Posts Tagged ‘podcasting’

This month we have another great Roundtable filled with valuable information. In the show:

• Andy McCaskey will be talking with Rob May on Backupify – Backing up your Online Life
• Jeffrey Powers will be talking about ways to Podcast via your mobile device. He will be talking with Mark Smith from iPadio on their business model
• Todd Cochrane will be talking about what is new in the TechPodcasts area

GotoMeeting is the official sponsor of the Tech Podcasts Round Table you can get a free 30 day trial at www.gotomeeting.com/ techpodcasts

Free Webcam Chat at Ustream

You can Patent Podcasting?

It was an interesting week. The one thing that just seemed to be the strangest is that a company called VoloMedia decided to put a patent on Podcasting. While we’re all still trying to wrap our heads around it, I can see how this can happen. I remember years ago I heard of patent cases all around of people who didn’t really invent something clean up because there was no document on it.

Of course, the more famous story goes to the girl who invented that clip to store your sunglasses on your car’s visor. The story goes she used Bobby-pins to invent the clip. Someone else saw the idea and made an adjustment, then patented it for their own. The end result is that girl lost out on millions of $$

Yeah, this is not no visor clip and we are no little girls. Nonetheless, this is why you claim for intellectual property. You never know who might just come by to capitalize on it.

Podcast Recorder Up – Podcast Recorder Down.

I thought I had resolved my podcast recording problems, but when I went to do the show earlier in the week, they came back. It was frustrating, but I think I know what the issue is. I have a machine with 2 SATA drives that are striped for cache storage. They offer speed of caching my recordings. I thought one of them went bad, therefore I took it down to 1 drive. Now I think the SATA controller bus is bad. I run checks on the drives and they come out with no errors – but they still crash the machine if I use them.

Video Recording is Tough

I am not replacing that machine just yet because I may be cascading machines. The reason why? Well I also need to work on putting together a machine for Video production. The one I was using is just not going to cut it. To spend 4-5 hours on one-10 minute clip is not productive. The worst part is I got done with the video and reviewed it – only to find that the audio is not in sync with the video! ACK!

This is an interesting road to go down, but I am working on it. What would be great is if WebcamMax had an option to go above 640 x 480 on recording video. They don’t. I do have a copy of ArcSoft I got with my camera. Not too keen on using it, for it doesn’t record in a native format my video mixing program will allow. That means conversion before I can edit. Not fun.

What? The Website AGAIN!?!

This week I had more issues with the website. On Wednesday I upgraded to Wordpress 2.8.2. I thought the upgrade was fine, but when I went to post a new article on Friday, I noticed none of the AJAX was working. After a couple hours of deduction (because some functionality doesn’t work at all when AJAX is off, like disabling all plugins), I found the problem – a plug-in. What was interesting is I was planning to get rid of that plug-in anyway. This sealed the deal.

Local Community TV

If anyone is from the Madison area, you might know about WYOU, a local community TV station. They are faced with a new concern – broadcasting with out a community budget. The city gave this station $140k a year for production, but this year is the last they will get it simply because of economic times.

I was asked to come in with local music magazine CEO Rokker (Maximum Ink) to try and figure out what can be done in the social media realm to monitize, but stay commercial free. It’s an daunting and interesting task, but I think we threw some ideas their way and maybe this will work for all.

Long Weekend

It seems the next 3 weekends will be filled with trips and gigs. Therefore weekend production will be sparse. I still have to round up my notes for Week in Tech History. I should just record the month and be done with it for now. Yet I feel some sense of need to record only 7 at a time. I guess I feel then I am up on all the history.

Binghoo

The majority of the second half of the week was involved in watching the Microsoft – Yahoo love connection. I personally think this is a great thing for both companies and I am curious as to what Yahoo is going to do next. Although I believe that this might be a door-hold for Microsoft to seal the deal and buy out Yahoo within 2 years. I have noted that this is something Microsoft has wanted to do for a few years now, so I think that they won’t just stop because they have search engine control of Yahoo.

