Over 20 discussion sessions are planned for the day on many topics that might be of interest to web workers, such as “Networking 101,” “Building Your Personal Brand” and “How to be a Freelance Consultant.” There should also be plenty of networking opportunities, including an after-party.

LaidOffCamp is being organized by recently laid off consultant Chris Hutchins. Tickets are free, although attendees are encouraged to make  a donation that suits their budget. LaidOffCamp is expecting between 300 and 500 people to attend; according to the event’s Facebook page, there are more than 280 confirmed attendees so far.

Further events are planned in Dallas, New York and Miami, with more cities in the pipeline.

Are you planning on attending LaidOffCamp?

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I’m not ashamed to admit it. I run XP on my aluminum iMac. My girlfriend is ashamed of me and my brother won’t speak to me. All because of a 40gb hard drive partition and a start button.

I did it mostly so that I could play City of Heroes again (look what you’ve made me do, NCSoft! Release a Mac version already). I also like Corel’s PaintShop Pro Photo XII for quick and dirty photo editing, as I find it doesn’t require as much attention or time as Photoshop for minor changes.

Regardless of whether you agree/disagree with my reasons/excuses, there are a couple indispensable tips for those inclined to be-Windows their Macs the Boot Camp way.

1. Do it early. One thing I learned from numerous failed attempts to use Boot Camp on my MacBook is that Apple’s OS-switcher is not fond of world-weary, crudded up hard drives. For whatever reason (maybe because it was in my  pre-AppZapper days), Boot Camp would not partition my hard drive. With my iMac I did it immediately, and it went off without a hitch.
2. Bluetooth mouse switching sucks. In effect, installing OS X to a Boot Camp drive is like having a second computer. Which is great for some things (no sharing of system resources, for instance), but incredibly annoying for others. Like re-pairing Bluetooth mice every time you switch. Do yourself a favor and get a dedicated Windows wired or wireless mouse in addition to your BT one.
3. Make switching easier. The tray icon in Windows is easy enough to access, but going into Preferences and Startup Disk every time I want to switch in OS X is no fun.  As a workaround, I went to /System/Library/PreferencePanes and dragged  StartupDisc.prefpane to my dock (right side of the break only). This saves a couple steps at least, and my beloved sanity.
4. Read/Write to your Boot Camp drive. Kind of tricky, but indispensable. You may have come across this before, but this guide is definitely the best I’ve found out there. Proceed at your own risk, it’s not a perfect solution yet. But, it has saved me literally hours in file transfers.

Now, if you manage to get over the disapproving glares of your fellow Mac devotees, you’ll have a much more enjoyable Boot Camp experience.

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The vision is that these devices would be present in your home, car, clothing and workplace to ensure that you’re never without a connection to the internet. Apple suggest that “When the user moves from one location to another, the host device may determine which RF module to access when requiring use of a long-range communications protocol.”

One potential use would be to provide a robust VoIP network, passing your call data from one transmitter to another as you move around with no loss of connection. They won’t necessarily be simply inanimate network devices either — other proposed features include a microphone, display (an iPhone controlling watch anyone?), or the ability to control nearby devices.

The possibilities here do seem endless. It would provide a real new wave of innovation in terms of connectivity and re-write the book on how devices can interact with each other. That said, it’s also a very complex and ambitious technology to pursue — leading the field in a system such as this doesn’t fit with what Apple have done in the past. Their oft used approach favors watching other companies fumble around with a new technology before launching their own competition which alleviates all the problems posed by competing devices.

It’s a ground breaking concept, and a space worth watching, but I don’t foresee any physical products in the near future.

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• Mobile Q4: All Eyes Were on Android, 4G and the Rising Tablet Tide
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For its fiscal 2008 fourth quarter, Apple today posted revenue of $7.9 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.14 billion, or $1.26 per diluted share. Gross margin was 34.7%. In one of the best quarters in its history, Apple shipped 2.6 million Macintosh computers (an all-time high), 11 million iPods, and 6.9 million iPhones.

iPhone

This (financial) quarter, Apple announced sales of 6.9 million iPhones — a huge jump from a total of 6.1 million sales in the previous five quarters. This can be put down to the worldwide launch of the product, huge increase in availability, and customers upgrading to the latest 3G model. This successful quarter means that Apple has already beaten the aim of selling 10 million iPhones in 2008, even before the start of the holiday season — their busiest period of the year.

Taken from another angle, Apple is now selling more devices than RIM (the makers of BlackBerry). They sold 6.1 million, a full 700,000 fewer phones than Apple in the previous quarter. When compared by revenue, Apple is the third-largest mobile phone supplier in the world, behind only Nokia and Samsung. Considering the iPhone only launched around 15 months ago, this is a significant achievement.

In a series of post-call questions, Steve Jobs highlighted that Apple has 5,500 apps in the iPhone App Store, and that Apple should sell its 200 millionth app tomorrow. He stated that the speed of adoption was “unlike anything we’ve seen in our careers.”

