Looking for a little tech humor? Well if this isn’t it, I don’t know what is. Power couple Jay-Z and Beyonce announcing they are expecting has had the media in all forms buzzing since VMAs. Not only has it made social media history but now there is animated video that hit the web about it. NMA.tv has created its own Twaiwanese CGI animation of the baby to be.

It’s kind of ridiculous, but it’s probably the funniest thing that’s hit the web this week. It’s amazing how fast these animations can be created.

Featured in the video are animations of course Jay and Beyonce, but also appearances by Nicki Minaj a.k.a Nanny Minaj, Kanye West, and the unborn “Destiny’s Child”

Check it out here:

The BlackWeb20.com staff wants to share our spookiest tech-gone-wrong and worst dream stories with you. (We think tech nightmares are worse than ghosts and goblins.)

Sherri L. Smith

My worst tech nightmare happened in 2007. I had just bought Dead Rising for Xbox 360. I rushed home and popped the game in, ready to engage in some serious zombie genocide. I’m sitting through the intro, damned near salivating at the massacre to come, snapping pictures of the carnage with Frank’s trusty camera. Then IT happened. Three cheery red rings lit up around the console power button and all went dark. I screamed in utter anguish, I’d been pwned by the infamous Xbox 360 “Red Rings of Death” error. But that was only the beginning of the horror. My whole hard drive was fried. As I frantically and futilely press the on button, I came to the slow realization that my console was dead and I had to buy a whole new Xbox 360. Meaning I forked out $500 I wasn’t ready to pay. Arrrgh!!!!! My teeth still gnash at the thought!

Markus Robinson

My worst tech nightmare happened my senior year in college. Our teacher separated us into groups of four to complete our “final project”, building a functioning online bookstore from scratch. The project was worth more than more than 50% of our final grade, if we didn’t pass, we didn’t graduate. We decided to separate the project into sections and divvy it up amongst the group members. One of my fellow group members and I were responsible for the coding and database design, while other group members worked on documentation and the final presentation. The group member who was supposed to help me with the coding, never completed any of the tasks he was assigned, nor did he answer his phone and email. Needless to say, my group members and I worked many sleepless nights during the 4 weeks leading up to the presentation. The day before the presentation was the worst, I spent almost 12 hours debugging the code, and went to the presentation with absolutely no sleep. And then at almost 2 in the morning –it happened! I received the phone call that almost 5 years later still makes me sick. The person who was supposed to help me with the coding called, and said “How’s it coming?”, “Need any help?”. Now I don’t advocate violence, but if I did…, but I digress. The day of the presentation, a few minutes before class begins, this guy shows up to class bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with one of the largest Kool-Aid smiles I’ve ever seen, and the he said it… “So…which part do you all want me to present?”

Angela Benton

Don’t get me wrong I love traveling for conferences but the more you travel, the more likely you are to encounter a Tech Nightmare.  My worst tech nightmare happened to me earlier this year when I was speaking at the Social Networking Conference in Miami.  All was well.  The flight there was perfect, so was location and hotel.  Like all good techies, the night before I was scheduled to speak, I was going through the checklist of what I needed to be prepared:  Twice over my deck…check; laptop charging…check; MAC adapter for the projector…check.  Everything was perfect.  I slept like a baby and was over at the convention center refreshed and ready to go well before my talk was scheduled to start.  I sat in on a lot of other presentations, tweeted from some, relocated to others, and tried to resume tweeting when….”Oh Sh*t!!!!”  My computer wouldn’t start, at all, nothing.  Since I charged it the night before I knew that couldn’t be the problem, but I tried plugging in and charging…nothing.  I called Markus panicked since I couldn’t access my presentation, I had sent it over to the organizers prior but made some last minute changes the night before.  Good ole Markus told me to calm down and to continue to charge up (I swear he is the calmest dude I’ve met).  I did but as the hours turned to minuets before I was supposed to speak I started to sweat and become extremely anxious.  Especially since I was so certain battery power wasn’t the issue.  Soon enough my time came to speak and I turned on my computer and the clouds of heaven opened up as I saw my computer start to load and eventually make it’s way to my desktop (cue the singing angels).  Once fully loaded I checked the battery indicator, sure enough the laptop had been dead.  This was an important lesson learned.  While you sleep in strange places make sure the outlet you are using to charge your valuable possessions actually works.  And at worst case ALWAYS, ALWAYS, have a battery backup.

Rahsheen shudders at the thought of…

Facebook buys all other social media sites. Shuts them all down and incorporates their features. Now, we are doomed to get our social media fix exclusively from Facebook, peppered with Mafia Wars invites, creepy friend suggestions, invites to stuff you have absolutely no interest in, and nonsense quizzes.

