Even if you’re not a heavy Mac user (like we are at Strands), you’ve probably heard of the Maccast podcast.   If you haven’t, you should totally check it out.

Adam Christianson has been at it for years…tracking down the best and latest Apple news, and talking about it on his show.

But what about Adam Christianson the person.   The man behind the show.   Well, you can follow him on Strands and find out.

Maccast on Strands

I’ve been paying attention to the music Adam has been listening to lately and it’s a pretty awesome mix of stuff.

Last songs listened to:

Jack Johnson - Losing Hope

Billy Joel - When in Rome

The White Stripes - In the Cold Cold Night

I’m personally a Jack Johnson fan, so by filtering Adam’s Strand and just viewing his music, I know that our tastes are similar.   I dig what he talks about on his show, and I’m an avid Apple user…but the guy behind the show has some pretty interesting taste.

Follow Adam on Strands!

Since being on Strands, I’ve found and gotten to follow some cool people.

One of those uber cool people is Daynah.

She’s always up to something cool, and shares great stuff with our community. Here are some recent things she’s shared on Strands:

Last tweet:

The Crazy Mouth iPhone App will keep the twins entertained though! I use it on my newphew all the time! heh http://bit.ly/qBM2

Last video:

Last bookmark:

YourFonts - Generate Your Own Fonts Online

That’s a cool iPhone app, a Turkey video, and a font site. Sweet! Keep up the Strand sharin’ Daynah, you rule!

You can follow Daynah on Strands or check out her blog http://php-princess.net/blog/

Special thanks to Kyle for reaching out to non-geeks about Strands and Technology, he won the second prize in the Operation mainSTREAM contest which was 2 iPod Touches.   One for him and one for a friend.  Congrats!

Kyle's mainSTREAM

You can follow Kyle on Strands here.

We say it a lot here at Strands, and it’s our “tagline” of sorts.   But it’s not just a tagline, it is the true crux of what we’re all about.   We are working on and giving you tools to discover things, share things, and find new things based on people’s tastes.

Today I experienced a perfect example of Strands potential and example of real People Powered Discovery.

So I was chillin out on the lovesack last night at the house in SF where a few of us Strands folk live, and I was watching Letterman kind of.  I was half paying attention.   Then he announced the music act for the night and my ears perked up.   It was an artist named Sia that I had never heard of.   The song she was playing “Soon we’ll be Found” was remarkable…as was her voice.    I went right to the iTunes store and bought her album “Some People have Real Problems”.

Personally, when I discover a new artist or song that I really like, I play the crap out of their stuff.   iPod, computer, wherever.

Someone that follows me on Strands picked up on the new music taste of mine and checked out the song.   She dug it too:

As you know, Kathleen aka KathleenLD was the big winner of our Operation mainSTREAM contest and will be getting 2 Macbook Airs.   One for her and one for a nongeek friend or family member.

She’s a PC user though and will be making the big switch, how exciting!!!

I made the switch about 2 years ago and will never look back.   For me, macs made everything I do online way more simple.

Did you switch?  Have any tips for Kathleen?  Drop em in the comments!

From Kathleen’s Blog:

Have any of you made the transition from PC to Mac recently? What were some of the things that surprised you? What took you a while to figure out? (tell me so I don’t have to spend a while trying to figure it out too). Send all tips and hints my way!

Today we’ve released a pretty awesome upgrade to how you can search on Strands.com

You will now be able to:
- Search strictly within your network
- Search by category (Blogs and Notes, Bookmarks, Videos, etc) within your network
- Sort network results by most recent, most commented, and highest rated

Why is this important?

A lot of people search on Google and never get past the first 2 pages, because the results are not relevant to them.    Strands search now makes shared items even more relevant by finding what you’re looking for, and only from the people you care about and follow if you choose.

By sorting these results, you can dig deeper and make the results even more relevant.

Not only that but you can filter your search by the type of stuff you’re looking for. Just want videos? Go for it. It doesn’t matter what service someone uses to share videos, you’ll pick them all up. We know that not everyone uses YouTube for videos, and use other sites like Hulu to express their tastes. And that’s what makes Strands rad.

We’re taking a really unique approach to things with Strands, and with your help we’re getting better and better every single day.

Great work team!!!

Follow Gubatron’s tastes on Strands.

Check out his original post!

Sarah and Matthew Gray

The official Strands twins!  It’s so awesome seeing them grow up so fast.   Next week they’ll be thumbs downing my goofy posts. (via proud papa louis gray)

So last week we released the Strands optimized iPhone/Touch mobile site and you’ve given us some awesome awesome feedback.

Thank you for that.

More importantly, we’ve been using it like crazy too.   We “eat our own dog food”, which basically means we use Strands because we love it.   Not because we have too.   I’m just glad that I don’t have to eat real dog food, because well…yeah.

Anyways, our super fast awesome award winning fantastically super mobile team released some update flava for your ears….errrr, iPhone.

This release includes:

- Share Note post from mobile app
- Footer (via mobile) for comments posted from mobile
- Persistent authentication - no pain of login-closing browsing window and login again
- Contacts list ordered alphabetically for easy browsing
- Inbox notifications (each for #Post Reactions, #Shared Items and # Notifications)
- Bug fixes

My favorite is the share a note feature at the top left.   Now I can leave notes on the go.   w00t w00t!

Great part about having web apps live on the web is that we can make updates like whoah and you don’t have to install anything.   But hey some of you like installing things…so stay tuned.

Be sure to check out http://m.strands.com

Let us know what you think and as always send us feedback.   For the iPhone stuff, send it to: iphone @ strands.com

The Web 2.0 Summit is in the middle of its last day here in San Francisco.   It’s a great crowd, tons of cool people like Om Malik, Kevin Rose, Michael Arrington, Al Gore, and Lance Armstrong.

But what is it?  What service did it provide to the tech community and the world at large?

Quite a bit actually.

Whenever the economic climate gets rough, the tech community gets looked at from the outside as disposable.  Something unecessary.   The 90’s bubble gets brought up.  But guess what, innovation in technology is here to stay, and a lot of talented people who have dedicated their lives, careers, and businesses to developing for the web and desktop are here in San Francisco.

Not only are they here, but they’re showing and speaking about how none of this is going away.   People like Lance Armstrong have embraced social media and the web as a way to spread the message and provide services and support to people.   His site LiveStrong.com is a perfect example of that.

Another perfect, and equally exciting example is the newly launched Change.gov.

Technology innovation, web startups and applications are here to stay.    Some of the smartest people in the world have agreed that communication, information sharing, and entertainments future lies in the hands of the interwebs.

And the interwebs are in good hands.    A lot of those hands are here in San Francisco this week, but not all of them.    Silicon Valley is worldwide.   It’s a frame of mind and acceptance of a changing atmosphere and acceptance of the now and not just talk about the future.

Please continue to do your part by being a technology evangelist in your own community, be it church, school, work, or with your family.

Just because you’re not in San Francisco today or ever, doesn’t mean you’re not a huge part of a greater whole.

(photo by jd lasica)