Since I last posted about the flood here in Fargo, I have gotten great response. And if you’ve watched any news in the last few days, we’ve received national attention. I wanted to take some time tonight and give you and update.

Here’s a little background on the situation. The Red River is the river between Fargo and Moorhead (it’s the ND-MN border)- this is the river that flooding to unprecedented levels. That said, I live in West Fargo, a suburb to the west of Fargo. The river that goes through West Fargo is the Sheyenne River. West Fargo has diversion for the Sheyenne River, which prevents it from flooding. So, long story short, my house is in no immediate danger of flooding. .

Next, on to the Red River. In 1997 (our last major flood), the Red River hit 39.5 feet. The all-time record set in 1897 is 40.1 feet. Our predicted crest is 42 feet. We have never seen this kind of flooding ever before in Fargo.

Needless to say, we have spent tons of energy getting ready. I have spent the last five out of six days helping to sandbag the area. And as a result, I’m sore.

Now, onto how this pertains to Wired For Gadgets. With all the preparations going on this week, I have done something I have never done before- I am, thus far, on a 10-day break from the site. With the need in the community so high, I feel that I need to be with the community and help out, which means Wired For Gadgets will still be on hold until we are sure that Fargo is out of danger.

I said this last time, and I will say it again. I will return to Wired For Gadgets. I cannot be sure when, but I will return, hopefully by the end of next week. Also, I will be sure to keep you updated on the situation.

Thanks so much for your support. And as I said, WFG will return.

- Jake

Hello,

As you’ve probably noticed- I haven’t posted anything since last Wednesday.

Here in Fargo, ND-Moorhead, MN, we are fighting a flood. The worst one we’ve seen in 12 years. River crests are expected to be higher than we’ve ever seen here in the Red River Valley. I spent most of yesterday and overnight last night helping prepare the over 2 Million sandbags that are needed to save our city. Operations are going 24 hours a day to make this happen.

So as you can guess, Wired For Gadgets has been put on the backburner. As many of you know, I’ve always told people that they should give back to their community. Those who know me well know I do this a lot. So it’s quite clear I need to be helping out my community at a time when they need all the help they can get.

I hope most of you understand. If you were in my shoes you would do the same. The Red River here in Fargo is expected to crest at 40.5 ft on early Friday, so I anticipate to return to blogging next week.

I once again thank you all for understanding. WIRED FOR GADGETS WILL RETURN AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

Thanks again.

- Jake

P.S.: If you want to see how the flood situation is doing, check out ValleyFloodWatch.com for information. Also, I will be updating on Twitter- twitter.com/jakebechtold.

In case you missed it yesterday, there was an Apple announcement about the new version of the iPhone/iPod Touch 3.0 Software. Now, you’ll have to wait until June to get it, but Apple showed off over 100 new features in the iPhone 3.0 software.

Here’s a quick roundup of what’s new:

Push notifications will be standard in iPhone 3.0 – Push Notifications, was was supposed to come out last year, will be in iPhone 3.0. With over 1000 developers wanting to use it last year,
the deemed it not ready and put it off. Well now it’s here!

Cut, Copy and Paste – You heard it right folks, cut, copy and paste are finally coming to the iPhone. You can copy from any application and paste into another application. Did something wrong? Shake and it’ll give you the option to undo.

In-App purchasing – Developers will now have the ability to charge within the app. This is great for a game, you can charge to get to a higher level. Or for an eBook reader where you can charge to get more books.

MMS – you’ll be able to use MMS on your iPhone 3G (Sorry 1st gen iPhone users). This will take the place off the SMS application, and will let you send voice memos and pictures to your friends.

Peer-to-Peer connectivity – This will allow iPhone applications to find other users via Bluetooth or WiFi. This can great for gaming and sharing data.

Landscape Keyboard – The landscape keyboard found in Safari will now be available in all applications, including Mail (Pheeww!)

Turn by Turn GPS – Apple will now allow developers to use the Maps app, which means Turn by Turn directions (expect to pay for that application).

Third-party Accessories – App developers will now have access to any third-party device a user has installed. This could allow for developers to interface with their own accessories to create a truly unique experience on the device. One such use was from a company, showing off a blood glucose meter- very cool.

As you can see, there’s lots of cool stuff coming to the iPhone and iPod Touch. The software upgrade won’t come until June. iPhone users will get it for free and iPod Touch users get screwed once again by having to pay $10 for the upgrade (this is the third one, by the way).

iPhone 3.0 feature roundup [TUAW]

About a week and a half ago, I told you about an experiment with the Causes application on Facebook. And someone had asked me Facebook could really get that many donors for a non-profit. So I tried it out.

Birthday Cause = A flop
The main focus of this expirment was to see how many people I could get to join a cause related to my Birthday.

I let the cause run for a week- and I got three donors. Just three. Why? The reality is that mass emails, just as the ones the Causes application sends out are often skipped by people- regarded as junk mail.

