There have been a few times that I’ve composed a tweet like GadgetReport.TV/6 is out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N3zHmz5aUY. It’s great if the YouTube URL is shortened, but I don’t want the brand I’m trying to build to be changed into a short collection of symbols and letters. How do I keep my .com or .TV or .whatever from being shortened by Twitter?

Use the ASCII code for dot/period: .

If you type GadgetReport.TV into Twitter or any URL shortener, your tweet will post as GadgetReport.TV and won’t be shortened.

One of the coolest things that happened during the production of GeekBrief.TV is when we were invited to the set of The Big Bang Theory to interview Bill Prady and watch a table read. We were 10 feet away from the cast and it was amazing to get to see the actors do their thing sitting around a table.

Fast forward a couple years and The Big Bang Theory is a hit with geeks and non-geeks. Dudes everywhere have crushes on the beautiful and hilarious Kaley Cuoco who bought a shake weight showed Ellen Degeneres how she uses it.

This morning I did some research and it turns out there’s a simple little trick to force empty the trash on a Mac!

All you have to do is hold the Option key down when clicking on Empty Trash. A problem on my back burner was solved in under a minute, and I gained a lot of much needed storage space.

You can also use Terminal and the command:  rm -rf ~/.Trash/* t

Like a strong cup of coffee, Daily Grace is a good way to kickstart your day. Grace Helberg is hilarious. She does five shows a week, Monday – Friday. Here’s an episode where Grace explains how to campaign to become King of the Web…

I scored the domain name Ayn.TV.

I love how each hair in Ron Paul’s eyebrows stands for its own individual liberty.

One of the things I’ve been working on is figuring out new ways to show some of my talents. I feel like I’m going to have to work on someone else’s dream before I can get the kind of funding I need to really commit to any of the things I want to create.

A few weeks ago Kyle Humphrey & Graydon Sheppard released a video called Shit Girls Say. It became a meme that resulted in parodies with just about every type of person making fun of things their group says. The meme may be on it’s last legs, but I decided I’d throw one in the mix using some of my favorite southern expressions.

If you’ve heard me speak, I don’t have much of a southern accent, but I did up until college. I pull this accent out of storage whenever I have to take my car in for service and talk to a mechanic.

This was fun to produce, if there are southern expressions you use or remember that I left out, I’d love to hear them and use them in a second Shit Southern People Say video.

Some of the videos contain songs and YouTube associates the songs with copyright holders and provides links to buy mp3s of the original recordings. To me that seems like an ideal use of technology. I got to be goofy and sing a couple songs that provided sales opportunities for the copyright holders, and no one would opt for my silly versions over the originals. Pretty cool.

I recorded one video on a Sunday afternoon. Typical for me, on a Sunday afternoon, Miles Davis was playing quietly in the background. It didn’t cross my mind that the song was even in the video because I’m talking the whole time. YouTube’s tech detected the song, but didn’t associate it with the title and didn’t provide links to buy the MP3. They contacted me to let me know they couldn’t monetize it unless I could prove I had the right to use the song. That makes sense. It’s a video YouTube could remove completely and I wouldn’t care.

This morning I got this notice about the Making Gravity documentary:

Dear 00neal,

Your video, Making Gravity with Geoff Smith, may have content that is owned or licensed by IODA.

No action is required on your part; however, if you are interested in learning how this affects your video, please visit the Content ID Matches section of your account for more information.

Sincerely,
- The YouTube Team

I clicked the link to dispute the question about my right to use the song. I produced the video with the songwriter and copyright owner, Geoff Smith. It’s a documentary created to promote Geoff’s music. The dispute process was smooth and I expect a positive resolution.

It makes sense to me that Google’s algorithm would flag the content. Geoff uses the IODA (Independent Online Distribution Alliance) to distribute and protect his music. They provide independent artists with the same type of protection that major labels provide to their artists. Neither IODA or YouTube would know that Geoff worked with me to produce this documentary about Geoff producing his song That’s Gravity. Ideally, YouTube will check it out, and they’ll add those groovy links so people can buy copies of the MP3. It really is a great song.

It is a good thing that we’re upset by SOPA, PIPA, and stories about videos wrongly taken down from YouTube. In my experience, YouTube is doing a pretty impressive job balancing the rights of copyright holders with the desires of users, and they’re doing it without the interference of Congress.

Get a copy of That’s Gravity from Amazon for $0.99!

The company’s CEO, Ren Ng, a brilliant computer scientist with a PhD from Stanford, immediately called Jobs, who picked up the phone and quickly said, “if you’re free this afternoon maybe we would could get together.” Ng, who is thirty-two, hurried to Palo Alto, showed Jobs a demo of Lytro’s technology, discussed cameras and product design with him, and, at Jobs’s request, agreed to send him an email outlining three things he’d like Lytro to do with Apple.

Who knows if Apple and Lytro reached a deal, but a Lytro can take an immediate photo without the need to focus so it makes sense that Apple would want that tech in future iPhones.

Adam Lashinsky’s new book about Apple is based on interviews with Apple insiders. In 2008 Fortune cover story, Lashinsky predicted Tim Cook would succeed Steve Jobs as Apple CEO. The book is available for pre-order from Amazon.com.