If Yahoo doesn’t show a promising line by next year – Expect Microhoo to be born. It will definitely speed up the process of putting Bing on Yahoo search engines…

Shout out to Andy, Todd

Both Andy McCaskey and Todd Cochrane had family issues. I have worked with both exclusively in the last year and want to give props to both for all their work they have done in the new media space. Andy has been hit hardest as he did not run his show all week. It is a great Technical podcast that runs daily – This should be required listening to all in the tech field. I know I take the 15 minutes to listen in on all the news Andy delivers.

—

Well, off to a show. We’ll talk next week.

A couple weeks ago I was interviewed by Rich Albertoni for the Isthmus. It was for the article: Plugged In: In music and spoken word, local culture is embracing the podcast era. The article came out today in the Isthmus – which is a tabliod style magazine that comes out weekly in the Madison area.

In it, Rich talks with a good friend of mine in Mike Huberty of Sunspot about how and why they podcast. Other casts included were:

• The Partially Examined Life
• Kim and Jason
• Higher Ground
• Mad Toast Live
• No, THIS Is What I Call Music
• Elimination of the Snakes

It was a great time talking with Rich. I wished he would have used more content from our discussion, including the name of the Monthly meeting – the Madison Podcasters Group – part of the group Web608, along with what Geekazine really does, but with word limit constraints of conventional papers, it is what it is.

If you want to know more about Podcasting in Madison, check it out.

Busy Week
Thanks for coming to the site. We had another great week – busy week. It was a lot of fun and really productive.

Post – HPTF

Of course, we went to Vegas the week before to cover the HP Technology Forum Expo. Andy McCaskey, Kara Karsten and myself were working hard with interviews, product reviews and more. This week was planning to get some of the videos out to you. So far, we’ve posted the HP POD video on Friday and have a lot more coming soon.

Summer of Podcasts – Podcast Carnivale

This is what really took up the majority of the week. The last month I have been working hard in getting prizes together. Now it’s time to put a contest together. That is where the Summer of Podcasts comes in. Each week, Podcasters will be giving out codewords during their shows. We will be giving away a USB wireless VGA from IOGEAR (See the video below), a WebAround Web privacy screen and a lot more. The best part is a lot of prizes are from the Podcasters themselves. Caffination is giving some Coffee, Bageltech News gave a NYC canvas print, Bwana.org is giving Team Fortress 2 for PC and a T-Shirt, SDRNews is giving a MagicJack, Techpodcasts (Geek News Central) is giving an iPod Touch: there is a lot more.

Wednesday, July 1st is when the contest starts. Check out the site before hand to which shows are giving codewords for the week.

Bands

It’s summertime, so the band ramps up in it’s playing. It’s all well and good – I enjoy taking the trips and playing the gigs. This last weekend I played 3 shows and it wasn’t even Sunday. This afternoon is one more show. Next week is just about the same.

Interview

This last week, I was interviewed on the Isthmus – a local tabloid – style paper in the Madison area. The interview will be out next week, when that happens, I will post it.

PC/Mac Smackdown

Had lunch with Cal last Wednesday. He said – “Hey, why don’t you come on the show”. I said “Sure, why not?”. Therefore, I was on the PC / Mac Smackdown with Cal Davis and Rachel Baker.

Windows 7

Pre-Orders of Windows 7 means a significant discount. I have Windows 7 RC on my Dell D600 and really like how it works. What is even more interesting – Windows 7 works a lot better on that machine than when I put on Ubuntu 9.04. Ubuntu would lag when I was working – and I mean REALLY Lag. I would litterally select something, count to 5, then watch it execute.

I am really impressed with this OS, so I am excited this is coming out.

MJ, FF and EM AND BM

It was a sad week for a lot of people. Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson took the Trifecta this week as all three passed. Ed McMahon was the sidekick of Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show, Farrah Fawcett was the poster girl of the 70’s and of course, Michael Jackson was the King of Pop. While I was never a big MJ fan, I do appreciate his music and also how he let Weird Al Yankovic to make fun of his music.

