you use the most on your personal computer?

According to Wakoopa, I mostly use Firefox and Photoshop. I recently switched from Miranda IM to Trillian Astra, so chatting in general deserves a higher ranking than what it currently has.

Which program do you use the most on your work computer?

Outlook and VMware Server.

Internet Explorer or Firefox?

Firefox, of course.

Why do you use Firefox?

Since Firefox has such a huge catalog of plugins, I’m able to customize it to fit into my workflow better. I don’t think I could live without the Web Developer toolbar and Remove It Permanently.

What is your favourite program?

I tried really, really hard to pick just one program, but I couldn’t do it. My most useful program is an open source project called Synergy, which I use to connect one keyboard and mouse to the four computers on my desk at work. My favorite program to actually use, though, is a little known video player called Light Alloy. From the very first time I tried it I could tell that the author really understands how to interact with the user while staying out of the way.

Which program is the worst?

Sprint Connection Manager. I groan every time I have to mess with it.

Mac or Pc and why?

Definitely PC. Even more socially uncool is that except for a few quirks (like pesky windows stealing the foreground) I like using Vista. On 2K and XP I always had to customize the hell out of my Windows install with visual styles and shell extensions, but Vista does more of what I want out of the box. The new start menu is so simple and intuitive that it’s practically genius. There are some great applications that are only available for Macs, and Apple has changed the world of UI design forever (I confess that I have a dock myself), but using OS X just never feels like home.

Thank you very much for the help and best of luck with Mahalo VLOGIdol, Lisa! You can always send a sticker and Mahalo greetings to Denmark

It’s time for another round of Show Me Your Desktop. If you missed Amber Mac’s interview it’s still around.

This week it’s Larissa Meek’s turn to show us her desktop. Fans of the Miss Teen USA or Miss USA pageant know her, fans of the reality TV show “Average Joe: Hawaii” know her and fans of art and interactive design know Larissa.

Larissa is a senior art director at AgencyNet. If you’ve never visited AgencyNet.com, you really missed a great website. They really put the “i” in interactive and they are hiring, if you are interested.

I can also highly recommend you visit Larissa’s personal blog. The design of her blog is just as beautiful and easy on the eyes as her artworks.

The attentive reader will also notice that Larissa is a PC-user. You don’t run across these every day.

What is your background picture?

Last week I asked Adam Ostrow from Mashable and Readburner to show me his desktop. This week it’s Amber MacArthur’s (aka Amber Mac) turn. Her blog just got a major graphical overhaul and she has promised us to write more blog posts and take over the online world. The new layout looks great and good luck with online world domination.

Amber is co-founder of MGI Media, but you might know her from G4TechTV’s “Call For Help”, Webnation, commandN or net@night podcast, which is hosted by Amber and Leo Laporte. It runs on Leo Laporte’s own netcast network known as TWiT.tv (This Week in Tech). Net@night (previously “Inside The Net”) is published every Thursday. The topics range from Amber’s links to Web 2.0 entrepreneurs.

Amber also hosts commandN, a weekly video show with techtips, reviews, webpicks and more. It is one of the most downloaded video podcasts. It is the 20th highest ranked podcast on Digg. Net@Night is number 17. commandN has been around since 2005. It can be downloaded in various formats, including H.264 and Xbox360.

I’ve been a commandN viewer since Will Pate joined the show, its a coincidence actually. I didn’t know Will Pate before he joined the show.

Now on the the interview. You’ll learn that Amber not only dig fish, she also kicks computers…

What is your background picture?

I have clown fish on my background pic today.

Why did you chose that picture?

I dig fish.

If you have a personal and a work computer, which program do you use the most on your personal computer?

Skype on personal computer.

Which program do you use the most on your work computer?

Mailplane on work computer.

Internet Explorer or Firefox?

I am a Firefox junkie.

Why do you use Firefox?

I am hooked on Firefox extensions.

What is your favourite program?

Snapz Pro

Which program is the worst?

Apple iChat

Do you have any tips and tricks on how to get the most out of your computer or blog?

I think you can get the most out of your computer if you kick it when it’s down (I kid, I kid!).

Mac or Pc and why?

I am a Mac user because I like the overall user experience (and I sucker for a smooth user experience).

Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my questions Amber. Keep up the good work with your shows and good luck with your fish-fetish.

Phew… Finally some time to blog again. I usually publish a Show Me Your Desktop interview on Sundays, but due to the screen writers’ strike we’ve had delays this season… Ok that’s not true, the cursed work has kept me busy, but now all important projects and presentations are done.

