GeekSugar

Peter Rojas Talks RCRD LBL and Fancy Haircuts

GeekSugar — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 11:00:36 -0700

Peter Rojas showed up in the pages of the June/July issue of ReadyMade to talk about RCRD LBL, his free-music website. This endeavor, combined with his status as the founder of both Engadget and Gizmodo, puts him in a place of deep respect for me, but also - and I'm trying to make sure I say this with great dignity and professionalism - Crush Status. Our geeky Romeo is taken, but at least it's to a worthy match: Green, geeky gal Jill Fehrenbacher.

Getting back to business, Rojas talks about the need for RCRD LBL because "people in the music industry try to pretend that the rules of the Internet don't apply to them," but Rojas saw that he could give away free songs as long as it was subsidized by advertising. RCRD LBL pays the (finely edited) artists directly, so they can offer "great music every day," and. . . Oh, what was I saying? I got lost in those brown eyes again.

A Father's Day Tribute

GeekSugar — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 07:00:51 -0700

In honor of Father's Day, I wanted to share a touching tribute from a son to his father. Fellow geek Peter Rojas, cofounder and editor-in-chief of Engadget, lost his father Federico Rojas suddenly before Father's Day last year.

His heartwarming story describes memorable moments when he was growing up, like when his dad would bring home the latest electronics, including an Atari 2600 when Peter was home sick from school after having his tonsils removed.

My father instilled me in his love for technology, but the most important things I learned from him have nothing to do with gadgets. Even though he loved gadgets and electronics, he never made them his life; they were just tools to make life easier or more enjoyable and were never a substitute for the friends, family, and patients that he always put first.

Peter's beautiful and memorable tribute to his father makes me grateful every day to have the amazing father I do. In honor of Frederico, who inspired Peter in all of his endeavors, tell your father today and every day just how much you love him and how much he means to you.

Source

Be sure to visit Engadget for the rest of Peter's moving story about his father. To all the dads out there: Happy Father's Day.

Love 2.0: Peter Rojas and Jill Fehrenbacher

GeekSugar — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 10:00:47 -0800

As part of our Geeks We Love series, I caught up with a few couples that, through the beauty of the internet and technology have influenced both our lives and each other.

If there was an award for cutest hipster bloggers with actual street cred, Peter Rojas and Jill Fehrenbacher would take the cake. He is the cofounder and editor-in-chief of Engadget, a heavily trafficked tech blog about gadgets and consumer electronics, and the cofounder of Joystiq, which covers the world of video games. She is the founder of Inhabitat, a sensible and chic blog that looks at the future of design, tracking innovations in technology and practices and materials that are pushing architecture and home design toward a smarter future. Though they describe themselves as "art school geeks" rather than your "average geeks," the newly-engaged couple stands out in the Love 2.0 generation for using technology to spread their passion for life and their work. What do they love about their jobs and each other? read more

Geeksugar: How do you describe your profession?
Peter: I blog about gadgets, more or less.
Jill: I'm a designer, architecture student, publisher, blogger and all around green design evangelist.

Geeksugar: Bloggers often have the fortune/misfortune of having incredibly unorthodox schedules, what’s a typical day like for you?
Peter: I work from home, so a typical day for me involves getting up and going straight to my computer to deal with email and get a handle on what I have to do that day. I work a lot, but it's broken up by errands and meetings, with maybe an event in the evening. Then back to work before bed.
Jill: The beauty of being a blogger is that each day is different! That said, each day does involve a lot of time in front of the computer for sure.
Peter: It's funny that neither of us has a real job where we have to go an office every day. We both used to when we were younger, it's weird to have more freedom as you get older, I always thought it would be the other way around.

Geeksugar: And are you totally connected to technology all day or more focused on the concept/bigger picture of what you want on your sites?
Peter: We spend a lot of time at home on our computers, but my schedule varies a lot, so I'm often out and staying on top of things via my Treo.
Jill: We’re right next to each other but working. I work from home usually about half day, and usually spend the other half of the day online at my studio up at Columbia. And when I'm not in front of a computer, I am online with my Treo.

