Hi there,

We’ve decided to take a leap into the Facebook space, and we’re hoping you’ll join us :)

So what’s this Facebook page all about? 

• We’re going to be having lots of cool giveaways as often as we can
• We’re going to be sharing where to get cool freebies and tech deals with you
• and we’ll also help you keep up to speed with the latest posts on this blog

Also, I really hope this will lead to greater and easier engagement between you, me, and the rest of the Friedbeef’s Tech readers.

So please visit the page and click ‘like’ it, suggest this page to your friends (The more ‘likes’ the page has the more stuff sponsors are willing to give away on the page)

…and do drop your feedback, thoughts, and ideas on our wall.  We really appreciate your support, and hope we’ll be able to build an awesome online community together.

Thank you & warm regards

James from Friedbeef’s Tech

Yes, I’m happy to announce that Garmin-Asus is giving away a brand new phone to a lucky reader here :)

Update: We have a winner! See below for more details.

I’ve lost count how many phone GPS’s I’ve used before, but the Garmin Asus M10 seriously blows any GPS device I’ve used out of the water. 

The screen is large (3.5”), and the interface is simple to understand and read. 

It also offers

• Lane assist (so you know which lane to keep to),
• Text to speech (reads out road names)
• Junction-view (gives you a picture of the approaching junction so there’s no confusion)

…and it has a really powerful built-in GPS which locks on to signals quickly, and even works perfectly well without A-GPS (It also supports A-GPS). 

For ease of use, navigation functions are built directly into the shortcut menu for easy access, and it comes with a nifty car-kit as well.

In short, it’s a full featured Garmin GPS device with a Windows Mobile 6.5.3 phone squeezed in.

Lacking the messaging prowess of a BlackBerry, the media experience of an iPhone, and the Google & web functionality of an Android, Windows Mobile systems have long had the unglamorous tag of being able to do everything, but doing nothing particularly well.    This phone however, does navigation supremely well, so you have to consider this…  This phone does everything a top of the line standalone Garmin GPS does.  Throw in a little bit more money, and you have yourself an all-in-one SmartPhone device. 

The giveaway: Update: We have a winner! See below for more details.

1 unit Garmin Asus M10 GPS Phone shipped directly to you.  The phone is expected to retail at anywhere from USD540 to USD600.

How to get the giveaway

1. Drop a comment saying you want the phone

OR

2. Tweet this post and add the hashtag #friedbeefgiveaways

If you do both, it counts as two entries.

…and after a week, I’ll randomly pick one lucky winner (via random.org) to walk away with the prize!

Garmin-Asus is a proud contributor to the 33 trees project and is not only giving away awesome stuff but is helping to make the world a better place.

Update: 31/3/2010: We’ve a good 362 entries across twitter & this website… so I’m proud to announce the winner as….*drumroll*…
‘Chingy’ aka twitter.com/cheeChingy !

Thank you to all those who participated. Eventhough, you didn’t win, you made an important contribution in making this round’s 33 trees giveaway a success.

Good news iPhone users, Proporta has agreed to give away some of their extremely high quality iPhone pouches to 4 lucky readers!

I managed to get my hands on one of these excellent pouches for review, and was very pleased with the quality.  When I got the pouch the first thing that surprised me was that it was incredibly soft, unlike most of the stiffer leather pouches I’m used to.  It felt a bit snug, but after a few uses, it stretched to the perfect fit.  If you have any doubt about the quality – you can also rest easy knowing that it comes with a lifetime warranty :)

The giveaway

4 awesome Maya II iPhone leather-like pouches worth USD23 each shipped directly to you.

How to get the giveaway

Drop a comment saying you want the pouch, and after a week, I’ll pick 4 random comments and these lucky folks will walk away with the goodies!

Proporta is a proud contributor to the 33 trees project and is not only giving away awesome stuff but is helping to make the world a better place. Do also check out our other contributor this month which is giving away cool software that will remove DRM.

ps.  Do shop around in my affiliate store if you want to buy accessories for all types of phones :)

Update: These are the 4 lucky winners! Will get in touch with the winners shortly. Thank you to all who participated.

