Rumor: Nintendo Wii Beta Testing from Sept. 18th - Oct. 23rd

According to a forum post over at macrumors.com, a user writes that the Nintendo Wii beta testing for Wii Connect 24, the Virtual Console and “other” online features begins next Monday, September 18th, and runs through October 23rd.

Beta testing for the Wii starts Sept 18th - Oct. 23rd so don’t expect the system to release prior to that. The beta test covers Wii Connect 24, the Virtual Console and “other” online features.. When I beta tested the DS wifi we did that for almost three months until Nintendo Wi Fi was launched but that covered three different games. I guess the system could launch but then the above features won’t be up and running if it did. So hope that helps in narrowing down the date.

DEXTERITY from macrumors.com

I would assume that beta testing for the WiiConnect24 and the Virtual Console would be long underway by now, and I also agree with destructoid.com which says that considering the fact that 3rd party games won’t include online play until ‘07, this would not be an issue with a possible early launch.

Take this information as you will.

Look for concrete information coming your way on Thursday & Friday of this week, when the Nintendo Wii price and release date are finally revealed.

Joystiq fires Robert Summa over post, Summa responds and joins Destructoid

Robert Summa responds to being fired by Joystiq.

Anyway, Joystiq knew the news (I told them) and they knew I was posting a note to let readers know to come back later. If they, at any point, thought I was sensationalizing things or was not in line with their “mission,” then they had an entire day to edit or take down the note. But, of course, they left it up. Why?

Destructoid was smart enough to bring is Robert Summa as soon as he was let go.

Earlier in the day on Thursday, Robert Summa ran a post on Joystiq entitled “Major next-gen console news coming tonight“. The post said that at 12:01am Joystiq would run a feature with next-gen console news which they couldn’t reveal until then. This particular post got a lot of attention and was hyped all over the net. It ended up with slightly over 1000 comments.

At 12:01 Robert Summa posted the promised news, which basically was that IBM has been shipping their Broadway chip for Nintendo’s Wii console since July. He also speculated that while this was great news, the release date of the Wii might be much sooner than originally though.

As it turns out a lot of readers were disappointed with the news, as they were expecting much much more. If you want to read through some of the comments you can see that some people were expecting ridiculous news, such as the Nintendo Wii being available for sale the next day, or the PS3 canceled. Numerous times throughout the night Robert Summa posted hints and debunked crazy ideas.

Soon after the feature started to receive negative attention, the feature was updated with “toned down language throughout”, which basically means they took any fun and interesting speculation out of it. Eventually, Joystiq ended up issuing a public apology, and firing Robert.

In their apology, Joystiq throws Robert Summa under the bus, basically saying that they agree with the readers.

We believe that Joystiq overreacted, and didn’t know how to deal with the negative attention. They should have not fired Robert and they did just to save face, as they were well aware of the contents of the upcoming feature, and still allowed the whole event to take place.

If you enjoy reading Robert Summa’s posts, you can now read them over at his new home destructoid.com

Free Links Friday - Think Popurls, Reddit but on Fridays!

Everyone loves to visit websites that provide interesting links. On top of that, most people love to read top 10 lists and those top 10 lists always appear on the top of the interesting link pages! Well Free Links Friday is a website that took both of those concepts and combined them into one. Every Friday there is a list of 10 or more interesting links that users view, rate, and comment.

The links are mostly focused on technology (obviously!) and provide quick reviews on websites kind of like this one. There is more of a focus on useful and unique websites that provide an interesting viewing experience. There is a nice mix of review sites, new concepts, and tutorials posted each Friday. A cool picture can always sneak into the top 10 just like the popular link site Reddit.

This site really brings a nice sense of community since all the links that are in the top 10 are actually submitted by the users. Then Jason Murphy, a seasoned Internet Marketing SEO Master in the Las Vegas area, chooses his 10 favorite links. What can make each Friday interesting is the fact that sometimes Jason makes all the links fit under a certain theme. This past week, the theme was career and job oriented. There were plenty of interesting sites, and forums that focused on jobs and careers that proved to be both useful and interesting.

If you are an avid Digg, Reddit, Popurls user, than make sure you head over to Free Links Friday every Friday. From my personal experience of being an avid Digg, Reddit, and Popurls user, Free Links Friday has provided me with a ton of links I did not see on the other popular sites.

Cheap Stingy Bargains - A Great Way To Save Money on the Internet

In today’s world, and especially on the Internet, people will always try to find ways to save money. It his human nature to want to be efficient with hard money earned. Instead of going to the movies, bittorrent users will simply download the movie, the same method is also used for music. Cheap Stingy Bargains allows you to save money in a variety of ways, and unlike some other methods, legally!

Cheap Stingy Bargains focuses on coupons, Dell coupons and deals, Cheap Ipods, Freebies, and the community forum. This website has archives since April of 2004 and provides users with a wealth of information.

One of the first features you notice when you first visit Cheap Stingy Bargains is the free newsletter. The newsletter sends you the top coupons and bargains to the email address of your choice. This way you can keep track of all the money saving opportunities in a manageable and organized manner.

Then you get to the blog where the latest deals are mentioned and outlined for you. In this section you receive a quick description of the product, and the deal that is being offered. This blog is updated EXTREMELY often and is the type of blog that you check 10 times a day a la Gizmodo.

My favorite feature of the entire website is the forums. What makes the forums so great is the community behind it. The thought that everyone contributing to the content is trying to help others is fantastic. There are constant posts mentioning deals and opportunities and thus, there are constant watchers. The most active section of the forum is the freebies, and rightfully so. There are numerous posts each day about free items you can receive online; some items from the previous days include free hats, calendars, dusters, stickers, and t-shirts.

Overall Cheap Stingy Bargains provides another easy to use method to save money and receive free stuff. This is the type of site you need to check every few hours every day just to see what kind of stuff you can get. After seeing this site the first time, I knew I would become a frequent visitor.

Driver’s Education: What used to be offline, is now online

Remember when you were a teenager and you had to embark on the wonderful journey of learning how to drive? How about Drivers Education and the hassle of learning all the rules and regulations? Well back when we were at the stage of our life we had to do things in the classroom and on the road. Those days are gone with the wave of improved technology on the Internet. Driver Education Online Training allows you and your kid to work on, and learn the art of driving online.

The major benefit of learning the basics of driving online is the flexibility. If you or your child has a hectic schedule, then you can schedule when you learn instead of being at the mercy of the instructor of the classroom. This is a great way to save resources such as time and money. The Drivers Education course in Texas, Oklahoma, California, Minnesota and Colorado courses are state approved.

The Driver Education Online website not only provides driver’s education, but it also supplies users with a Traffic School. The traffic school is approved in the majority of states.

I wish I had something like this back when I was learning how to drive. Every time I was in my class at school it was a complete waste of time. Who needs a professor when you can simply read and use an interactive course? Using drivers ed online is a great way to utilize the new technology that is provided to us in today’s world.

Midnight Inbox Reviewed

Here is one of the first reviews on the upcoming “Midnight Inbox” application for Mac OS X Tiger. Currently in open beta, Midnight Inbox a complete GTD solution for OS X.

The current beta is shaky and has a some issues, but still worth checking out.

The interface is not unlike many other applications for OS X. Upon inspection you can see similarities between it and iTunes and Mail. So using Midnight Inbox follows most of the rules you are used to with the applications that you already have.

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At the very least, Midnight Inbox is worth a look if you are looking into pulling all of your “stuff” together in one area to help you focus on specific projects during a specific time period.

Read the complete review here

Midnight Beep Softworks is working very hard to have Midnight Inbox released by 9/30/06 or sooner.

Source (Digg)