Just over 18-months ago, I spoke at the Digital Sports Summit in Melbourne regarding Social media and sports. Also speaking at that conference were Jeremie McPeak from NBA’s Phoenix Suns and Collingwood’s Harry O’Brien. Attending were numerous journalists -especially those who worked online.

Not surprisingly, a lot has changed since then. We now employ a Social Media manager at the Perth Wildcats as do most major sporting clubs. Portals like Facebook and Twitter are key vehicles for engagement in our organisation.

However, it is the change on the other side of the fence -journalists and news agencies – that deserves some comment.

I’ve trialled quite a few programs and options to get my Outlook Notes on to my Android phone with limited success.

One common option is to sync the phone to your computer to your phone using USB or WiFi. The problem I had with this option was that the USB was manual and apart from linking notes, there really was no need for me to connect my phone to my computer via USB.

Three Perth Wildcats named in Boomers training squad:

1. Adam Gibson (Gold Coast Blaze)
2. Damian Martin (Perth Wildcats)
3. Jason Cadee (Gold Coast Blaze)
4. Ben Madgen (Sydney Kings)
5. Clint Steindl (St Mary’s College US)
6. Daniel Dillon (Cairns Taipans)
7. Peter Crawford (Townsville Crocodiles)
8. David Barlow (CAI Zaragoza Spain)
9. Stephen Weigh (Adelaide 36ers)
10. Daniel Kickert (PGE Turow Poland)
11. Jesse Wagstaff (Perth Wildcats)
12. Luke Nevill (Triumph Lyubertsy Russia)
13. Julian Khazzouh (Sydney Kings)
14. Matt Knight (Perth Wildcats)
15. Anatoly Bose (Nicholls State University US)
16. Aron Baynes (EWE Basket Oldenburg Germany).

NZ – Currently NZ lead the league with 16 wins and three losses – 9 games left. Even if they lose all nine games they will still finish with 16 wins.

Given Perth, Townsville and Cairns are on 13, 12 and 11 wins currently, it seems a mathematical probability that a minimum of 16 wins will be required to make the top four – and the playoffs.

PERTH – For Perth, this means splitting the remaining six games – of which three are at home (Adelaide, Cairns and Gold Coast) and three away (NZ, Townsville and Cairns). All three away games are against teams in the top four as well as one home game against Cairns.

Today I unpacked the new Kindle. This is the international version that was announced over Christmas but only delivered in the New Year.

It retails for around $180 dollars. A lot cheaper than the iPad but it does a lot less.

It’s primarily a book reader and if you’re buying it for anything else you will be dissapointed. It also does newsletters and magazines reasonably well. I susbcribe to the Harvard Business Review and the Kindle Edition is reasonably well presented, much cheaper and delivered in real time.

Well the circus has left town and in many ways we are the better for it.

The Melbourne Tigers experiment of four bigs and the shuffle offence didn’t work for the first part of the season winning two of eleven games. But with Corey Homicide settled and the focus on shuffle offence replaced with an emphasis on the zone defence they’ve won their last three in a row.

As per NBL rules all visiting teams have access to the game venue for an hour on game day to shoot-around. Out of respect for the team, we limit or eliminate any Wildcats staff from the venue to give them the privacy to prepare for the game.

We decided to trek down for an overnighter on the Bibbulmun track. As the last hike ended at the Brookton Hwy. We decided to continue the walk south to the Canning Hut.

The entry point is on the Brookton Hwy about 79 kms from Brookton. There is some parking availability off the highway for those that wish to park and hike. I have done this at numerous points along the Bibbulmun track and have yet to have my car vandalised.

If you’re trying to convert a song or mp3 file in iTunes to a ringtone on your iPhone 4, it’s actually quite easy.

I’m doing this on a PC, I’m sure it’s very similar on a Mac

First select the tune you wish to convert.

Right click and choose Get Info. Then go to the Options tab on this pop-up window (see image).

You will now need to set the length of your ringtone by entering a value in the Stop Time field. Best to choose under a minute both for length and size of the file. Once done press OK.

Some basketball links for the upcoming season:

• Aussie Hoops – Twitter Link – http://twitter.com/CatsGM/basketball
• NBL Media Guide – http://www.nbl.com.au/nbl-hq/media/media-guide/
• Team by Team Previews – http://www.nbl.com.au/news/article/2010/october/team-by-team-season-previews/
• New Rules in the NBL this season – http://www.nbl.com.au/news/article/2010/april/new-rules-for-nbl-in-201011-1/
• NBL on OneHD TV Schedule – http://www.nbl.com.au/news/article/2010/october/nbl-releases-tv-schedule-for-first-six-rounds/

Date Home Team Away Team Telecast – Perth Times

• Fri 15 Oct 2010 Melbourne V Sydney LIVE 1700
• Sun 17 Oct 2010 Adelaide V Perth LIVE 1400
• Wed 20 Oct 2010 New Zealand V Perth LIVE 1430
• Fri 22 Oct 2010 Wollongong V Townsville LIVE 1700

As we commence our 2010/11 iiNET NBL championship season, Australian basketball fans have to be somewhat grateful to the global economy and in particular the PIGS.

That grouping of failing nations namely Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain have long been the holy grail of basketball players who weren’t quite NBA ready but talented enough to earn big dollars in Europe.

But with the unfortunate decline of these four nations and other smaller European economies, many of those basketball markets are no longer as attractive.