If you missed last week’s interview with Sarah Meyers head over here to read it. Sarah just launched Pop17.com.

This week it’s Duncan Riley’s turn to Show Me Your Desktop. If you Google Duncan Riley a lot of different articles and posts comes up. Many of them are about why he left b5media in 2006. That’s 1½ year ago, so there isn’t anything interesting in that anymore. Instead I’ll focus on what Duncan does now.

He is one of the more controversial bloggers. His posts on TechCrunch often starts a heated debate. This particular debate extended into this blog post on Duncan’s personal blog. I’m still not sure what the Australian government’s plan is, but what I gather it sounds really stupid.

Duncan also hosts a really interesting podcast show on thepodcastnetwork. Here he interviews a very mixed crowd from local Australian web experts to American money makers.

He is also a VERY active twitter. I remember Michael Arrington once told him to Wtwit less and write more.”

And now on with the interview.

What is your background picture?

The Apple store in San Francisco I took in July 2007.

Why did you chose that picture?

It seemed appropriate for my Mac Pro. The picture itself has the Apple logo on the store nearly dead middle

If you have a personal and a work computer, which program do you use the most on your personal computer?

I have two computers. A Mac Pro at home, and a Macbook Pro (17″) for when I’m on the road. As I work for myself there’s no personal or work computer as such.

Twitteriffic would get the best work out on both computers, aside from the browser and Mac Mail.

Internet Explorer or Firefox?

Until days ago I would have said Flock. It’s a great browser that in my experience at least is less of a memory hog than FF2 was. I’m now using the latest beta of Firefox 3. The first beta still had memory issues, but as of beta 2 it’s a pleasure to use, and it’s very memory efficient (even more so than Flock). It looks like Mozilla has finally fixed the memory leaks that ruined Firefox 2.Why do you use Fireox?

I was a windows user until nearly 12 months ago, and even then I used Firefox over Internet Explorer. I’m a heavy tab user and Firefox has done tabs from pretty close to the beginning. IE 7 is a vastly improved browser over IE6, but by that stage, like a lot of people, I’d switched to Firefox and had no interest in going back.

What is your favourite program?

Skitch. Being able to do 95% (perhaps more) of my image editing tasks super quickly and without having to open Photoshop has been a blessing for me, and it’s made me far more efficient in my day to day workWhich program is the worst?

Cyberduck, but to be fair FTP on a Mac just never seems to be as smooth for me using any program as compared to Windows.

Do you have any tips and tricks on how to get the most out of your computer or blog?

You need to have the right tools so that your focus is on blogging, not fighting with the software you have installed. Switching to Apple products was the best move I’ve ever made, I no longer worry about whether my operating system is getting a virus, or needs maintaining…or anything really. Macs just work.

In terms of other tools look for products that make your blogging easier. I use Skitch for basic image editing, Grammarian for US English grammar and spell check, iMovie to mix videos and Garage Band to mix podcasts. All make my life a lot easier and I think my work is better for using them. If you’re blogging for yourself, there’s a range of desktop blogging tools available as well, unfortunately for me the quirks of my main writing gig at the moment for TechCrunch means that I have to use WordPress directly, but presuming you don’t have a similar issue, use a blogging client.

Last tip: multiple monitors are a god send. I have twin 22″ monitors, on my left monitor I run Twitteriffic and Firefox, on the right monitor mail, Skitch and any other program I may want to run. This allows you to have a document or email open and visible at the same time you have access to your browser (or blogging client), negating the need to switch between windows when writing a blog post. You can go for one bigger monitor, but cost wise 22″ monitors in Australia at least are down to around the $300 mark ($275 US), much cheaper than say one 30″ at $1500-$2000, and ultimately you get more desktop with the twin monitors. Some suggest 3 works better again, but in my case I’d need a bigger desk first

Click to see a larger image

Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my questions Duncan. The dual 22″ monitor made me a bit envious. I’m pretty sure three monitors would be overkill. I’m not sure what the benefit of that would be.

Personally I use two 19″ monitors (one HP and one IBM), but an upgrade to 22″ wouldn’t be too bad.

How many monitors do you use? Which size and brand? And why do you use more than one monitor?

Remember the very popular interview with Guy Kawasaki is still available. Read it and find out why I’m changing my view on Mac.

This week I’m asking Sarah Meyers to Show Me Your Desktop. Sarah Meyers is the producer, writer and host of the daily tech show at PopSnap. I was lucky enough to get a glimpse of the alpha version of PopSnap and it looks very promising. On PopSnap she has interviewed people like Richard Branson, Jeff Jarvis and Stephen Baldwin.

