Merch Madness And Scratchpad Screens

Two pieces of fun Shot Of Jaq news to share with shotters everywhere.

Firstly, we have our very first Shot Of Jaq merch action shot, shown above on the left. This was sent in by Julie Bernstein who snapped herself up the Shot Of Jaq Tank Top. It is awesome to see folks supporting the show buy grabbing some cool merch. T-Shirts, Mugs, Stickers and more are all at the Shot Of Jaq Store. Importantly, when when (not if) you buy something, don’t forget to add it to our March Action Shots Scratchpad Page!

Secondly, a mysterious Shot Of Jaq fan has proposed a little fun competition for us to play called T5. The goal is simple: display the Shot Of Jaq logo on the largest screen you can find, take a picture and submit to the Scratchpad page. Treenaks has the record right now with the Shot Of Jaq logo on a 42″ flat panel (shown in the pic above). Can you do better? More details of how to get involved are here.

While we are at it, don’t forget to add your ideas for shots to this Scratchpad page and add your ideas for sublime, fun and ridiculous publicity stunts to this Scratchpad page. Fun times, friends!

The Zone

Download ogg Download mp3

When we are pumped up and excited about what we are doing, we get lots done and enjoy doing what we do. This is known as being in the zone. Jono Bacon and Stuart ‘Aq’ Langridge explore what the zone is, how to get in it, and how you figure out what gets you in the zone to have a more fun and productive experience doing what you are doing.

Remember, this is the start of the conversation! What gets you in the zone? Follow our little game that we outline in the shot and let us know what you find out! what are your experiences of getting yourself in the mental headspace to be your most creative and productive? Let us know in the shot comments below…

Life Online Part 2: The Data

Download ogg Download mp3

In the follow up to our previous shot about life online Jono Bacon and Stuart ‘Aq’ Langridge continue the discussion about how to manage a seemingly endless array of data online from email to micro-blogging to feed readers to documents and more and the many and sundry privacy and convenience issues that are involved. In a world filled with detail, can we strike a balance between safe and simple?

Remember, this is the beginning of the conversation, and we want to hear your thoughts! What are your views on the privacy, freedom and convenience issues surrounding online web services, and how do you feel we get a good balance? Should we bypass the web in search of local fat clients, and what solutions could resolve these issues? Share your thoughts in the shot comments below…

Shot Of Jaq Store Now Open

With the Shot Of Jaq community growing more and more with every shot, we have had some requests for merchandise. As such, we have now opened up the Shot Of Jaq Store where you can get your hands on some official Shot Of Jaq gear. This is a great way to show off your Shot Of Jaq cred and support the show with a small donation from every sale.

To kick things off we have a special incentive for our first merch rock stars. The first three Shot Of Jaq fans to buy a product from the store and send us a photo of you holding or wearing it, will get an opportunity to join Aq and I and listen to a shot being recorded live. This is a great opportunity to experience a shot being recorded and hang out with us in the recording session. So, go and grab some merch ASAP and mail your photos to us at talktous AT shotofjaq DOT org!

Visit the Shot Of Jaq Store here!

Life Online Part 1: The Balance

Download ogg Download mp3

With many of us spending increasing amounts of time plugged into our laptops and servers, in this first of a two-shot series, Jono Bacon and Stuart ‘Aq’ Langridge explore how we balance our online and offline lives, the heath implications, and the challenges that face us with mobile devices and how to get away.

Of course, this shot is just the start of the conversation. What do you think? How much time do you spend online? How do you get away? Have you experienced depression or burnout from being in front of your computer too much? Share your thoughts in the shot comments below…

Jaqback, Issue 3

Download ogg Download mp3

Jono Bacon and Stuart ‘Aq’ Langridge read your letters, answer your questions and talk about the goings on and news in the always awesome Shot Of Jaq community.