1. LiewCF
2. Marvin
3. Chong
4. Sandy

With the burning intensity of a thousand suns.

That’s how much I hate DRM.  My thoughts are that if you buy the rights to a song or a movie, you should also have the right to play it on whatever medium you currently own. 

Daniusoft Media Converter is an all-in-one toolbox which deals with DRM removal in a swift fashion and focuses on these key features.

• Removes DRM copy protection
• Rips DVDs
• Converts music/movies
• Burns move files to DVDs
• Directly transfers songs and videos to portable players

Easy to use, and pretty speedy when I tested it out, this is a tool worth having if you have lots of digital content.

The giveaway

10 licenses of Media Converter Ultimate worth USD59.90 EACH.

How to get the giveaway

Drop a comment saying you want a copy of this cool software, and after a week, I’ll pick 10 random comments and these lucky folks will walk away with the goodies!

DaniuSoft is a proud contributor to the 33 trees project and is not only giving away awesome stuff but is helping to make the world a better place. Do also check out our other contributor this month which is giving away free iPhone pouches

Update 27th March 2010: Here are the winners! Will be in touch soon. Thanks to everyone who has participated to win this cool DRM Removal and Content Conversion Tool :)

1. stranger
2. fern chasida
3. wkp
4. Jim Hyett
5. nick
6. Harold Short
7. ckoiner
8. Stacy
9. wongjai
10. Sheila

How to you save the world and get free stuff at the same time?  Well now you can do just that. 

Since past giveaways on this site have been going pretty well, I’ve initiated a new project for Friedbeef’s Tech, and it’s called the 33 trees project.  The mechanics are simple:

1. Sponsor plants 33 trees via Mokugift in exchange for the rights to give something away on this site
2. Readers get free stuff

Objective

Our aim is to plant 1,000 trees by the end of the year – and we need you to help us! 

Reader’s benefit and how you can help

Your benefit as a reader:

• You get to help plant trees.  These giveaways work mainly because sponsors see the demand and exposure it brings them.  The more you participate, the more you support this tree planting project.  Who knows?  Maybe next year this project may just be called the 100 Trees Giveaway Project.
• You get free commercial quality stuff which otherwise would have cost a fair bit of money

How you can help:

Just participate for free :) 

Here are our first two sponsor giveaways: Totaling USD$524 amount in value

They have planted 33 trees each *applause*.  Feel free to participate in either one or both of these giveaways!

• Blinksale – An amazingly simple and elegant online invoicing service
• iTypetoGo – A handy iPhone app which allows you to type while you walk

Would you like to sponsor the planting of 33 trees?  Check out out our project guidelines.

What is it?

Blinksale is an incredibly simple and elegant way of sending invoices online.  It’s fully featured, allows easy formatting of invoices, tracking, and has an open API and integrates with other cool tools like Paypal, Basecamp, and Tempo. 

What I really love about it is not so much the features, but it’s minimalist simplicity in getting things done.  The layout is intuitive, and you can automate everything from billing, reminders, thank you notes, tax calculations and more so you never have to worry about them again.  The learning curve for this product is literally zero. 

Even if you only send out a few invoices every month, it just makes life a whole lot easier.

The giveaway

• 1 Gold account for 1 year worth USD288
• 1 Silver account for 1 year worth USD144
• 1 Bronze account for 1 year worth USD72

…and we’re giving it away for free to 3 lucky Friedbeef.com readers thanks to the kind folks at Blinksale.

How to Get It: 

3 readers will be selected randomly to receive this giveaway.  To be eligible:

Just leave a comment on this post letting us know you want it

OR

tweet this post and tag #friedbeefgifts

Well actually you can do both to increase your chances :) We’ll do the prize drawing a week from now.

