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

In the next two weeks I’ll host the biggest contest ever on The Beta News. Actually it’s the first contest ever here, but who’s counting?!

Now the rules to participate are developed by my twisted brain, so hopefully this will be a contest unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.

The rules are fairly simple.

Option 1: Follow me on Twitter. At a random time I will announce a keyword on Twitter and the followers will have three hours to mail it to me. A random follower will then be drawn.

Option 2: Keyword in RSS-feed. Subscribe to my RSS-feed and mail the keyword to me. Send the “secret” word to contest (at) thebetanews.com.

Option 3: Blog about the contest or The Beta News content. Write a blog post about the contest, or one of the sponsors, or one of The Beta News posts (for instance one of the Show Me Your Desktop interviews) using relevant anchor text like “celebrity blogger interview, problogger interview or blogging advice”. Another example could be my post about why virtual worlds are the next Web 2.0 money maker. Anchor text examples here could be “Web 2.0 and virtual worlds”, ” webkinz and clubpenguin.com is a money maker” or something similar. Basically anchor texts are links that features keywords about the post being linked to. Remember to Stumble your post and if you think it’s really good, submit it to digg, sphinn or other sites.

Remember to post a link in a comment in the contest post. I will Stumble your post as well. I can only encourage you to Stumble other contestants posts too.
Option 4: Take a picture of your blog “HQ” or desktop. Take a picture or a small video of what your blogger HQ, desk or computer desktop looks like. Post it in a blog post and link to this post.

Each part gives you an extra chance to win the big drawing on day 14.

Complete one or more options. Each option gives you an extra chance in the final drawing. All drawings are made by random.org.

And now for the prizes:

• Lorelle VanFossen’s book “Blogging Tips – What bloggers won’t tell you about blogging” sponsored and signed by Lorelle VanFossen. You won’t find better tips and tricks about WordPress and blogging in general anywhere else. Lorelle is the blogging expert. Visit Lorelle on WordPress.
• David Airey from DavidAirey.com and Logo Design Love has kindly taken some time out of his busy schedule and is sponsoring his design expertise. David will give the winner a critique of his/hers blog with suggestions and improvements. David has been my “go-to-guy” on several blog design occasions and he was the first to refer me to Brian Gardner. His latest blog , Logo Design Love, is all about his passion for logos.
• Entrecard.com has kindly sponsored three Entrecard Featured Status – This means you get a golden border around your Entrecard for a week. Great way of getting more attention. On top of that, Entrecard also sponsor three Fast Passes. With a Fast Pass you can jump to the top of an advert request.
• One Amazon.com $100 gift card
• One Amazon.com $30 gift card
• One Amazon.de €20 gift card (to make the Euros happy)
• Two $25 in cash through PayPal
• Three The Beta News t-shirts with logo and everything

If you feel like sponsoring a prize, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

The contest starts now and ends Friday, 22 February 2008.

Good luck everybody!

PS: If you like The Beta News, please go ahead and Favorite it on Technorati.

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?