Geeksugar: And Peter - what's your "hours online" guess?
Peter: I suppose I'm always online in one way or another from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to bed. If I'm out I'm connected with my Treo and checking emails or monitoring things with that. Not that I can’t unplug if I need to, but I don’t see my work as this completely separate part of my life I need to escape from.

Geeksugar: To go a little bigger - what do you each think is your greatest contribution to your field? Don’t be modest.
Pete: Well, I've been blogging for a long time and I think I've had an effect on both blogging and technology journalism. How important or major that impact might be is for others to judge.
Jill: My goal is to bring the worlds of design and sustainability together, and I think I’ve been successful in this regard. I think people are finally starting to realize that sustainability is a design issue. You can see it in that most of the “green” organizations are focusing more on design and aesthetic presentation now, and most design and architecture magazines are focusing more on sustainability as well. Essentially, I'm an evangelist for thoughtful, sustainable design...
Peter: I just want Engadget to be a site that people want to read. That they feel like is a must-read.

Geeksugar: How did you two meet?
Peter: We met in San Francisco in late 1998 in the dot com boom, though neither of us worked in tech at the time. I was broke and had a job doing media planning at an ad agency. I was really bad at it - my boss thought I was incompetent. It turned out the job was lots of numbers and I was a poor fit for it.
Jill: I worked in a number of dot coms - doing things like HTML support, graphic design, and then I got a job as a web designer at a marketing agency.
Peter: I had a friend at the ad agency who was friends with someone I'd gone to high school with. We all went for drinks one day after work and my friend's friend had invited her friend Jill to come out with us.

Geeksugar: And clearly now you have found a perfect match…
Peter: You could say that!

Geeksugar: Would you describe yourselves as "geeks"?
Peter: Yes and no. In a lot of ways we're not typical geeks at all.
Jill: Yeah, I don't think we fall into the traditional definition.
Peter: I don't think "geek" is a pejorative term at all. Obviously I love gadgets and tech - I'm the kind of guy who likes to geek out by installing Ubuntu on old PCs - but we're also really into design and art and fashion and music. It’s just that we think tech is as important and as cool as all that other stuff, too.
Jill: I like being really nerdy about building materials!

Geeksugar: Why do you think the tech world is so important/interesting right now?
Peter: It seems like technology is driving a lot of cultural, social, and now even political change. It's hard to separate tech out from everything else. Some people are scared by that, but I think it's awesome how technology enables our lives – I know how cliché it sounds, but I know tons of people who are doing what they love now and that's because of the internet or because of some other technology. I thought I’d spend my life locked up in a cubicle somewhere doing a job I hated.

Geeksugar: And instead?
Peter: I more or less get to do what I want, in a sense. I have complete editorial freedom with Engadget, and because of the nature of the job I can work from wherever I want as long as I have broadband. Right now it's a good time to be creative - you can just follow your interests and build businesses around them.

Geeksugar: So for the fluffy part - tell me what you love about one another...
Peter: Jill is really driven and ambitious and smart. It'd be hard to for me date someone who wasn't always working on amazing projects.
Jill: Peter is witty and very funny - he is fabulous at making me crack up - even when I am in a foul mood. He is the only person in the world able to make me laugh when I am upset.

Geeksugar: So what are your Valentine's Day plans?
Jill: Peter? Do we have any?
Peter: Not yet... depends on how busy Jill is with school!
Jill: I'm sure Peter will come up with something fabulous, right Pete?
Peter: Perhaps I just want to lull you into thinking I have nothing planned. I did blow it out for your birthday, remember?
Jill: He did indeed - he's good like that. He rented one of those double decker tourist buses and gave all of my friends a tour of Manhattan - with vegan cupcakes. How’s that for geeky & sweet?