I remember when I first heard “Eat it” 0n the radio. While I never listened to “Bad”, I did have the “Even Worse” album which featured “Fat”.

*Update – Just as I published this, the Internet found out that Billy Mays – the Oxy Clean promoter (as well as Mighty Putty, Big City Sliders, Kaboom and a lot more) was found dead at his  home. He was 50. I guess it’s more than a Trifecta…

Studio

This week was a lot of work with the studio. Only problem – I can’t find my staple gun. I had it, then it dissapeared. I am not sure where it went. AUGH!

Still, the new studio is doing well. I am hoping to record the first video there by Mid-week. My bedroom is getting cluttered with PC stuff and that needs to head down to the Dungeon. The door to that room is the main reason why I call it the Dungeon.

Looking at Phones

I have to admit, I have been looking at the iPhone 3GS. The one thing I like is I have fatter fingers. I was able to use the screen a lot better than with the 3G. For instance, when I hit the “N”, on the 3G, I would always miss and hit the “M”. However, with the 3GS, I have not done anything different and seem to be hitting the “N” key and actually getting an “N”.

I still have some tests to go. I am also looking at the Palm Pre, but in order to do that, I would have to switch to Sprint, which I don’t know if I am ready to do. Android is a possibility, but I really don’t want the G1. I am waiting for the Lenovo version.

—–

That’s pretty much it this week. Keep watching the site for more info on the contest. Of course if you want to give a prize for the contest, let me know.

Day Off - Sort of
A late Ramblings this week as I decided to stay offline last week. It was a long week and I was playing all weekend. It has been a while since I last took more than 24 hours off a computer, so that is a big feat for me.

HP Tech Forum

I had a fun time talking and working with Andy McCaskey and Kara Karsten with SDRNews. We had such a blast. We also put forward the mobile interview booth rig. We call it the “MacGyver” rig. Nonetheless, it was connected to uStream and we were able to conduct a few interviews for the event. Check out all the info on the Twitter log at #HPTF.

Great to meet some new bloggers: Shane Pitman of Neowin, John Obeto of AbsoluteWindows. We had a great week along with Halley, Tom, Calvin and Rebecca from HP and Buzzcorps.

Fryes at Vegas

Also got to go to Vegas again. While we didn’t run around town as much as with CES (everything was contained in Mandalay Bay), we did venture out to go to Fryes. It’s actually my first time at Fryes and I was pretty impressed. Of course, it was Vegas, so the store has a big slot machine up in it’s store front and stacks of coins as barrier posts. The inside was very big and complete. Andy had to get a new scratch drive since the one he brought died. We got what we needed and headed back to the safe Mandalay Bay

Mandalay Bay

Wow. This is a city contained in a building. That is, if you have the money for it. My room – which I call the “Bob Newhart” room – was decked with all the amenities. TV in the bedroom and the bathroom. You can connect an external device easily and be watching a movie while soaking in the tub.

The casino area was always hoppin. There were bands both on the “Sushi Pop” and “House of Blues” stages. Restaurants all over the building. A small walk and you are at “theHotel”. They even have their own beach – where we watched the Beach Boys play a set. Well, it was a short set for me, since I had a flight to catch.

Podcast on the show floor

I had the unique opportunity to record the show from the HPTF Expo floor. It was great because I didn’t have to set up a rig, do a show, rip it down and go to another area to post. I would also like to thank Simon Calder for helping out with the show notes so I could focus on other things.

What I got out of the show

Of course, there were a lot of things I have learned from this event. I have run server rooms before, but I was a little out of touch with the current technologies. FCoE was the big one I learned about. Also building a server is a lot different than before. Greener, more powerful and reliability were the best parts.

The Keynotes were just amazing. Learning about how these big companies are working on green technologies is amazing. Dr. Michio Kaku and his views for the future were amazing. A “Smart toilet” is definitely something to get excited about.

