In my quest to make a living of blogging I’ve now turned my attention to my equipment a.k.a my gadgets.

If you didn’t already know that, well I’m working on it. Hopefully in a couple of years I can quit my day job and make a living out of blogging. I think I would be the first Dane to do that.

I’ve compiled a list of gadgets, equipment, skills and programs that I need in order to match the stereotypical blogger.From my interview series I’ve learned that most bloggers have

1. Use a Mac, usually a MacBook Pro, iMac or MacBook Air
2. Keen interest in photography, usually a Canon Digital Rebel XTi or Nikon D40 or similar. Darren Rowse, Matt Mullenweg or Lisa Bettany. They all take great pictures and have a lot of followers on flickr
3. Adobe Photoshop skills. The photographs must be edited in someway. Also great for making graphics for your blog posts
4. Attend a convention. I always envy the bloggers that attend a blogger convention. SXSW is just one of the conventions I would love to participate in. There is so much going on there
5. Speak at a convention.Jennifer Laycock, Guy Kawasaki, Lorelle VanFossen and Andy Beal travel the roads and sky thin speaking at conventions.
6. Have a cool nickname. Robert Scoble is the Scobleizer and Jeremy Schoemaker is Shoemoney. Just to mention a few. I’m sure there are plenty of others out there too
7. Vlog, podcast, lifecast or stream either your life or a daily/weekly show. Justin Kan from justin.tv, Sarah Meyers from Pop17.com, Justine Ezarik from iJustine and Chris Pirillo from LockerGnome all have a show or lifecast (sometimes both). Use services such as Revver, Qik, Ustream, Mogulus or YouTube
8. Say smart, useful and thoughtful things on twitter or pownce
9. Be a part of a Web 2.0 startup

So what kind of stereotypical blogger thing am I doing?

1. I’ve been a pc-guy for many years, but I’ve decided that my next laptop will be a MacBook. (If you have any recommendations then please let me know)
2. I just bought my own Nikon D40. It’s a great camera and a huge upgrade from my old Olympus point and click. The only followers on flickr I have are my parents. I guess the average The Beta News visitor isn’t really interested in pictures of my son with food all his face or our vacation pictures. Who would have guessed! (I do look good in shorts though).
3. Did you notice the graphical improvement after I switched theme. I’m slowly learning to use Photoshop. I just love it, when I find a new feature and figure out how to use it.
4. Attend a convention. Man, I would love to go to a blogger convention. All a part of my big “become a problogger and move to the States”-plan.
5. Being the first Danish problogger that moved to the States. If that doesn’t earn me a spot as a convention speaker. Then what does?
6. Cool nickname. In real life my nickname is Don, but that doesn’t really catch on. I’ve tried with “dennisbp”. Right now I’m trying with my full name: Dennis Bjørn Petersen. Let’s see how many remembers it.
7. I’m experimenting with Qik.com. What a great service. I can stream directly from my cell phone. Besides that I’m trying Camtasia Studio out too. A few of my blog posts will now be recorded using Camtasia Studio. The first one was the prize draw as a part of The Beta News Contest.
8. I try to say smart things on twitter. I’m not as clever as Maki (DoshDosh). He has some really insightful and philosophical tweets.
9. I have no programming skills whatsoever. I do have a couple of great ideas. I just need someone to develop it for me.

Now I’ve revealed my most intimate and secret dreams for you. Which of these points do you follow? Or perhaps you are going your own way and starting your very own trend? What made these people so famous? They were usually first movers or early adopters, some might even call them visionary (not me of course).

UPDATE: I don’t usually ask for diggs, sphinns or stumbles, but as an experiment perhaps you would consider digging or sphinn this?

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.

Several months ago SlideShare launched a presentation contest. The goal was to find the World’s Best Presentation. The presentations were judged by top presentation gurus and the viewers (us, you and me).

The judges and top presentation gurus were Guy Kawasaki, Bert Decker, Garr Reynolds and Jerry Weissman.

Now I’ve created my share of presentations and I’ve been really proud of most of them… but these WAUW! Looking through the contributions you will quickly notice that they have a lot in common.

I recently created a slide show inspired by these presentations and the feedback was very positive. The audience told me they felt “provoked” to listen to me talk, instead of reading page after page of bullets.

1. Most use very large font sizes
2. Lots of colour contrast – most have a dark background with light text
3. Each presentation tell a story
4. Graphic images are big and simple – generally just one per slide
5. Images help tell the story – often critical to understanding the text
6. Text is minimal – many of the presentations only have a few words per slide
7. Text isn’t in the same place on every slide
8. Headlines aren’t used very much – Regular sentences or “Down style” are more common
9. Text and images are static, they don’t scoot around on the page
10. Slides don’t need audio to be understood (I might have some difficulties at that, people need a reason to listen to you)

Some of my presentations are way too text-heavy and according to these 10 observations way too boring and I might not get the right message out. Now all I need to learn is how to create the beautiful and fancy graphic in Photoshop (and be creative *ahem*). You can check out the winning presentations on SlideShare’s page. Amazing what you can do with PowerPoint.

[slideshare id=33834&doc=shift-happens-23665&w=425]