This post is part of our 33 trees giveaway project – where sponsors plant 33 trees in exchange for the right to giveaway products.  Your participation saves the world (and gets you free stuff)

Update: Giveaway closed: Congrats to the winners

1. Gold account: m.s.
2. Silver account: David
3. Bronze account: Rahul

This handy little iPhone app was nominated by David Pogue in the NYTimes, as one of 2009’s best tech ideas.  It superimposes what you’re typing on your iPhone over a live camera view, so you can see where you’re going even while you’re focused on the screen.  You can use iType2go to text while walking, enjoying the scenery, or when you’re trying to keep a face to face conversation with your girlfriend…  Oh wait, that last bit won’t work very well  (Follow this set of guidelines, on ‘When Is It Inappropriate to Use Your iPhone’ and you can’t go wrong). 

Anyhow, once you type your message, you can opt to send it to twitter/facebook/SMS or email just with one single click.  So easy!

The giveaway

10 free copies of iType2Go Pro thanks to the kind folks at XcoolApps

How to Get It:  :

Just leave a comment on this post letting us know you want it.  The FIRST 10 people who do so will win a free copy of iType2Go Pro! Updated: Giveaway Complete
Winners:

Berg
Jim Fry
Luis
ha14
Alvin Bruce
Ryan
CS420
Granny
paulcrousel
john

Thanks everyone for participating – do continue to leave comments in support, and do check out the product and other cool iPhone apps by XcoolApps.

This post is part of our 33 trees giveaway project – where sponsors plant 33 trees in exchange for the right to giveaway products.  Your participation saves the world (and gets you free stuff)

Hello everyone, Merry Christmas & Happy New Year! 

As we close out the year and celebrate this blog’s 4th anniversary in the next few days, we want to say THANK YOU to all readers for visiting this blog.

To mark the occasion, we have arranged a big product giveaway worth more than USD1,200 exclusive to Friedbeef.com readers!

For more details, do check out the relevant giveaway blog posts below.  Feel free to enter as many of the giveaways as you like :) We’ll do the prize drawing on New Year’s day.

• GIVEAWAY: Audials One: Rip Audio Streams into MP3 Files
• GIVEAWAY: Smart PDF Converter Pro: Convert PDF into DOC files
• GIVEAWAY: TUN3R iPhone App: Discover Music Based on Your Tastes
• GIVEAWAY: Windows 7 Classic Start Menu: Classic Startmenu UI for Win7

Update: Giveaways closed

Thanks everyone for participating. We had a good response of more than 170 entries for this round, so we’ll see what we can do to get more freebies in for you guys so we can do more giveaways in the coming months :)

If you’re looking for contest winners, please check the individual posts for more details.

What is it?

AudialsOne is a commercial music suite which has one killer feature.  It can record everything you hear on any website or streaming application, rips the audio streams and automatically saves the file as a new MP3 on your computer.  You can also do this in batch style where you can also just search by genre, artist or song title and AudialsOne will scour the internet for streams which are playing relevant material and record them to your PC as well.

AudialsOne takes care of DRM copy protection and file format problems with music  and audio book files via its PerfectAudio quality guarantee

The giveaway

Worth USD59.90 each, but we’re giving it away to 10 lucky Friedbeef.com readers thanks to our sponsors :)

How to Get It: 

10 readers will be selected randomly to receive this giveaway.  To be eligible:

Just leave a comment on this post

OR

tweet this post and tag #friedbeefgifts

You can do both to increase your chances :) We’ll do the prize drawing on New Year’s day.

This post is part of our Christmas giveaway bonanza to say THANK YOU for reading this blog – Do check out our OTHER seasonal giveaways and feel free to enter as many of them as you like.

Update: GIVEAWAY CLOSED

Here are the lucky 10 winners as selected by Random.Org:

1. alex
2. Ryan Schwartz
3. mlweg3
4. enusri
5. Rafael Capucci
6. vhick
7. Hady
8. jelson
9. Keshav
10. David

I’ll be in contact with you shortly to distribute your prizes. Thank you everyone for entering the giveaway :)

What is it?

Converting any document to PDF is fairly straightforward.  Going the other way around however, is much tougher especially when trying to reproduce the original layout of the PDF in a Microsoft Word file.  Smart PDF Converter is a commercial grade software which does just that.  Aside from Doc and MS-Word files, it also supports PDF conversion to other file formats like HTML, TXT, XLS, JPEG.