Mac

While much of the talk was surrounding iPhone, Mac sales have also had a fantastic quarter. Sales are up 21 percent over a year ago to 2.6 million — more than any other previous quarter. Consider this was in a period with no new major Mac introductions, it would be logical to expect the revamped notebook lineup and holiday season will guarantee another record breaking quarter to come.

Netbooks

When questioned about the possibility and suitability of producing a Netbook, Steve shared his feeling that the iPhone could be considered an entrant into the netbook market, since it can browse the web. This, to me, echoes back to Jobs explaining how online applications would be the best possible way to develop for iPhone — before promptly turning tail and announcing the SDK. It will remain to be seen whether Apple considers a similar turn around of opinion in this developing market, as they do apparently have “some interesting ideas there if it does evolve.”

When pressed further, Jobs clarified that “We don’t know how to make a $500 machine that’s not a piece of junk, and our DNA won’t let us do it.” Not even with your new manufacturing process, ever shrinking components and your patented multi-touch technology that’s aching to be used in something more than the iPhone? We’ll see…

Economic Perspective

Obviously, the outcome of these results were always going to be used as an indicator of how Apple is weathering the first stages of an economic downturn. It would seem that initial impressions are good, though the real test will come in the long term. When challenged about the financial turbulence, Steve remarked:

I wouldn’t trade our customers for any other company’s customers in the entire world. They are some of the smartest, most product aware customers in the market and they have chosen Apple’s quality, hardware and software products. While they may postpone purchases in tough times, they are unlikely to abandon the quality and seamless integration which they have personally experienced and become accustomed to with Apple’s products.

We don’t yet know how this economic downturn will affect Apple. But we’re armed with the strongest product line in our history, the most talented employees and the best customers in our industry. And $25 billion of cash safely in the bank with zero debt. This downturn may also present some extraordinary opportunities for companies that have the cash to take advantage of them, like Apple does.

It would seem that Apple is set for another great quarter over the holiday period, in a very strong position to keep their head above the water through the difficult times ahead.

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The content is provided a number of partners such as Hulu, CBS and Sony and is integrated into show pages as well as being collected on a main video page.

Amazon recently launched its own VOD video streaming service, but extending that paid model to the IMDB wouldn’t make as much sense. People visiting Amazon are in a shopping mindset, and would be more willing to pony up for a TV show. On IMDB, they are looking for information quickly and are much more likely to watch something for free.

But it’s also a tool for the networks to promote their shows (and companies like Hulu to get more plays). A visit to the Heroes page on IMDB greets you with a huge ad for the third season of the series at the top, cast and crew info, and now you can check out an episode right there without having to go anywhere else.

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According to The Hollywood Reporter, the series follows students at the fictional Bask U, who spend tons of time engaging in all the means of digital interaction available these days (Facebooking, emailing, Twittering), but wind up miscommunicating.

The 10-episode series premieres Oct. 1; it will be shown at hookingupshow.com and will be distributed through vid sites like MySpace and YouTube. There isn’t much information up on hookingupshow.com yet, just some cast photos and video snippets (including the one embedded above).

HBOlab is betting that these web celebs will be able to draw in their fans to create an instant (and big) audience for Hooking Up. The only difference is that some of these personalities will have to show that they can act, not just be witty in front of a web cam — especially Kevin Wu, aka KevJumba, and Philip DeFranco, aka sxePhil — both of whom have lead roles.

Ms. Rose, meanwhile, is no stranger to acting. In fact, she’s awfully busy these days, with not one, not two, but three different web series in the works, those of Hooking Up, Blood Cell and Sorority Forever, respectively. Buckley, of What the Buck? is also revving up his career as he recently signed a development deal with HBOlab for both TV and web projects.

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But…It’s been nearly a week since the series’ sophomore debut, and episode 1 still isn’t online. Standard practice among the TV networks is to post shows online after they air in Hawaii; if not then, sometime soon the next day. A week is pushing it. We have to wonder if the CW is reneging on its reversal.

Furthermore, as far as I can tell, the CW hasn’t posted any episodes from its new season; what seems to be the most recent video in its full episode queue is an episode of Everybody Hates Chris that originally aired in May. Either the guy who loads new videos into the system quit last week, or there’s been an unacknowledged policy reversal. And this at a time when networks across the board are posting more and more of their shows for free, ad-supported streaming online, in some cases before they air on TV.

As for actual broadcast television, interpretations of Gossip Girl‘s season premiere’s ratings were mixed; on the one hand, the episode failed to top last season’s premiere, and it got beat by the CW’s 90210 revival the next night; on the other hand, it apparently did amazingly great with women aged 18 to 34. Meanwhile, Gossip Girl was promptly posted on iTunes after it aired. And nearly a week later, it still occupies the No. 1 slot. (The show has done well all along on iTunes, and probably since people actually pay $1.99 for it there the CW hasn’t messed with that success.) One Tree Hill is at No. 2, while 90210 doesn’t seem to have been posted at all.