Sarah isn’t like any other video journalist. In one video you’ll see her ordering at McDonalds in an Optimus Prime mask. For some reason the McDonalds manager calls the police. In another video she is thrown out of the TechCrunch 06 party. I’m still not sure why.

She also runs several other sites. Her own blog on WordPress, another blog on Tumblr and a new site, Pop17.com, that I’m not sure what is yet. Sarah has a really interesting tip on how to get the most out of your blog. I’ve never heard that before.

Here comes the interview with Sarah Meyers.

What is your background picture?

Rocks. It’s very Zen.

Why did you chose that picture?

Because my work can be stressful. I edit video on my computer and when the machine gets too hot the software crashes.

If you have a personal and a work computer, which program do you use the most on your personal computer?

Safari

Which program do you use the most on your work computer?

Final Cut Pro

Internet Explorer or Firefox?

Firefox on the PC. I usually use Safari

What is your favourite program?

Garage Band

Which program is the worst?

The new iMovie

Mac or Pc and why?

Apple because I’m into new media and making movies on the Apple computer is the way to go. I have used a PC for this and the over all quality goes down. When you look at a video as a windows file you will see what I’m talking about. Windows isn’t compatible with the editing software I use.

Do you have any tips and tricks on how to get the most out of your computer or blog?

This may sound odd, but encourage complaining in the comments on your blog. When you get complainers engage in the conversation or argue with them.

Click to see the bigger version

Thank you very much Sarah! It was very entertaining to research you. I’ve never seen anyone order a fajita wearing an Optimus Prime mask, but as someone commented. The manager probably mistook you for a Decepticon.

Photo by Brian Solis

If you missed last week’s interview with the lovely (as David Letterman would say) Rebecca Bollwitt you can still read it. This week I’m very proud to ask Guy Kawasaki to Show Me Your Desktop.

Guy Kawasaki saved Apple, (according to some he resurrected Apple twice), he is managing director and founder of Garage Technology Venture, one of the founders behind Truemors.com and launched Alltop.com last week.

Guy’s latest site Alltop.com is inspired by popurls.com, except Alltop has divided the news into topics. Alltop grabs the feeds from the top sites within each topic. The topics range from Auto and Celebrities to Macintosh and Sports. It basically gives you the latest headlines from 50+ websites within each topic. I discovered a few gaming sites I didn’t know, not to mention the very valuable Green topic. Remember you have to reduce your CO2 emission.

Now during the interview you will see, why Guy resurrected Apple and see an interviewer who never could do that. I’ll have to reword my future interviews for season 3.

What is your background picture?

I did the Leopard update, and this is what was left.

Why did you chose that picture?

I never bothered to change it after the upgrade. I should be getting a MacBook Air shortly and maybe I’ll make an effort to have a cool desktop.

If you have a personal and a work computer, which program do you use the most on your personal computer?

I only have one computer. The application that I use most is Entourage because I am a slave to email.

Since I spoke to Guy, he has converted to Mac Air and uses two computers regularly. The Mac Air and iMac.
Internet Explorer or Firefox?

Your question shows a fundamental ignorance of Macintosh. I use Safari. Sometimes I use Firefox because there are some interesting plug-ins and add-ons, but I always go back to Safari.

What is your favourite program?

Entourage.
Which program is the worst?

Entourage—though I’m still waiting for Office 2008 to arrive (1/26/08). The person who designed Entourage must get about twenty emails a day from people whose addresses he/she has memorized; only has 500 contacts in the address book; and never needs to find an old message. None of this is true for me.
Do you have any tips and tricks on how to get the most out of your computer or blog?

Using MarsEdit and Ecto sure helps me blog. I like Skitch for taking screenshots and then commenting on them when I’m communicating with developers and companies about user-interface issues.
Mac or Pc and why?

At least you’re consistent. Mac because it’s in my DNA and because I can use any computer that I want to.

Click for a bigger image

As you can see I really stepped in it here. One thing is sure, I’ll never forget about Macintosh again. The interview has inspired me to start a new blog. I’ve been a PC user for nearly 20 years and never given Macs much thought (sorry Guy). I’ve supported a Mac-user once and it was a nightmare.

From now on all the money I earn from my blog will go into the “Buy a Mac”-pool. I’ll pack my PCs (laptop and stationary) down and just use a Mac Notebook, Mac Air or whatever they are called for an entire year and blog about it. From day 1 where I open the box and write my first blog post to day 365 where I’ll evaluate my experience. I’ve got a sneaky suspicion that the Mac will surprise me.

