Local tech news in a compact, digital format. Apple Swap Meet Next Weekend It's coming! The Houston Area Apple Users Group semi-annual swap meet is happening next weekend, January 26th at the UH Hilton. Please check the HAAUG site for registration information and fees. Good luck finding that Apple Newton or Lisa you've been looking for! Sprint Nextel To Close 35 Retail Stores In Houston From the Houston Business Journal come this interesting news......

::NetSquared Meet Up: Careflash:: Ever wonder who the rowdy group in the back room at Stag's Head is every 2nd Tuesday of the month? We did, too. So last month we barged in. Ok, we were invited. And we found out where all the big hearted techies have been hiding, at the NetSquared Meetup! The mission of Net2 is to spur responsible adoption of social web tools by social benefit organizations. There's a whole new......

::Social Media & Web 2.0 Happy Hour:: Do you spend more time on Facebook than you do reading a book? Do your sentences end with, "I'm SO Twittering that."? Do you scour the internet begging for invites to Beta testing of new sites? You're not alone. And there is help and support for people like you. Join your kind tonight at Sonoma Wine Bar as Houston's Social Media Community celebrates the season at the Houston......

It’s a slow week. So slow in fact, that the big release of the day just might be the Spice Girls' Greatest Hits CD. We'll be rooting for Scary Spice on Dancing with the Stars tonight, but we've decided to highlight some other musical imports for now. Might we suggest the perfect holiday gift for the music nerd in your life? The Brit Box: U.K. Indie, Shoegaze, and Brit Pop Gems of the Last Millennium......

So, short of some kind of miracle — we're not sure exactly what kind, but we're thinking maybe a midnight ghostly visit to Weingarten Realty CEO Drew Alexander, a la A Christmas Carol — the north section of the River Oaks Shopping Center will be coming down in the next few days, to be replaced with a new retail strip anchored by a Barnes & Noble megastore. And in case you've forgotten, B&N's moving into......

While SFist cringed at the fatal dose of crime littering the Bay Area, it found solace in Hillary Clinton's San Francisco campaign headquarters opening, which featured loads of exposed mammary glands. In other news, SF Taxi Commission ruled that Satan's cab must keep its (in)famous medallion number, 666; and in an un-fashion-forward frenzy, San Francisco Fashion Week (chortle) bars bloggers from covering and getting smashed at their shows and parties, respectively. Also, they found a......

85-year-old Houston icon Marvin Zindler announced yesterday on KTRK that he is suffering from pancreatic cancer. Marvin had endeared himself to us long before we read about the fur-lined handcuffs he carried around for arresting ladies when he was a police officer, and this news was upsetting for lots of people - including us. Yesterday, he spoke to ABC 13 viewers with his doctor about his previous health battles and the one he's about to......

Houston-area congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul will appear on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report tonight. Paul has quickly distinguished himself from other Republican candidates with his libertarian views and his now infamous exchange with Rudy Giuliani in a debate last month. Paul asserted that the 9/11 attacks were triggered by American involvement in the Middle East, to which Giuliani replied, "That's an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of September 11,......

Seattlest has a talk with the photographer from last week's "Segway Mom" and then experiences some dissension in the ranks over the question of wine vs. beer. It's not West Side Story, but about as close as they'll get. They're also still waiting on some inbox relief after a spammer is arrested. As Chicagoist counts down the days to its third anniversary party, they found all-organic pizza to be underwhelming amidst the hoopla, tried......

College students--and now everyone else--look people up on Facebook. Fourteen year olds with too much time on their hands do it on Myspace. And even if you have neither of these particular habits, readers, you know you do it. Good news: you're not alone. Yes, Houston, every one else googles their dates too. Back in the day, of course, you actually had to take on faith such important facts as job, marital status (hey, don't......

Most music interviews focus on musicians who have already made the big time. Here, we want to do something different, and also look at artists at the beginning of their career. Micah Walker, lead singer on Houston’s Versecity, is an example of that. Versecity plays at Fitzgerald’s this Saturday night, with fellow Houston artists Brains for Dinner, Heptic Skeptic, Concerta Circus, and Stuck Lucky. What's behind the band's name? We were all from the university......

Valentine's Day is only a few days away, and we here across the Gothamist network wanted to express would like to tell you, in the spirit of the holiday, just how much we love you, our readers. Don't let it get to your heads, though. There are plenty of things we love, you included. Just be glad you're not amongst the things we hate. SFist saw their beloved mayor enter rehab, and they loved the......

Oh, the Chronicle, our arbiter of pop culture. How do we know something's cool? Why, we see it in the Arts section. (Which is now actually like a section with a big star on it? Hm.) What new and exciting phenomenon will they educate you on today? Breaking news: Young men play a newfangled video game called World of Warcraft. No offense, of course, is meant to the guest writer responsible for the well-written account......

Along with the requisite Facebook account, MySpace page (poor, misguided children) that have become must-have accessories for highschool-aged kids, more and more students won't start their fall without a visit to one of a host of websites that allow them to grade their teachers. Sites like ratemyteachers.com, the biggest example of the genre, allow students at high schools (including local Clear Creek and Clear Lake highs, were the site is in widespread use) to rate......