We’ve tried to contact the CW’s press department through official means, but that hasn’t worked so far, so maybe blogging will do the trick. Hey CW, whatever happened to posting your shows online?

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NeoPhotonics and other optical start-ups could be lining up really soon. For most of these companies, the underlying theme is mega growth of online video that is leading to big bandwidth demand in the back-haul and access networks. They also play into the massive data center upgrade trend. But are these good investments? Do you think they the online video wave is lifting all boats? Have your say!

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We made notes, and have been diligently trying to put that into practice. Ideacodes, a design firm I highly recommend, who designed the original site, re-tweaked the design for nearly a month, before we settled on the one you see. I asked them that we have to keep the best features of the site – layout and colors – and at the same time simplify the site.

The biggest complaint was about the sidebar clutter, and we have tried to address that in this revision. While polls have not gone away, they are understated. Rest of the elements that proved to be distracting has been eliminated. We have tried to balance the commercial realities with the design aesthetic.

The other big complaint was that “comments” were not that obvious, and people had a hard time finding them. We made it our top priority and addressed that issue, hopefully to your satisfaction.

One big change you will see is right up top. There was a suggestion that we should create a simple navigation bar for all the sites in the network. Some of the readers wrote in and said that there were too many tabs.

We came up with a simple and obvious taxonomy.

Web, Voice, Mobile and Broadband!

The Daily that is a new name for our reporter’s log of short posts about interesting news developments. You can see the five most recent log items in the little block in the middle column.

Other changes are subtler – fonts have been changed to make the site more readable, especially for our readers who are on Microsoft’s Windows platform. Another requested feature was “Print This” button, and we have added that as well.

So that’s it – let us know if we have followed your instructions and if you are pleased with this revision.

PS#1: Archives, E-Mail This and other small features will be rolled out later this week/weekend. And in case you are interested, my personal blog, Om Daily has gotten a makeover as well.

PS#2: Emily, Max, Chancey, Joey and Barry – thanks for all your hard work and making this release possible. You have my eternal gratitude and admiration.

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According to a Reuters story on the earnings, maybe those funny ads with the boxes hitting people in the head weren’t translating into customer wins:

Vonage Chief Executive Michael Snyder said one factor behind the slower customer additions was ineffective advertising, which prompted the company to switch to more informative ads in late December.

Vonage also said that customer acquisition costs jumped to $306 per add, up from $256 per new subscriber in Q3. Though chairman Jeffrey Citron maintains that Vonage will reach profitability in 2008, you have to wonder how they will make it that far. As UBS analyst John Hodulik notes, “We remain concerned about the growth in the business in the face of increased competition from cable MSOs.” More as we dig through the release.

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What does this mean? Two things – I won’t be furiously blogging, but blog I will. It means fewer posts from me, though longer posts since I am pretty sure the jet lag is going to cause a mini havoc on my sleep schedule. In the past I have worried about leaving the blog untended, but this time around things are a lot different. The GigaTeam is in full effect, and by now you are familiar with most of them.

There is a lot of writing that has been postponed, mostly because of lack of time. I am going to work on some of those topics and finish that bit while away. Since this isn’t a working trip, I am not sure if I am doing some active reporting, though if someone wants to arrange a meet-up, please let me know. Next week would be perfect!

(‘Om-chilled’ image via Om Records)

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[ifilm=2819732]

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We have shut down the comments as well, and also, no point sending us emails because there are no invites left. I am going to try and get more invites or a special program going with the companies. Up until then, please accept my apologies, and thank you for your kind responses and generous support. The FON Wi-Fi routers are still available for taking.

Update: Apologies for thinking it is Thursday. Apparently, there is two more working days, which kinda sucks. Clearly I have a bad hangover. Also, please slow down on the Joost requests. I have run out of invites. Waiting to get more invites.

Think of today as a reader appreciation day. For absolutely no reason we are giving away stuff today. We don’t want anything in exchange – no emails, no user information… nothing. Just your continued support and suggestions and of course your love. So what’s on the menu?

1. 15 invites to ultra cool Babelgum, a P2P service folks at NewTeeVee simply love.
2. 150 invites to Joost, aka The Venice Project. We convinced the company that our readers are the very best in the world to tinker around with their beta software.
3. 1500 FON wifi routers, for free, which means no shipping also. Not a dime, dinero….nada. This is the fastest way to get around their “invite only” promotional strategy. All you have to do is click on this page and let them know where the device needs to be shipped. Usual disclaimers apply.

So how do you get in on the action? For Babelgum and Joost, just leave your email address and we will send an invite. You get to pick one of the two, and it is first come first get basis. For FON just visit this special promotions page.

All right guys, see ya soon.

Guys if you want to give us some Digg love, click here. Help spread the word.

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