Sorry for the rambling, but the thought just hit me. Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my questions Guy! I’m honoured to have such great and inspirational people in my interview series.

Researching for this round of Show Me Your Desktop, my wife asked me how come I didn’t have many women in the interview series. This opened a whole new world for me. The world of Canadian bloggers.

Rebecca Bollwitt is a Canadian blogger. She is among the top Vancouver bloggers, a Canucks fan (NHL ice hockey team) and she blogs for a good cause.

Reading Rebecca’s aka Miss 604 blog has really given me yet another reason to go to Canada. The pictures she takes of Vancouver and surroundings make me want to go there even more.

Oh and a small tip. Rebecca’s background picture certainly deserves a second look. I’ve got a Sokazo background now on my PC.

What is your background picture?
- I change my background every month. This month’s is an image by Philippe Sokazo, one of my contacts on Flickr.

Why did you chose that picture?
- Sokazo’s a local artist and I just love the clean look and bright colours he uses.

Which program do you use the most on your personal computer?
- Firefox, then I think I’d have to say Adium, if not iChat or Skype. Communication is a key part of my day.

Which program do you use the most on your work computer?
- I think it would still be Skype. Our company even has meetings using Skype chats.

Internet Explorer or Firefox?
- Firefox.

Why do you use Firefox?
- Even though I check a lot of my work in Safari, Firefox is just the simplest and safest tool for me.

What is your favourite program?
- I’d be pretty lost without Firefox, it’s certainly a staple. Other than that I use Cyberduck (for FTP), Smultron (for CSS editing), iPhoto for basic photo editing, and Flickr Uploader all on a daily basis.

Which program is the worst?
- I try to avoid using really bad programs… and I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.

Do you have any tips and tricks on how to get the most out of your computer or blog?
- I make sure to know the tools that I’m using and know how to use them all at once – creating a winning combination.

Mac or Pc and why?
- Mac. I made the switch last year after peer-pressure from my husband who grew up using Apple computers. It took me a while to adjust to the simplicity and easy-of-use but since I let my PC habits go, it’s been a dream and I’m not looking back.

I just updated my blogs to WordPress 2.3. I know that some of you will be cautious, but I tried with one of my lesser known (!) blogs first and it went very smoothly. No errors or major problems. I deactivated all my plugins and replaced all files on my server with the new WordPress 2.3 files.

Then I ran the upgrade script and that was it. Of course my blog looked weird without the plugins activated. I activated the relevant plugins and downloaded the ones that needed an upgrade. It is a nice feature in WordPress 2.3. It shows which plugins that needs to be upgraded. It would be great if I could just click and they would update, you still have to download, unzip and upload, unless…

…you use OneClick from Anirudh Sanjeev. This clever little plugin to WordPress and Firefox lets you click on the file link for instance in WordPress Extend and your plugin or theme is uploaded to your blog. Anirudh has a thorough installation guide on his site.

And now the official word from WordPress:

1. Native tagging support allows you to use tags in addition to categories on your post, if you so choose. We’ve included importers for the Ultimate Tag Warrior, Jerome’s Keywords, Simple Tags, and Bunny’s Technorati Tag plugins so if you’ve already been using a tagging plugin you can bring your data into the new system. The tagging system is also wicked-fast, so your host won’t mind.
2. Our new update notification lets you know when there is a new release of WordPress or when any of the plugins you use has an update available. It works by sending your blog URL, plugins, and version information to our new api.wordpress.org service which then compares it to the plugin database and tells you what the latest and greatest is you can use.
3. We’ve cleaned up URLs a bunch in a feature we call canonical URLs which does things like enforce your no-www preference, redirect posts with changed slugs so a link never goes bad, redirect URLs that get cut off in emails on similar to the correct post, and much more. This helps your users, and it also helps your search engine optimization, as search engines like for each page to be available in one canonical location.
4. Our new pending review feature will be great for multi-author blogs. It allows authors to submit a post for review by an editor or administrator, where before they would just have to save a draft and hope someone noticed it.
5. There is new advanced WYSIWYG functionality (we call it the kitchen sink button) that allows you to access some features of TinyMCE that were previously hidden.

Sounds interesting let’s see how it works.

UPDATE: I got an error on this blog when I saved a post or published one. It turns out that the plugin Google (XML) Sitemaps caused this. So before you start troubleshooting, make sure you deactivate all your plugins and activate them one at a time afterwards.

Did you upgrade to WordPress 2.3 or are you waiting for the 2.3.1?