TR Out Loud - November 28, 2008

Sonja Thompson: Greetings, TechRepublic folks. As you can see, I'm not in the recording studio today, because I've been ill. And the best thing I could do for my co-workers was to stay far away from the office.

So, I'm sure that you're wondering, "Why, since you're sick and it's a holiday -- Thanksgiving -- in the United States, am I here doing the show?" Well, last week, if you remember, I promised everyone that I'd do a little something for the show, and you were forewarned that it might be a little different.

I'm Sonja Thompson, and this is TROLOV -- or TR Out Loud on Video -- for November 28th, 2008.

Okay, so how about those top five discussions of the week? Nope. I'm not going to talk about them. The five posts that I am going to talk about are very fitting for the holiday season.

#1. "Be thankful: Five great things about working in IT," which was written by Editor in Chief Jason Hiner as a Sanity Check post.

#2. "What's the biggest Tech Turkey of all time?" by Section Editor John Sheesley. Be sure to take the poll at the end of this post.

#3. "What to do when there's no one at the office? And a Happy Thanksgiving message." From Joe Rosberg (aka Maxwell Edison), who is the Host of the User Support blog.

#4. "Geekend Thankgiving roudup," by TechRepublic's Trivia Geek, Jay Garmon.

And the 5th post, while not seasonal, was quite enjoyable: "TR's Virtual Happy Hour 11/26/08 - Open for business," started by TR member cmiller5400. Even I had to pop in for a quick hot tottie.

And how about the most active members on the boards? Well, being Thanksgiving and all, it would be a shame not to highlight and give thanks to these members. Here are the top five members with the most thumbs up

Three people tied for 5th place: larry, 1bn0, and The Scummy One

#4: bwilmot

#3: tkrl26

Two people for 2nd place: willcomp and OH Smeg

And #1: Jacky Howe

And here are the five most active members on the boards:

#5: Old Mycroft

#4: Palmetto

#3: jdclyde

#2: boxfiddler

And #1: The Scummy One

Since I'm recording TROLOV from home today, I'm not able to get a little segment from Tammy. But if I was Tammy, I would talk about the Community Central newsletter and all the great feedback we've received -- new members, or at least members who haven't contributed before are sending in lots of pictures of their pets and costumes, and we LOVE it!

And I know that Tammy would also talk about the "30-Days of Thanksgiving Sweepstakes" for all you TR members in the United States. Here's the scoop -- we're giving away one $50 gift certificate a day from November 25 to December 24. Be sure to log in to TechRepublic daily to submit your entry. And in case you were wondering -- no, no purchase is necessary. I'll provide a link in the blog notes to the official rules for more details.

As I said earlier, we did receive a lot of pet pics, which I'll be sure to include in the TR Member pets pics gallery on the site, and I'll also feature one a week in upcoming episodes of TROLOV.

As for the other member submissions this week, here's a picture of some swag in action, sent in by James -- and I'm even going to attempt the last name here, but you all can see for yourselves.

We also received a swag picture from Hal 9000. He said that his new TR lanyard is now connected to a 32 GB thumb drive. And it looks MUCH better than his old Microsoft lanyard.

And here s a costume photo of lilcoll79 -- she's the one in the middle. This will make a great addition to the TR Member costume pics gallery.

As for last week's Question of the Week, submitted by TiggerTwo: "What features do you use TechRepublic for?" We received a few answers, but not nearly enough, so I'm going to keep this one open for another week. Come on, everybody -- please take a minute to answer this question by sending your response to trol@cnet.com.

The TR Pet of the Week is Max, sent in by Mike Stewart. Max is a wonderful 3-year old Golden Doodle who loves to sing.

Many thanks to James, Hal 9000, lilcoll79, Mike Stewart, and all the other members who sent in photos or comments about the show. Also, thanks to Bob Raymond for sending in an e-mail. If I've mentioned your name on today's show, please send me your mailing address and swag item of choice.

If you haven't received any free TechRepublic goodies, there's no better time than the present. Just send me an e-mail with a comment, a question of the week, an answer to the question of the week, or a photo to trol@cnet.com. We've also got a voice message that you can leave a voice message -- looking at my cheat sheet here -- (866) 414-CNET -- you'd think I've memorized it, but not -- that's (866) 414-2638. You can leave a message on our Skype ID, and our Skype ID is tr.out.loud.

Last, but certainly not least, I want to send a special THANKS to the TechRepublic community. For your engagement and contributions to TechRepublic, we are forever thankful. I'm Sonja Thompson, and this is TR Out Loud.