The Weekend

I got back to Madison at 8 AM on Friday. It was a long trip (5 hours, turned into 7 due to timezone changes). What was worse was on the trip back, I was not really impressed with the airline I flew. The one thing I noticed is they were not really friendly.

An example: We flew through a couple storm fronts during the trip. Most airlines would say “This is the Captain. We are seeing some turbulance, so please remain in your seats and buckle your belts. Thank you.”

The airline I was on? Well: “Please buckle your seatbelts”.

The airline also had screens drop from above. While I would normally invite this, I was in a evening flight. I had difficulties sleeping when something like a video monitor is playing. Of course, I didn’t pack my sleeping mask. Therefore, I was stuck watching “Confessions of a Shopoholic”. While other people loved this movie, I didn’t find it as interesting.

I got home around 9 AM, in which I proceeded to collapse on the bed for a couple hours. Woke up, caught up on some work I missed during the week, then headed off to play a show. Since it was out of town, I had to pack for another night away from home.

Band Gigs

Saturday was a day of playing. We played a friends graduation, then it was up to the Dells for our regular show at the Baja bar. There were 4 different Bachelorette parties that night and they were not in the Baja at the same time. As one party left, the next one showed up. Crazy.

New Guitar

While we were in transit to the Graduation party, we stopped at a local music store. There, I found a used Acoustic / Electric guitar. I picked it up as a spare for future shows. It needs some work to it, but not much to make it ready to play out.

Lazy Sunday? Not.

Of course, the day started out with this post. A quick breakfast, then it’s getting things ready for the week. Have to work on “Week in Tech History”, then I have to figure out how to put together the new video studio. Lots of soundproofing to do.

I suppose I should get to it. Thanks again to everyone for a great week. How do you top that?

Contest has closed. Thanks to all participants.

This month we are giving away an Epson Artisan 700 printer. This is a wireless printer /scanner with CD/DVD printing capability. Here are all the options:

• 4 in 1 Print / Copy / Scan / Ultra Hi-Def Photo
• Up to 38 ppm, photos in as fast as 10 sec1
• Auto Photo Correction; preview on LCD
• Professional quality CD/DVD printing
• Wi-Fi and Ethernet networking
• Scan and restore faded photos
• Ultra Hi-Definition photos last 4x longer than photo lab prints
• Print personal note paper & greeting cards

There are three parts to this contest.

• Follow on Twitter – @geekazine
• Comment below with your twitter name
• In the next few weeks, during the Quickcast – Week in Tech History podcast (published on Mondays), I will announce the third requirement.
  • Check out the latest quickcast on this – we give you the 3rd step – a codeword to enter in twitter. #geekazine rocks.

On June 30th, we will draw a winner from all the names recieved (randomizer on the comment list). We will have other prizes as well, to be announced later.

Good Luck!

Video explaination:

Press release here: http://www.free-press-release.com/news/200905/1243448369.html

Last week in this place. I ate a lot of Brats this last weekend. Goodbye to friend ‘Supergirl’. Show Prep on Google Docs. Still need an iPhone App developer.

Take the Geekazine Podcast Survey

Try GoToAssist free for 30 days – No CC needed: GoToAssist.com/techpodcasts.
Put Your Financials into order – Edward Jones

All Show Notes are also on http://delicious.com/geekazine/88

Hotline – 608-205-4378 – geekazine (at) gmail.com

Download the show
Subscribe: Zune – iTunes – TechPodcasts – Blubrry – Stitcher

I – S.U.N. (Straight Up News)
Lenovo S12 on ION
Kumo or Bing – Microsoft in a transition
The 10 TB Disc – All your music and movies on a DVD
Win 7 Netbook Strategy Rethought
iPhone Painting on cover of New Yorker
Hulu LIVE – Dave Matthews Concert is the first
Aneesh Chopra CTO – Senate approves
Apple Accepts Eucalyptus – a win for an iPhone App
Followup on Craigslist Lawsuit
Google U Libraries
Diamond Encrusted Nokia
- Palm Pre – $549

JOTW – I don’t know what I’ve been told… Vista is the Army’s Gold….