Jabari Johnson‘s hair stands on end in dread of…

The scariest thing that could happen to me is the keys on my Macbook Pro going out. This has happened before and it is truly a nightmare to have to use the on screen keyboard by clicking keys with the mouse! Those moments until you can get your hands on an external keyboard or get it fixed are the worst!

Robin Caldwell

Last year, I received a phone call from Spike Lee’s office while I was at the shampoo bowl at  the hair salon. I couldn’t ignore the call, so I lifted my head up to take the call as soapy water drenched down into my ear and into my earpiece. Two weeks later, I noticed that I couldn’t recharge my phone, leaving me to believe I simply needed a new battery. I took the phone into the carrier’s store only to find out that the battery had corroded causing irreparable damage to the phone. The greatest inconvenience caused by the corrosion was the loss of 400+ phone numbers (business connects, journalists, editors, etc.) that I had not backed up. Thankfully, the carrier’s repair guy was able to do something and lend me a temporary battery with just enough juice for me to sit in the store with my laptop and type every last number -with a fury- into a Word doc with the help of a friend. Lesson learned: back up the phone numbers  especially if you don’t have a smartphone.

What is your spookiest, scariest, or just plain frustrating tech nightmare?

Not sure if you missed yesterdays coverage (late coverage) of the BlackAtlas.com preview, it included video and a nice overview of what the value proposition of Black Atlas would be.  I was really interested in seeing what the site would look like and the different functionality it would have and to be honest, if I would use the site on a regular basis.  Others I spoke to were just as interested.  That is until I went to the site and it had yet to be launched.  I’m no early riser by nature so it was about 10am when I went to the site only to notice that it had yet to launch.  I’ve checked back frequently throughout the day (even right before writing this) and the site still continues to say it is down for maintenance.

I hope American Airlines won’t leave us on the runway too long waiting for takeoff.  All promo material and even reps from Burrell pushed heavily that October 15th would be D-day.  No word of ‘tentative’ was in sight or on what may be causing the delay.

Updated: Looks like the site is up and running (6:08pm).  BTW Joe Schmitt I don’t respond well to threats, please don’t send me direct messages like this again:

Thanks in advance.  -angela

Saturday, June at 12:01 AM, Facebook users will be able to choose custom usernames for their pages. For the first time, everyday users will be able to brand the url of their pages in the same manner as corporate entities. The obvious benefit of this, is that it makes it easier to pass along your information with a name that is easier to remember than the current id number system.

The drawback this social networking giant faces is the same one posed to just about any e-mail company that gains popularity: Names are available on a first come, first served basis. This can be frustrating to people with common first and last names, like “Joe Smith” or “Bob Jones.” These folks might want to log in at midnight on the dot, and cross their fingers for luck.

For people with uncommon names, I doubt that they will have anything to worry about. Never before has it been more beneficial to have parents who just decided to make up some crazy name for their child. For example, my friend O.J. (not THAT O.J.) told me about a woman who named her daughter “La-a”(pronounced La-DASH-Aa).

If you laugh, the terrorists win.

I doubt La-a will have any problems getting her own name on Facebook, even if she waits 12 years to sign up. The other problem with this system is that it is certain that some people will choose the most ridiculous and offensive names possible, just because that’s what a large number of people do on the internet when given absolute freedom of expression!

All name issues and silly attempts at username humor aside, this should be a convenient way to keep tabs on your Facebook account, and let people know where you are without making them do a search for your name and sort through the results.

Although the title of this article may sound like the title of some cheesy new over-hyped reality TV show, it’s actually about some interesting news from Twitter.com. After being hit with a lawsuit from St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa over an individual impersonating him on the site, Twitter took steps to launch a verified accounts beta program to ensure that no other celebrity suits of this nature will arise. It is a move that should benefit both public figures, and the people looking to connect with them.

Over the course of Twitter’s short lifespan, many celebrities have complained about impostors on the site. Two of the most outspoken were Kanye West and Shaquille O’Neal. While Kanye chose to go his usual route and rant publicly, Shaq decided to use the media to announce his official Twitter account, which took the wind out of the sails of the fake Shaqs.

One of the celebrities who has had the worst ordeal as far as Twitter impostors is Mr. Reading Rainbow himself, LeVar Burton. Burton blogged about the process of getting his faker kicked to the curb. Of all people to impersonate, why this man? It just shows that some individuals are heartless. Think about it: Kunta Kinte was snatched from his homeland, stripped of his name, beaten mercilessly and had his foot cut off. Amazingly, he somehow traveled through time and got a job on the Enterprise, only to have them stick a silver banana clip to his face. On top of ALL OF THIS, someone had the nerve to steal the man’s identity on Twitter! No wonder LeVar was so upset.

