Take a look at this recent demographic data from the Pew Internet non-
profit research group. This image is from a recent survey they just
released this week. The most startling stastistic to me was that
African-Americans are trending behind the average when it comes to
broadband use. The numbers are going backwards as other ethnicities
are going upwards. Why?, Where is the disconnect? The survey
interviewed over 2,200 ppl from different races & economic status. I
have a meeting scheduled with the author Mr. Horrigan & will have him
on one of my shows to help uncover the reasons for the disparity. What
are your thoughts? Cultural differences? Economic barriers? & should
the Gov't be doing more to increase broadband adoption? Share your
thoughts in the comments I want to hear from you.

#1. Laptop with wifi - wifi will be everywhere throughout the convention center so come ready to tweet & take notes

#2. An extra laptop battery - well, cause you just never know or maybe bring an extension cord so you can always connect to an outlet :-)

#3. Ill have my XANTREX backup power solution it costs like $99 but it's worth it when your battery runs dead and you have no immediate access to a wall outlet, this little backup power solution holds a charge for months and gives my laptop an extra 3 hours of battery life

#4. Flip or some other type of video camera - there will be so much to see from innovative exhibits to incredible people - capture it all to take back to your classroom or administration and make a short video presentation of what you witnessed and what solutions may be perfect for your environment. In other words use this opportunity to capture the positive impact you see and bring that back to your school to educate others.

#5. A Twitter account - yes, I'm telling you to get on the bandwagon. Hey, if Oprah can tweet so can you ! But seriously twitter is a great way to connect and make new relationships with those that have similar interests. For example if you want to follow all of what's being tweeted about NECC just head to: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23NECC Here you'll get to see a snapshot of twitter users who are actively talking about the NECC conference. Get you FREE username and start posting your 140 characters - head to twitter.com for registration AND MAKE SURE whenever you post something you use the #NECC hastag somewhere in your message so others can read it.

#6. For my note takers who prefer to use pen and paper and not a laptop the tech you should have is called "The Pulse Pen" made by Livescribe. It is a ball point pen that is also a mini computer. The pen records audio it hears and links it to what you write on paper. For example, lets say you are in a NECC session, the pen is capturing all the audio and you are writing notes - 5 days later when you return to your school you simply touch the notes with your Livescribe pen and sit back and listen to the audio that was captured at the time. This is a true advancement in note-taking technology.

#7. If you do step #5 and join Twitter then you should get yourself a really cool Tweetup badge - goto http://tweetupbadges.com/ Tweetup Badges are a really unique way to differentiate yourself from everyone and a way for everyone to easily identify your twitter name. I've ordered my Tweetupbadge.com for the NECC, its about the same size and thickness as credit cards and they come with lanyards, ohh and you get to choose any color combination (maybe your school colors might be neat) These ID badges are made to last so you can use them over and over again and they cost under $10 but hurry shipping can be a bit slow.

BONUS PRIZE: The first person that finds me at NECC '09 (read top of post for a clue of where to find me) and shows me their TweetupBadge will win a cool tech prize. I'm known to carry a stash of awesome tech giveaways so be prepared!

Mark today's date, actually yesterdays date as a moment in Baltimore tech history! Why? Because we finally have a REAL "tech news" presence on The Baltimore Sun website, something I've been wanting to see happen for a while & so excited it's here! Well, the wait is over & the man in charge is Gus Sentementes, @gussent or @balttech to you Twitter heads. Gus has been with the Sun since 2000 covering everything from biz to real estate to crime & grime - he was one of the 1st at the Sun to use multimedia tools for reporting - certainly the 1st Baltimore reporter I know to use 12seconds for breaking news.

On his 2nd day on the job I had a chance to sit down with Gus and discuss the new blog appropriately titled "BaltTech".

Tune into his NPR interview tonite 5:30pm on The Digital Cafe' 88.1fm or WYPR.org & come back here for the archive!

The whole team here at The Digital Spin HQ's is excited for Gus, we got have your back! Let us know if there is anything we can do to help, just yell or email or call or tweet! Tell us what would you like to see come of this new tech blog for Baltimore, huh?

We can't wait to shoot a video interview with Gus for the coming Baltimore-Washington Tech video show www.BWTechShow.com  We will ask him to reveal the secrets of how to get your business covered in the paper or the blog!

I loved reading about Bletchley Park in Bletchley, England where I
learned about how the braniacs there, skilled in mathematics were able
to break the code being used for almost all Nazi German communications: (the Enigma) to reading about my state of MD where the Gaithersburg International Latitude Observatory exists. It's a little innocous white building that is 1 of only 6 observatories in the world that were setup in 1899 to (get this) determine how the Earth "wobbles" not spins!

I only wish the photos were in color, but hey that would have made the book more expensive than it's $29 US price tag.

If I go missing or am not tweeting the next few days look for me with a blanket & a cup of decaf tea/coffee snuggled up somewhere reading and plotting about my next techie vacation now that I have 128 places
to go visist! This book is total awesomeness!

Tech Titans from Washingtonian.com on Vimeo.

Today on NPR's Morning Edition Renee' Montagne asked me about the new pricing changes Apple iTunes made earlier this month for downloading music and what impact that might have on artists, labels, distributors and consumers.

Listen to the segment

The NPR music group also did an awesome blog post on this segment. I addition to their blog they have extensive coverage, rock solid analysis and reporting on this issue as well. Read up more from their blog!

What do you make of all these pricing changes? Will you shop around for music? And how do you feel this may impact independent artists?

Photo courtesy of Hypebot

Many of you that know me personally, you know I look at the glass half-full, so I'm hoping that maybe having higher prices for the pop-Top-100-type music might just have music lovers and buyers experiment more with independent artists and those artists who don't always get the deserved attention they should have.

There is alot of speculation about why the price change was made. Was it Apples idea & market dominance? Was it the labels pressure due to lack luster cd sales? Was it an exchange for going DRM-free?

What are your thoughts?

I don’t know about you but I have way to many photos sitting on my iPhone. I just don’t seem to find the time to print them that often. Well now that’s really changed. Yesterday, we had a family & friends party at my house and I was taking photos with my iPhone of various family members having a great time. Typically, I would have these photos on my phone and just email them on the spot but that always felt a little empty. Well, everything changed because for the first time I was able to print photos on the spot wirelessly from my iPhone. So as I was taking photos, I would instantly open the free HP iPhone/iTouch application and send my phones photos right to the printer. No computer, no syncing, no leaving the action I stayed right there in the thick of the fun and printed. The app works as advertised and I’m hopeful we will see more printing apps become available for our mobile devices so we can print out emails, word docs, .pdfs etc… The application was created by HP and is called HP iPrint. It’s a free download from the iTune App store. The catch? You have to use a wireless HP printer and connect to it over your wifi network. It automatically prints from your photo tray and prints 4×6 sized photos. HP iPrint Photo application leverages Apple’s Bonjour technology to automatically identify HP wireless printers or other supported HP printers available on your network. Luckily, I just happened to have a HP 3000 series all-in-one printer and had the chance to test the application during the party. You’ll get major cool points for doing this but it is also pretty effective. At least now I don’t have as much as an excuse to print photos. I was pretty psyched by the results.

See it in action — watch the HP iPrint wireless printing process without edits in this video.