II
Twitter TV? – TV in 140 characters or less.
The Vista Army – What are they thinking?

QOTC – Will you or do you have a Netbook?

III
Will Netbooks Fail? – Will we find a Happy Medium?
Circuit City Return Policy – Be ready to give up Junior.

Extras:
Red Bull Diet – Good for you?
The New Soundwave – Transformers USB 4 port hub

Steampunk PC

Bud Adjustable Workstation

YouTubin:
Dell Mini 10v on Ubuntu, Android and XP

CES Videos – Geekazine
CMSExpo Videos – SDRNews

The Geekazine Weekly Podcast is produced every week for distribution on Wednesdays. Feel free to contact Geekazine for more information. You can also Twitter – Plurk – Myspace – Facebook Group – FriendFeed or Digg the Podcast. The Geekazine Podcast is under a Creative Commons no-deriv license

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 46:10 — 21.1MB)

Saturday March 21, 2009 – 4pm Eastern – 1pm Pacific

We have three presentations

* United Plastics – Soundproofing the Home Theater and Podcast Studio
* OReilly Technical School – Online Certification Programs thru University of Illinois
* Geekazine Podcast – Jeff Powers Secrets of Microphone Placement and EQ

ustream.tv/channels" style="padding:2px 0px
4px;width:400px;background:#FFFFFF;display:block;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-size:10px;text-decoration:underline;text-align:center;"
target="_blank">Free TV : Ustream

Within the second Podcast of the Madison Podcaster Group, we discuss hosting of a podcast or video cast. The biggest issue in hosting is bandwidth – since a podcast can get pretty large in size.

Within, we talk about Amazon S3, Blubrry network, PodBean, Libsyn and many more services. For Video, we have YouTube, uStream, Mogolus and blip.tv.

During the recording, a phone was a little close to the recording apparatus, in which some GSM noises came into play. While it is present at times, it does not interfere with the podcast. Chalk that one up to experience….

*Next Meeting – April 7th *

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (33.4MB)

For a while I have been wondering what I should do with my old Podcasts – After all, they should be somewhere for access, but where? Today I decided to put up Episode 1 on the Internet Archive; a collective for archiving the World Wide Web.

It’s not a be-all/end-all for where my older shows are going to go. For now I will still have the old Podcasts in the exact same area as before. However, it’s always good to have another spot if you want to check out how the show has progressed. For now I will be putting up the first few shows on the site.

If you listen to the 1st show, you will notice it is called “The Show”. I didn’t have “Geekazine” just yet. It also contains the intro of my previous Podcast – “The Independant Music Podcast”. It’s a good meter of where the show has gone since October 2007.

Internet Archive is also responsible for the Wayback Machine – a website that Archives your website. I have a few websites archived there. You can see how a web site was like up to 10 years ago. This is great for figuring out if your website had a previous life.

Thanks to all involved for having a great outlet in the Internet Archive.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (20.6MB)

I started a new group a couple months ago to not only get new podcasters interested, but also have existing podcasters get together and talk about different aspects. I decided that if it’s a meeting about Podcasting, it should be a podcast itself. Therefore, we recorded the first Madison Podcasters Group Podcast.

I decided that since this isn’t really a centric item and there is a lot of good information, then it will be added to the Quickcast. It will also have it’s own group, too.

The subject of the first podcast group – how easy it is to set up and make a podcast. We talk in general about setting up a mic to a computer and recording it, how much it’s going to cost you and how difficult it really is to set up a podcast.

There is some great information out of this hour. The sound is a bit ‘hummy’, I have tried to work out the noise. It is chuck full of some great material, so please bear through the hum and check out the show.

Next month’s meeting will be: How to host your podcast. 3-03-09

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (33.7MB)