We are always keen to hear your thoughts, opinions and ideas for the show. Be sure to join the conversation in the shot comments below…

Thinking Outside The Boxee

Download ogg Download mp3

The ‘Open Source Build Your Own Media Station’ world has seen many different incarnations of software to play back media, record TV, and access online content. Unfortunately, said incarnations have been a royal pain the arse to install. One flavour that is shaking things up is Boxee and it’s D-Link hardware Boxee Box. Jono Bacon and Stuart ‘Aq’ Langridge take apart the Boxee phenomenon and explore if it has legs to bring the video revolution to us all.

Of course, our shot is just the start of the conversation and we look to you lovely people to continue the discussion in the shot comments below. Does Boxee show promise? How do other DVR software projects compare? What is your experience of Boxee and similar hardware boxes? Where do you see the future of digital video? share your thoughts below…

The Chinese Google Timeout

Download ogg Download mp3

With the recent news of Google re-evaluating it’s presence in China, Jono Bacon and Stuart ‘Aq’ Langridge dive into the issue and explore whether Google has unwittingly become a pawn in a global political game.

What do you think? Is Google making a brave or dangerous move with it’s decision? This shot is merely the start of the conversation…share your thoughts below and let’s get to the heart of the issue together…

Shot Of Jaq Scratchpad Launched

The whole point of Shot Of Jaq is to build a conversation and collaboration driven community around the show. As we re-iterate in every shot, we are the start of the conversation: ten minutes of short, sharp and fun discussion that we hope leads to continued conversation on www.shotofjaq.org.

Since the show started, some community members have been looking to have a place in which they can work together on projects in and around Shot Of Jaq and we have not had such a resource available. We didn’t want to just throw up a wiki, disconnected and disjointed from the main Shot Of Jaq website…we wanted to re-think it. We now have a solution: the Shot Of Jaq Scratchpad.

The scratchpad works a little like this:

• You can go to the scratchpad and without having to register or login, type in a name for your page into a box and a page will be created for you.
• There, you and other Shot Of Jaq fans can work together to share information, collaborate an otherwise be fun community people. There are plenty of options for adding markup, tables, images and lots more to make your page as rocking as possible.
• Discussion about your project and page is integrated in a special way: when you create the page it will also generate a hashtag (e.g. #soj_h) which you can use on Twitter and identi.ca. All messages on Twitter and identi.ca containing the hashtag will appear in the sidebar on your scratchpad page. Sweet, eh.

The Shot Of Jaq Scratchpad provides a simple way in which you can create content, work together and projects and discuss said content and projects on Twitter and identi.ca and have it all integrated together, right here on www.shotofjaq.org, and none of it require frustrating user accounts, sign-ups and more.

So, with our new feature ready to roll, what kind of content and projects can you use it for? Here are just a few ideas:

• Spreading The Word – we are really keen to help share each shot far and wide. We want people to join us in the conversation, but we need you folks to help spread the word. A page on how to publicise each shot would be awesome, with tips and tricks for our community members to use.
• Transcriptions – for our deaf Shot Of Jaq fans, it would be fantastic to have transcriptions, and fortunately because shots are so short, they are not too much work.
• Outreach Project – we have talked in the Shot Of Jaq Chat Channel about coming up with some stunts and ideas to spread awareness of the show – the scratchpad is a great place to scheme about this kind of thing!
• Resources – want to create Shot Of Jaq website buttons, banners and other material? Add them to the scratchpad!
• Your ideas go here…!

So ladies and gents, rock out with your pad out.

The 1000 Fan Campaign

For the last half week we have been running a campaign to get our Shot Of Jaq Facebook Fan Page filled up to 1000 fans by Thursday. We are just shy of 900 right now, so we are looking to you good people to get us up there. A great way of doing this is to pop a badge on your website.

Doing this is dead simple. First go to this Facebook page and you should see this:

Select Shot Of Jaq from the Select a Page drop down box and the second box will have code you can take to plonk on your website.

Don’t forget to join the Shot Of Jaq Facebook Fan Page here!