CoverItLive is a new, hosted service for blogging events in real-time, or “liveblogging.” It is a useful tool for people covering major industry events, speeches, sports, and whatever else. This tool can be most famous for being used with Macworld (Tuesday, January 15^th) and CES. Perhaps one of these days, here at TTB we will be able to give you live coverage using this ultimate liveblogging tool.

The tool is a simple concept. One way I have heard is to use Twitter and embed the widget into the blog. Setting up a CoveritLive account however, is fast and free, and once you have done so you can either jump straight into liveblogging or schedule upcoming events.

Liveblog content is all hosted on CoverItLive, and you put it on your blog by pasting in a small snippet of HTML code. Features you get as publisher, in addition to really easy-to-use IM-like text entry window, include the capability to take comments from readers and post the ones you like in your stream; live polls; and the option to post either pre-canned or new pictures and videos. CoverItLive also provides publishers with statistics on their live viewership, which is very useful.

I like this tool a lot and would come in great handy in the future. For publishers that want to host all content on their own servers, there may be a downloadable version of the software in the future.

I expect several outlets will be liveblogging the MacWorld Steve Jobs keynote on Tuesday with it. One site I know that definitely uses the tool is the GeekBriefTV site.

[slideshow=92]

Byteswap is a free service (a virtual file cabinet as they call it) that allows you to upload and store files, contacts, Web links, photos, recipes – you name it! All uploaded items are nicely organized in folders. You can use the pre-named folders or you can rename them. You can also add information about the uploaded files, enabling you to know exactly why something is saved. You don’t get a true feel for Byteswap until you sign up. Their homepage and information links are a bit dense and it doesn’t look like much. However, once you sign up, it takes you to your personal dashboard which is customizable and has a lot more options.

Byteswap currently offers a Firefox toolbar that allows you to add links or pictures to your library from the Web. In addition to Firefox, an IE toolbar is in the works. This makes it a lot easier while surfing the Web to quickly save something that you consider a file-worthy item.

You can also make money with Byteswap by putting together a specific type of information that interests a group of people. When individuals view your content, they will see Adsense ads that are related to your content. If they click on the ad, then you get paid. If you are familiar with Adsense, you should know that you need quite a few clicks to make money.

When hovering over an item you’ve saved, a smooth screen shows a preview of the item. I think this is a useful aspect of the site.

You can make your content private or public. If your items are published publicly, then you can share them with friends and other Byteswap users. Byteswap also provides groups to join that serve to share content among users will similar interests. Byteswap is a good option for those of us who like to save lots of pictures and documents on our computers. This is a free way to backup some items in case a virus brings your computer down. Try it out at www.byteswap.com.

While geared for Windows Live Spaces users, Live Writer also works with blogs like WordPress, Movable Type, LiveJournal and Blogger. I have never been fond of using blogging tools and always stuck with the WordPress admin panel.Once downloaded and installed, It was easily able to tell I had a WordPress setup and I logged in and downloaded the weblog style. If you use Internet Explorer, there is the option of installing a toolbar that adds blogging functionality, and that is convenient.

When you start Windows Live Writer up for the first time, it will show you a new, blank post ready in WYSIWYG format within your blog style. Live Writer has the basic features you need of any blogging utility from WYSIWYG tools and spell check to inserting maps from Windows Live Local. The post Properties bar is at the bottom so you can add keywords to the post, adjust the time stamp and add URLs to send trackbacks to. On the top right of the window you can select which categories to organize the post into and Windows Live Writer was able to find out which categories this blog had.

Exploring the preferences menu exposes even more features that make Windows Live Writer an awesome tool. You can click on the drop-down arrow for the Publish button and post the draft you are working on to your blog. That way, you can continue blogging from any computer and not risk losing the post if saved locally on your computer. If that is not a big problem for you, you can switch the viewing mode to Web Preview before posting to see what it looks like on your blog. You can also have Windows Live Writer automatically save drafts at intervals of your choice, automatically check spelling before publishing and ping servers you tell it to when posts are published.