The giveaway

Worth USD69.90 each, but we’re giving it away to 7 lucky Friedbeef.com readers thanks to our sponsors :)

How to Get It: 

7 readers will be selected randomly to receive this giveaway.  To be eligible:

Just leave a comment on this post

OR

tweet this post and tag #friedbeefgifts

You can do both to increase your chances :) We’ll do the prize drawing on New Year’s day.

This post is part of our Christmas giveaway bonanza to say THANK YOU for reading this blog – Do check out our OTHER seasonal giveaways and feel free to enter as many of them as you like.

Updated: CONTEST CLOSED

Here are the lucky 7 winners as selected by Random.Org:

1. my_immortalize
2. phobos
3. vhick
4. syafiq
5. hunter
6. Spinzer
7. Taiwan Student

I’ll be in contact with you shortly to distribute your prizes. Thank you everyone for entering the giveaway :)

What is it?

With last.fm and Pandora shutting its doors to many international users, TUN3R is an alternative  iPhone internet radio app for the TUN3R web service which picks and streams radio stations based on your music tastes, allowing you discover new music which are customized to your tastes.  Certainly a great way to discover new music. 

The giveaway

Worth USD2.99 each, but we’re giving it away to 5 lucky Friedbeef.com readers thanks to our sponsors :)

How to Get It:

5 readers will be selected randomly to receive this giveaway.  To be eligible:

Just leave a comment on this post

OR

tweet this post and tag #friedbeefgifts

You can do both to increase your chances :) We’ll do the prize drawing on New Year’s day.

This post is part of our Christmas giveaway bonanza to say THANK YOU for reading this blog – Do check out our OTHER seasonal giveaways and feel free to enter as many of them as you like.

Updated: GIVEAWAY CLOSED

Here are the lucky 5 winners as selected by Random.Org:

1. John
2. yumpstyler
3. byflipper
4. pg
5. Joe

I’ll be in contact with you shortly to distribute your prizes :)

What is it?

Classic Start Menu is an alternative to the Windows 7 Start Menu. It emulates the old classic start menu which we’re all familiar with.  Useful if you don’t like the Windows7 Start Menu and long for the ‘good old days’.

The giveaway

Worth USD19.99 each, but we’re giving it away to 5 lucky Friedbeef.com readers thanks to our sponsors :)

How to Get It: 

5 readers will be selected randomly to receive this giveaway.  To be eligible:

Just leave a comment on this post

OR

tweet this post and tag #friedbeefgifts

You can do both to increase your chances :) We’ll do the prize drawing on New Year’s day.

This post is part of our Christmas giveaway bonanza to say THANK YOU for reading this blog – Do check out our OTHER seasonal giveaways and feel free to enter as many of them as you like.

UPDATED: Contest Closed

: Here are the lucky 5 winners as picked by Random.org:

1. Leland
2. Dee
3. Evan Hahn
4. Ronald G. Freeman
5. Senthil Kumar

Congratulations guys, and I’ll get in touch with you shortly.

Everyone knows how to tell how much battery power their iPhone has.  Just look at the battery meter – and read :)

What most people don’t know however is what that number actually means when it comes to usage.  Let’s say you have 40% battery power remaining. 

• Do you know how many songs you can listen to?
• or how much you can surf the web?
• or how many videos you can watch?

The awesome app

BattPowr is an iPhone app which tells you exactly that. 

Here are some key features:

• calculates the remaining time for different usages, including: audio playback, video playback, web browsing on Wi-Fi, EDGE and 3G, as well as talk time on both 2G and 3G networks
• accurate information on remaining battery time
• checks device type before estimating remaining time
• beautifully designed interface, multiple skins & large visual indicators
• battery image animates while device is charging
• always on mode when charging, see your device charge itself
• support for ALL iPhone & iPod touch models

The giveaway

This app goes for USD$1.99 but the kind folks at xcoolapps, have kindly given me 20 FREE copies to distribute to readers of this blog :)

How to win it? – All you have to do is drop a comment below indicating that you want this app and I’ll send you the redemption code.

