Probably the largest influence I had growing up was watching (the now defunct) ZDTV/TechTV back when shows like The ScreenSavers, Call for Help, Silicon Spin, and Gamespot TV/Extended Play were on the air. I started watching around the time Leo Laporte and Kate Botello hosted The ScreenSavers, but I remember watching more shows with Leo Laporte & Patrick Norton. Eventually my cable provider dropped ZDTV shortly after it turned into TechTV.

These shows inspired me to persue a career in information technology. Everything from learning about HTML code to building my first custom PC, I owe to the crew over at ZDTV. There's still plenty of great tips/tricks/information on technology from these shows.

The hosts of the shows eventually moved on to other projects after ZDTV/TechTV got merged/canceled and are still out there today in the world of tech. The channel now exists as G4 but a good chunk of the crew work at Revision3 now.


I huge internet shout-out to the whole crew from ZDTV. I'd like to thank the following in particular for inspiring me the most: Roger Chang, Jessica Corbin, Yoshi DeHerrera, John C. Dvorak, Leo Laporte, Sarah Lane, Jim Louderback, Megan Morrone, Patrick Norton, Chris Prillo, Kevin Rose, Martin Sargent, Catherine Schwartz, Adam Sessler & Morgan Webb.


Leo Laporte has his own site called The TWiT Newscast network, operates a blog and has an archive of podcasts/radio shows @ TechGuyLabs.com:
http://twit.tv
http://techguylabs.com
http://leoville.com
http://www.amazon.com/Leo-Laporte/e/B001K8PZ3I/
http://twitter.com/leolaporte

Kate Botello operates a personal website, owns a theatre production company, a web design company, and runs a children's theater summer camp in Traverse City, Michigan:
http://www.katebotello.com
http://traversecitywebdesign.com/about

Patrick Norton currently hosts shows called HD Nation & Tekzilla on Revision3:
http://revision3.com/tekzilla
http://revision3.com/hdnation
http://www.twitter.com/patricknorton

The coolest nostalgia bomb that was dropped on me recently was when I re-discovered tons of old ZDTV clips online. You can check out a boatload of shows archived via these links or do a search online for more:

http://www.youtube.com/user/ZDTVMultimedia
http://www.livestream.com/desertbunker
http://www.youtube.com/user/zdtvfan

Bonus 1: Internet Archive of The ScreenSavers website:
http://discretionary.org/screensavers/index.php

Bonus 2: TechTV - How to build a website (hosted on archive.org)
http://www.archive.org/details/Daanbrg-TechTVHowToBuildAWebsite459

Download High Definition Videos off Youtube... and lot more!!

KeepHD is a sweet tool that lets you download HD videos off Youtube and other tube sites in to your video editing softare! Not only can you download from youtube HD copies of your movies and music, you can also download the mobile 3GP version for your mobile devices plus the standard MP4 and FLV format. Just enter your video URL, and KeepHD will automatically grab each version of the youtube video clip you want to download.

http://keephd.com

Ok, so you know what YouTube.com is... but have you ever heard of kissyoutube.com?

Let's say you want to use a video clip for a presentation you'd like to have a copy to download on your computer. Then this is the site for you!

Once you find the video you'd like to save, add kiss in front of the URL...

You'll need to have Java installed in order to use the download feature.

http://www.java.com/getjava

I usually recommend downloading the "HQ" version. The file will be in .mp4 format so you'll need a video player like (1) Quicktime or (2) VLC Media Player.

(1) http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download

(2) http://www.videolan.org/vlc/