Geeksugar: This one is probably harder for Peter given the nature of his daily duties, but what are a few gadgets you both want right now?
Peter: I want a Vista Media Center with CableCARD support so I can throw out this awful Time Warner Cable DVR. Plus I'd like Palm to improve the Treo.
Jill: My stuff is all more blue sky. I want a sunlight transport device so I can brighten up my dim Manhattan apartment and an electric car!

Geeksugar: What about favorite websites other than your own, or each other's?
Peter: Fimoculous, PSFK, waxy, lifeiscarbon, BuzzFeed, TheSimpleMission, and Mashable.
Jill: I can never get enough of cute overload and Overheard in New York. Of course I read a lot of design websites everyday: archinect, bldgblog, core77, treehugger, mocoloco, etc..

Geeksugar: Who makes the final decisions about big ticket gadgets at home?
Jill: Peter because mostly - I just don't care except when it comes to lighting or home décor.
Peter: I did just buy a 37-inch TV and I think Jill found out when she saw it in the apartment.
Jill: Pete and I endlessly debate HDTV, because I don't really see the point of the technology.
Peter: Even HD isn't enough for me. I want Ultra HD
Jill: I care about the REAL WORLD, Peter, not TV.
Peter: Cool, you can just go for a walk while I watch Lost in HD.
Jill: Well, if we're talking about Lost, then I'll stay in and watch it with you - HD or no.

The Green and Geeky Life of Jill Fehrenbacher

GeekSugar — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 05:00:59 -0700

Look what I found in this month's issue of Domino! It's geeksugar favorite eco blogger Jill Fehrenbacher! We swooned over the perfect geeky coupling of Jill and Engadget's Peter Rojas last year, and now, the happily-married Inhabitat founder has been profiled in Domino's ongoing "My Green Life" series - which shows a day in the life of an eco-conscious person.

Jill is a green goddess, but what I love about her is her love of and dependence on tech, which often comes through on her blog. In this column, she admits to fantasizing over a MacBook Air, and points us to some awesome websites: Project Earth Day (a green fashion competition) and Freeplay Energy (eco-friendly gadgets).

Adorable, cool, and intelligent - Jill Fehrenbacher is my eco/green/techie idol!

Geeky Girl We Love: Nandini Maheshwari

GeekSugar — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 23:30:00 -0800

Last month we featured some of the cutest geeky couples and bachelors in the blogoshere, which left many of you wondering - what about the women? Fear not my fine friends, we were just saving the best for last. March is women's history month so I figured there was no better way to celebrate than to highlight some of the smartest, most creative and successful women on the internet. First up, Nandini Maheshwari, editor of Born Rich, a site that makes the stuff of MTV's Cribs look like Salvation Army rejects, and co-founder of the Instablogs Network in India. While Nandini spends her days exposing the glamorous gadgets and accessories of the insanely wealthy, she's a smart, down-to-earth commerce graduate that's championing the geeky girls online movement. Her pick for sexiest geek in the world? Her hubby of course! read more

Geeksugar: So clearly you keep very busy as a blogger, but what are some of your other hobbies?
Nandini: Reading - I am more into magazines and non-fictional stuff. I love to indulge in adventure sports, watching movies (I would like to admit here, I just hate watching war movies, no matter how good they are) and I love to enjoy almost every good thing in life.

Geeksugar: This is my favorite question to ask bloggers - how many hours are you online everyday?
Nandini: I'm online for some 10- 12 hrs on an average.

Geeksugar: Your first computer was a ...
Nandini: My first computer was a XT machine, and I remember playing Chess and Prince of Persia on it.

Geeksugar: Born Rich is filled with amazingly decedent gadgets and luxuries that seem out of everyone's price range are there any luxurious things you've featured that you really want?
Nandini: Diamond-Studded Ego-lifestyle notebook, the Multimedia RUF Cinema bed, and the Calspas Luxurious Bath Tubs With 42" Plasma TV.