The first 20 people get this app for FREE!  Hurry and drop your comment now!

ps. If you like the app, please make sure you give it a good review on iTunes!

ps. This offer is only valid for a US iTunes account.  If you don’t live in the US, you can still set up a US iTunes account in 2 minutes for free by following this tutorial.

I got this in my Google Wave mailbox today:

“Invite others to Google Wave

Google Wave is more fun when you have others to wave with, so please nominate people you would like to add. Keep in mind that this is a preview so it could be a bit rocky at times.  Invitations will not be sent immediately. We have a lot of stamps to lick.

Happy waving!”

So what is Google Wave?

Currently an exclusive invite-only service, Google wave is a whole new way of communicating online!

“Google Wave is an online communication and collaboration tool that makes real-time interactions more seamless — in one place, you can communicate and collaborate using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is a conversation with multiple participants — participants are people added to a wave to discuss and collaborate on its content. Participants can reply any time and anywhere within a wave, and they can edit content and add more participants as a wave develops. It’s also possible to rewind waves with the playback functionality, to see what happened, and when.”

via Google Wave Support

Here’s a video do you get a better idea of this cool service:

Anyhow, Google Wave is currently under development, and they’ve released a limited number of private invites to their fully usable preview edition.

Want a free super exclusive private invite to Google Wave?  (CLOSED)

Just drop a comment on what your favorite Google Wave feature is, and how you would use it, and I’ll pick 10 lucky winners by the end of this week!

Update: here are our 10 lucky winners, and why they want to use Google Wave!:

1. Rebecca

I am a math coach at an elementary school, and I am really intrigued by the real-time communication tool, especially with the translator robot. I spend a lot of time discussing solution strategies with my students. Instead of watching me solve a problem, they collaborate with each other about how to solve problems. This practice helps them build real-life problem solving skills. There is a lot of talk in education today (especially in math) about comparisons between US students and students from other countries. I would love to be able to bring my students into this conversation by allowing them to share their solution strategies with students from other countries! I think this would be a powerful use of the technology, and one that would really drive home an important social concept to my math students.

2. byflipper

Due to multinational projects I am leading, i often need to communicate with people speaking other languages than my own. So, that instantly translating service of Wave amazed me with one word! I’d be pleased to be invited and be a part of this revolution!

3. cho

i really love the fact that it will enable better communication within members of group projects. I have been apart of multiple group assignments where there was a mess of the emails passed back and forth whilst certain members missed out on important information altogether. That’s why I’m really excited about Google wave since it changes the way we collectively communicate and recieve information ( and real-time adds a factor of cool) and that was my mini essay…

4. Jessie

I’m a student journalist, and my college newspaper is working on developing its online presence. As a leader within the newspaper, I would like to be able to collaborate with other students at my paper, along with other journalists, to discuss the future of journalism and how the web plays into it. However, none of the people using Wave at my newspaper received any invitations, so I can’t join their conversation. :( It would be beneficial to me and our newspaper if I could join in the discussion!

5. Ron

As a pastor, I’m always sending emails, documents and spreadsheets to others for worship planning. With input from several staff people, our Admin. Assistant cobbles together the Sunday worship bulletin. I think Wave will make our lives easier and our communication better.

6. Claes

I want to get a head start on using Wave to help edit stories. I would post a document and have all the people who need to comment it or edit it to do it without having to send different versions back and forth in an average of 10 emails for one story! It is very frustrating and confusing and wastes lots of time.

7. Daniel Coopsammy

I would like a chance to start using Google wave because i have a lot of team project for college that require team members to share information, a lot of the times requiring us to edit the same document multiply times. Google wave seems like a perfect fit in terms of giving us the ability to share information real time and without the need of sending 30 different emails for the same project.

8. Mrs Banka

As a math teacher, I think Google Wave could revolutionize group projects by lowering the classroom walls so that students can converse with students all over the world. The real-time display of typing will only be pertinent for those students in relatively close time zones, but think about a group of students set up to solve a common, real-life problem. I’d also like to see how the Wave would boost the digital PLN. I just graduated in May with my B.S. in Math Ed and am currently in graduate school for Curriculum and Instruction… but I can already tell, I want to be a change agent in the schools. And what better way than to already be armed with the technology experience to incorporate in my classroom. I want to make math real, meaningful and understandable and I think group projects with students outside of the classroom would be phenomenal!