Windows Live Write is a beta, so do not get too upset when you find some things are just plain hassles, such as not being able to work on two post at the same time; You’ll have to open another window. Perhaps one of these days, they will fix some of the annoyances. I am sure when you download the product, you’ll notice some of them.

Windows Live Writer has the features and capabilities of a program you would expect to see bundled in the next version of MS Office. Windows Live Writer really creates a well-rounded blogging experience and if you are big on blogging, like me, then this might be a good program to try out.

Windows Live Writer is Free and can be downloaded here.

Catalog Choice, sponsored by the Ecology Center and funded or endorsed by various environment-friendly groups, is a free Web service that allows you to opt-out of unwanted catalogs/mailings that you receive. This service is provided in hopes that it will reduce mailbox clutter and save the environment at the same time.

The Catalog Choice Website states that the current statistic of production and discarded paper catalogs adds up to more than 19 billion paper catalogs per year! I actually receive several catalogs per week that I’ll briefly flip through and eventually throw away. Many of the catalogs, I have no clue why they are even being sent to me. Many companies send out catalogs by profiling demographic areas, in hopes that indivduals will place an order.

The Catalog Choice Website also has a list of astonishing enviromental facts that I encourage everyone to read. This list may open your eyes to the severity of the environmental changes that are occuring as a result of the way that we live on this Earth.

Joining Catalog Choice is simple. Users simply sign up by providing their current home address (where you are receiving unwanted catalogs). Once the sign-up page is complete, you can begin searching for catalogs that you no longer wish to receive. You find the catalog and decline its receival. You can invite friends to do the same and decrease the number of trees destroyed even more.

The only slight downfall is that you have to know the names of the catalogs that you no longer want to receive. I know that when I receive a catalog that I don’t want, I usually throw it away immediately and I don’t recall their names. I am assuming that it’s best to keep a stack of unwanted mail until you have the chance to look them up and decline them in Catalog Choice.

Catalog Choice is a nice service and it’s completely free. It is relatively easy and it is sure to make you feel good when you do your part in saving our Earth.

As promised the next issue of throwback tech is here. I know that I said i would talk about the rock in this issue and I have no plans to cause any panic or alarm. So without further ado I give you the rock!

In times long past our ancestors were faced with one rather large problem, the world had too many other animals in it. These animals were horrible to us, they would steal our food, compete for the same caves, and even engage in the most horrible of pastimes, eating us! Well little did those pesky critters know, but humanity was about to make a discovery that would catapult us to the top of the food chain, we found the rock!

We can now only imagine how this discovery was started, but I figure it was probably accidental. Somewhere in the jungles of the equator Bob got angry at Sam and threw a rock at him. When Sam started to cry it was only a matter of early primate logic for Bob to figure, if hitting Sam with a rock could make him cry, perhaps it could have the same effect on other things as well. So Sam carefully stalked another animal sent the rock flying and bam! the animal ran off, and thus started humanities love affair with the rock.

It was only a short time after the discovery of the rock as an effective weapon that humanity also found another use for this now beloved item. Building stuff, with rocks we no longer had to hope that naturally occuring caves were not inhabited by other things, with the rock we could now build our own caves! But we didn’t stop there (do we ever?), soon early humanity was building homes, walls, fences, pens and all manner of assorted structure with rocks, but this was only the beginning soon the rock would find yet another use to us, tools!

Yes the rock was a great tool, no longer would we be stymied by such ridiculous things as melon rinds and coconut shells, gone were the days of not being able to eat things such as crab and lobster, with the rock there was no surface we could not penetrate, no item that could withstand the vicious onslaught of our early tools. With the rock both as tool, weapon, and building supply humanity would reign supreme against all the terrifying beasts of the world!

Not only was the rock an important part of early humanities rise from the jungle, it has played an important role in history, without the rock David would have been helpless against Goliath, protesters throughout history would have been without an iconic image, and finally we would have never had the joy of rock and roll music.

and now I leave you this week with the immortal words of the ever awesome Queen.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iikKzQwgBJc[/youtube]