Although this new verification thing is good, hopefully, it will not begin targeting the admittedly fake accounts of public figures created for humorous purposes. There is enough room for folks like Darth Vader and the fake account of DC Mayor Adrian Fenty to remain, as long as they are clear that it’s satire. Personally, I follow these type of accounts until they no longer amuse me. Come to think of it, while cleaning my account, I actually unfollowed both God and LeVar Burton on the very same day! No offense to Levar, or to my Lord and Savior if he actually is somewhere Tweeting from on high.

The popularity of netbooks is spreading like wildfire. Over the past year, sales of these miniature laptop computers have been booming, with no signs of slowing down. The machines are lightweight, portable, inexpensive, and perfectly suitable for non-intensive web tasks, which explains their appeal to consumers. I purchased my own Dell Mini 9 back in January. Before that, my friend Paul showed me the first netbook that I’d ever seen in person, his ASUS Eee PC. Since that time, I have noticed that the netbook user experience is definitely a unique one. Please allow me to provide a few examples:

People will approach you – I maintain a humor blog, so my netbook comes in handy while writing updates on the go. I can just find a seat in any public place with a wifi connection and get things done. However, almost every time I do, people approach me and ask questions about my netbook. I’ve become the belle of the coffee shop ball for a brief fleeting moment or two. Usually it’s not much, but sometimes it makes me wish that I had a real-life equivalent to an FAQ page that I could show people when they linger around for too long. I might get a sign made that says “It costs between $250 and $400. It is good for basic tasks. It’s as fast as the speed of your internet connection. Yes, I like using it. Please refer all other questions to www.google.com.”

The keyboard takes some getting used to – I have adjusted to the keyboard and I have no problem typing at my usual rate of speed. The only difference that continues to haunt me sometimes is the Shift key placement. I would probably be used to it if that were the only computer I work from, but since it’s not, I have to remind myself from time to time that it’s not positioned the same as most keyboards.

Women usually think netbooks are cute – I would not advise anyone to purchase a netbook with hopes of instantly becoming appealing to the opposite sex. That would be impractical and quite silly. That said, if you have one, they can sometimes be a conversation starter when you least expect it because of their compact, streamlined design aesthetics.

Please avoid trying to do too much – These things are light on memory, so if you’re planning on editing your next feature film on one, you are in for a great deal of frustration.

As you see, the netbook user experience is not really the same as that of most laptops. As long as users are realistic about what they plan to do with their netbooks, I don’t think anyone will be disappointed. I love mine so far!

Other Netbook Resources:
http://www.blackweb20.com/2008/12/17/top-4-holiday-tech-gifts-for-2008/
http://lifehacker.com/5273096/five-best-netbooks

The days of catching up on your favorite TV shows for free while you’re supposed to be working may be drawing to a close in the near future. NewsCorp.’s chief digital officer Johnathan Miller has stated that he would like to see some of the premium TV shows and movies featured on Hulu.com become available exclusively to paid subscribers. While this might be great news as far as workplace productivity goes, it is a major turn of events for the Hulu faithful who have come to love the site for it’s convenience and outstanding video quality.

Miller’s position is understandable, since one of the main objectives of his job is to find new ways to generate revenue from NewsCorp.’s holdings. Still, there has to be a better way. This strategy of “let’s give them a taste of the product to get them hooked, then start charging” is right out of the drug dealer playbook. Maybe those commercials are right: Maybe Hulu really is an evil plot to destroy the world!

All jokes aside, Hulu should possibly look into adding an extra commercial or two onto each stream, or allowing corporate sponsors to run promotions on the site that tie-into certain shows. Johnathan Miller should consider those options, before he risks alienating viewers by charging for something they can already see for free on their TV sets and TiVo to watch whenever it’s convenient. Then again, maybe he is already considering these options as well, since he is the chief digital officer at NewsCorp. One would assume that they pay him the big bucks for a reason…

The real problem here appears to be that networks are terrified because they still haven’t figured out a fool-proof system to get as much money out of digital media as possible. The writer’s strike of 2007-08 clearly illustrates that. Everyone realizes that the web is one of the most effective methods of promotion for television programs, but since there is no long standing blueprint for how to put a stranglehold on the profits, there is confusion. Which leads to chaos. Which leads to people charging for things that used to be free.