9. John Lombaerde

I think that education and training is one of the greatest applications for Google Wave. I deal with complex technology subjects on a regular basis, and I always try to use layman’s terms in my explanation, but sometimes the written or spoken word is just not enough. The Multimedia drag and drop capabilities of Google Wave seem to have great potential, as well as the playback feature. These would both be very valuable in a technology training session. The asset Google Wave could bring to online education is very significant, and one for which I would have an immediate use

10. Patrick

I’m currently getting my masters in multimedia and am looking at using Google Wave heavily within my graduate project. I plan on incorporating it into an online educational model aimed towards kids with learning disabilities. It is such a cool and useful tool.

For all those who didn’t win, thanks for participating – and if I do get another bunch of invites, I’ll post them up online again!

"An unconference is a facilitated, participant-driven conference centered around a theme or purpose. The term "unconference" has been applied, or self-applied, to a wide range of gatherings that try to avoid one or more aspects of a conventional conference, such as high fees and sponsored presentations" – Wikipedia

I’ve attended two unconference style events this year (Startupcamp/Barcamp)- and I’ve become a true believer of this format.   Since I’ve seen a lot of what goes on behind the scenes – here are some tips to follow if you want to run a similar show in your location.

1. Get a team of kindred spirits together

This is possibly the most important aspect.  The purpose of these unconferences would be to bring together people of the same feather, and to begin – you will need a core of like-minded and driven people.  The volunteers who help run this show don’t usually look for recognition nor remuneration. 

Everything is fueled by passion.

2. Get sponsors – nice ones

Get people who really want to help, rather than take over your event.  BarCamp Kuala Lumpur had one rule about sponsors and it was that their donation limit would be capped.  This was to prevent any organizer from driving the agenda of the event.  To me, this is an excellent path for any unconference to take.   

3. Set up the venue right

In a nutshell, besides the basics like ease of access, amenities, etc.  You need to get a venue with 3 or more large rooms (for the sessions), and perhaps just as important – a large area to mingle.  For me, a lot of the value I gain from these events would be the relationships built, and the interesting mix of characters and conversations you will get into informally between sessions.  

Make sure all the rooms have an easy to use speaker system.  Some speakers will have video to show on their laptop, which fails badly if they have to play audio through the laptop sound system.

4. Set the ground rules

Due to its informal setting, there are very few rules for an unconference.  Common ground rules include staying on time, and being considerate as to not over-run into another session.

5. Trust

Don’t bother vetting speaker material and judge quality.  Unconference attendees vote with their feet – ie. They can move on to another room based on their own agenda.  (Speakers – don’t take this personally – people will walk in and out of of your talk – many attendees bounce around during sessions).   Trust the speakers will do their best to contribute to the event, and trust the crowd.

6. Spread the word

Unconferences typically run on a shoestring budget, but what it lacks in the wallet section, it makes up for in ability to generate goodwill.  Tap into your social networks (online and in real life), the bloggers, and local interest groups.  Local interest groups bring along their own set of people passionate about a particular topic, eg. photography, or Linux – this broadens your the breadth of your audience and their backgrounds.

7. Enjoy

Whatever happens, happens.  Don’t take things so seriously.  What you’ll find is that when things go wrong, there will be more people who will step up and help you fix the problem than people who sit back and complain.  At the end of the day, everyone who attends is there to share, participate, discuss, and learn. 

8.  Attend before you attempt

If you’re going to run an event, visit one first!   For those people living in Malaysia or Singapore – come to BarcampJB happening 6th and 7th December at MSC Cyberport JB  I’ll be speaking on "How to change the world with $25 – an introduction to Kiva" on the 6th at 3pm.  We have some pretty interesting sessions – full schedule here.

Check out the barcamp Malaysia blog for more details.  For those who live outside South East Asia, check out barcamp.org for a list of events happening near your area!

Do you have other unconference tips to share?  Let us know in the comments!