So can I really call it a flop? Well, I did get $57 for Metro Youth Partnership. For a non-profit, such as MYP, that’s $57 they didn’t have before. So the Birthday cause didn’t work the greatest- but after the jump, I’ll show you causes at work. READ MORE »

Good morning once again. It’s Monday, and you know what that means- it’s Manic Monday.

• The new iPod Shuffle has some people baffled.
• Apple blocks Tweetie for foul language.
• Apple orders 10-inch touchscreens for mystery product.
• And the iPod Touch is hot hot hot!
• Moving on, one third of people use the same password for everything.
• Jimmy Fallon + Diggnation = The new late night TV + Internet.
• Oh, and participate in the Twitter Experiment. Follow this guy.
• Facebook’s got a new homepage. I love it, do you?
• It’s the end of Internet Explorer as we know it (And I feel fine!)
• Linux turned 15 on Friday (March 13th) (and I turned 19 on Thursday, March 12th).

That’s this week’s Manic Monday. Stay tuned; tomorrow I will give you the conclusion to the Causes Experiment. Enjoy!

TUAW has found themselves a preview of a future iPhone/iPod Touch app- an application that would fully integrate with Blackboard.

For my fellow college student readers (Go Bison!), we all know and love (or not love) Blackboard. For my non-college or students who don’t know of Blackboard, it’s a content management system aimed towards the college (and in some cases, the high school) setting, in which instructors can post lectures, grades, as well as quizzes and homework assignments.

I’m looking forward to this. As a student, it means that I can access assignments, announcements and grades on the fly, via the wireless on my iPod Touch. According to the video, it will be free for the students (and staff, I would assume also), provided the school is using Blackboard 9.

Blackboard iPhone App Preview [YouTube via TUAW]

I must apologize for not posting yesterday or today- Fargo has been hit again by a giant snow storm. That said, a new Apple product.

Apple surprised us all this morning with a new iPod Shuffle. It’s half the size of the previous generation. With 4GB of storage, it now holds up to 1,000 songs.

The shuffle now supports multiple playlists, which would have been difficult to manage without some sort of UI for controlling which one is playing. The new Shuffle also uses the earbud controller headphones, which means you have to use the Apple ones, which may detract some people.

The shuffle is available in black and silver for $79 and is shipping in 3-5 days.

iPod Shuffle [Apple]

Good Morning once again. It’s Monday, and you know what that means: Manic Monday.

• Bring our your dead! As of 5:00 yesterday, Circuit City is done.
• Why you should be warned when buying from Best Buy.
• Firefox has beat IE6, IE7 on the way.
• And Firefox has 100% market-share… in Antarctica.
• Moving on, Apple unveiled a bunch of goodies.
• And is Apple preparing a March 24th event?
• MPAA Study Links Piracy to Gangs and Terrorists. Oh give me a break!
• FAA confirms data breach; 45,000 affected
• Finally, Toys R Us has payed $5 Million for toys.com.

And that’s this week’s Manic Monday. Stay tuned for more great tech content to come this week, including the conclusion to my Causes Birthday Wish. Enjoy!

As most of you know, my one of my favorite Facebook Apps is the Causes app, which allows you to support, donate and get updates from your favorite charity. As most of you don’t know, my Birthday is next Thursday. Well, I got a nice little email from Causes this morning.

Generally I ignore and don’t act on these kinds of messages. That said, just the other week someone was wondering how much a Facebook app like Causes can impact. In other words, how many people hear this message through Facebook. After seeing this email, a light bulb went on in my head.

So it’s time for a Wired For Gadgets Experiment. I have setup My Birthday Cause (supporting Metro Youth Partnership, an non-profit in my community). You have until my birthday, March 12th, to donate. I encourage you to donate, and I ask you to encourage your friends to donate. And we’ll just see how big of an impact Facebook and the internet really has. I will report back next Friday, March 13th, with the results.

This shall be fun!

In Windows, the Task Manager is an essential tool to any power user. Here are two tips for the Task Manager.

Hide The Titlebar

If you want to leave your Task Manager showing on your desktop for a period of time, it can be nice to hide the title bar and gain that space for displaying more information. To do this, simply double-click on the empty area to the right of the tabs. Once it has switched views, you can switch back quickly by double-clicking anywhere on the border.

Minimize to System Tray

If you’re new to the Task Manager, you may not know that you can set it to minimize down to your system tray area. This is a really nice way to keep an eye on how hard your CPU is working at any time. Simply open Task Manager (Start > Run > type “taskman” and press Enter), and in the Options menu, check “Hide when minimized”. Now when you minimize it, the Task Manager will show as a tiny bar graph in your system tray near your system time.

So there you go: Two very useful Task Manager tips. Have any tips you use for task manager? Be sure to leave a comment.

Simple Windows Task Manager tips [Download Squad]