Geeksugar: Are there any items you featured that you ended up buying?
Nandini: Yes, I have a passion for mobile phones. So, I ended up buying almost every one of the Nokia N-series.

Geeksugar: How many blogs are in your RSS reader?
Nandini: I have some 200 odd blogs in my RSS reader at present.

Geeksugar: Bloggers have the fortune and misfortune of having unorthodox schedules. Can you describe what a typical day is like?
Nandini: The alarm goes off at 7:00 am, but it's only music to my ears and motivates me to sleep some more. I wake up around half an hour later with my husband bringing morning tea and my laptop. I go through my mails, new comments on my blogs and check out few feeds while sipping my tea. Start forming mental checklist and go over my "To Do List" again and decide what to do for the day (this changes throughout the morning). My husband, Ankit goes to work before me, so I prepare our lunch, watch few morning shows, and scan through my RSS feeds again.

After I head to the office I catch up and eventually drag Ankit from his PC to the lunch table (this happens everyday without fail). Lunch is a great place to bounce new ideas. Also meet few guys around the office. Then I start to panic by evening, since I have done everything except any blogging. But miracles happen and by night I have written around 6-8 posts. Leave office by 8:00 pm and prepare dinner. I welcome Ankit at the door and catch up on the day that he had with me. Catching up is followed by dinner/sitcoms/friends/being a good wife. I check stats, email and back-links again before saying goodnight which is around 12:30 am in the night. Have to drag Ankit again from his laptop to get some sleep.

Geeksugar: Who do you think are the top 5 sexiest male geeks in the world?
Nandini: Oh, that's a sweet one…

Ankit (my husband), he's is a Super Geek and one of the cutest guys I have always met. And, I am not saying this just for the heck of it! Whatever I have achieved would not have been possible without his support that, I often need whenever I am on writer's block or just low at work. He is also full of new ideas.
Charlie White - editor at Gizmodo. I love his blogging, his anchoring on his Sirius Coolness Roundup Show and I love his humble and modest nature too! I have told him this too and telling you now…I would like to make a list of "I have" just like he did…it's another thing that my list won't be half as impressive as his…no exaggerations!
Graham Bell - from TreeHugger. He looks so cute … and his achievements....don't think I need to say! He has led to the term Eco-Geek..in true sense.
Kevin Ross: He is cute too! and I love wasting my time on Digg everyday and watching his diggnation.
Peter Rojas - editor of Engagdet : He single handedly brought Engadget to a super gadget blog.

Geeksugar: Who do you think are the top 5 sexiest female geeks in the world?
Nandini: That would be...

Judie Hughes of the Gear Diary will always be the first one! She is just so amazing as a woman and as a blogger. She have a way with words…wish I would have learned the same vocabulary she had!
Katie Lee - the shiny editor of ShinyShiny
Amanda Congdon - Though no longer with RocketBoom she was kind of a pioneer in video podcasting.
Marissa Ann Mayer - the Vice President of Google - a true example of beauty with brains.
The beautiful and chic editor of geeksugar. I am sure she is responsible for all of the male audience on geeksugar.

Geeksugar: Oh, you make me blush! Who is the only blogger you admire the most?
Nandini: Oh, that's a tough one…I admire so many! As I have to name just one…I will go by the one I took inspiration from for BornRich – Deidre Woollard of Luxist.

Geeksugar: How do you feel about being called a "geek"?
Nandini: I love it! Geek is in.

Geeksugar: What is your goal for BornRich and the Instablogs Network?
Nandini: I want Bornich to be the best luxury blog in the world, and reach out and entertain my audience more in different ways. Instablogs Network's new version "Instablogs Community" has received a tremendous response. Now we are working on our next version where we could truly be an online newspaper by getting into localized blogging as well. We are also working on our own Ad server to help our bloggers monetize their work more.