November is coming. And that means so is National Novel Writing Month. In years past, I’ve watched and read as my friends fought their way through it, some succeeding, some failing, all glorious in the pursuit. I’ve sat, thought, considered and ultimately come up with one excuse or another not to do it. There’s always … Read more
Open Office is a free, open-source alternative to Microsoft Office. Based on Sun’s Star Office, Open Office has been around for a number of years, and has proved fairly popular with the geeks, particularly those who dislike being beholden to Microsoft, Apple or any other proprietary software developer. It’s the predominant office productivity suite on … Read more
I’m an uncle again. My sister Kristen had a baby boy earlier this week — he weighed in at 8 lbs. 8 oz. and measured 22.5″ long. That’s an inch and a half longer and about 5 oz. heavier then NeutronLad when he was born … and about 2 lbs. bigger then his sister. Of course we’d have … Read more
My new MacBook Pro arrived Friday, and the first thing I did (after basking in the beauty that is a new Mac) was to start loading my “must have” applications on it it. Of these, the Quicksilver fast app launcher is probably the single most important tool I have — using it has become as … Read more
Hallmark’s released their Winter 2007 ornaments, so it’s time to warp ahead to the future of this year’s Geek Tree. I have my eye on three new ornaments, two spawned by Star Trek and and Joss Whedon’s Firefly. First up is the three-warp nacelled Enterprise 1701-D from the episode of “All Good Things”, the series finale … Read more
The Cosmic Cup had live jazz tonight (with my boss on drums, so I stopped by with the kids for coffee, hazelnut chocalate gelato, and good music. We didn’t stay long — StarGirl was tired after a big day at preschool — but the kids seemed to enjoy it, and it was a great break from … Read more
For a while, it looked like the Unconference was going to live up to its name: while Podcamp Philly had a list of proposed seminars, we didn’t get a concrete schedule until Wednesday. No worries though — Podcamp’s organized chaos congealed at the last moment, providing a rambling structure to a Saturday full of podcasting goodness.
The chaos lurked just behind the corners as folks tried to use the guest ids scribbled on whiteboards around the Drexel University classrooms to log into the wireless network … at least until they figured out that the IDs only worked on the lab computers. Wired connections for the wandering bands of Mac, Windows and Linux laptop owners were scrounged however, giving rise to deep-sea scuba-like drama as people swapped Ethernet cables back and forth to share net connections.
The sessions were about what you’d expect at any conference: some good, some blah, with the best ones being those that encouraged audience participation (the exception being Apple’s GarageBand session, which gave a lightning fast overview of the software, but still managed to provide some helpful insights into it. Of course, the conference itself was free, which gives it an edge up over many conferences I’ve gone to that had so-so seminars but cost a few hundred dollars.
Presented by Mike Wolk, Senior Systems Engineer, Apple Inc.. He provided a quick overview of how to use GarageBand to record podcasts and enhance them with photos and web addresses. I knew a lot of this, having used GarageBand before, so I’m just focusing on what I didn’t know. If you right-click on a photo … Read more
Presented by Rick Glasby, Crashbang Digital, who discusses what mic to use, where to record, and how to tweak your audio setup. Which mic to use: you want to use some sort of condensor mic: Samson CO1U – cardioid sensor Audio Technica AT2020 – phantom power, cardiod sensor Blue Snowball Mic (cardiod or omni directional, … Read more
Presented by Rob Safuto, RawVoice and the New York Minute Show. Talks about gathering all sorts of different statistics for your podcasts, from downloads to web statistics to community feedback. Start off with round-table introductions and thoughts about statistics. Ideas include: Libysyn Know Your Audience – engagement FeedBurner – RSS feed, media Know Your Web … Read more