Marion's Blog

Improving my Podcast Quality - Podcasters Emporium - Buying a mixer.

As you may know I have recently started a Podcast. I published my first show a month ago and am working on show number two. I am a total neophyte when it comes to podcasting. I am good with technology. It was my career for 30 years. But I have zero experience with sound or recording.

I have been doing a lot of research on podcasting. I believe in learning by doing so I just dove in and published my first show. I'm glad I did it. It was a lot of fun and I think the content turned out to be pretty good. But the sound quality was horrible. So I have been focusing on learning more about what is needed to produce a more professional show.

One of the resources I found which has become invaluable and has quickly become my favorite Podcast is The Podcasters Emporium, a show by two Australian guys James Williams and Dave Gray about how to improve your podcast. I like it because it isn't too basic but it also isn't aimed at experts. Plus I really enjoy the authenticity and personality of Dave and James. They have a great voice and a very engaging show. I think I need to start a side bar list of my favorite podcasts. The Podcasters Emporium will be on the list.

The first things I learned were all about gain, what gain is, and how I need to adjust it. This was covered in episode 11 of Podcasters Emporium. I suspect turning my gain down will make a very big improvement to my sound quality.

In studying ways to improve my podcast I also became convinced that if I am going to be doing interviews I need 2 mics. Handing the mic back and forth or holding it between the two of us just doesn't cut it. But if I use 2 mics I need a mixer. So I started shopping for  a mixer. My only complaint about Podcasters Emporium (and it is a minor one) is that it left me with the impression that I would need to spend at least $500 if I wanted a good enough mixer and mics. And I really don't want to invest a lot of money getting started.

So I posted a comment on Twitter saying  that I was looking for a good mixer but I thought I ws going to have to spend hundreds of dollars. One of my twitter and blogging friends Ryan of Ryan Jerz :: Reno Blogger responded almost immediately recommending the Behringer 802 8-Input mixer. The key things I learned from Podcasters Emporium were that I should buy a mixer with at least 2 XLR inputs and with phantom power. I didn't know what those things were but I learned that too. I went to my local Radio Shack store but the $30 mixer they had didn't have XLR input and the cheaper  Behringer mixer for sale on Amazon didn't have phantom power. So I ordered the 802 from Amazon for $59 and should be receiving it next week. Hopefully it will do the trick.

For now I am going to keep using my very cheap microphones but once I learn how to use the mixer I may be upgrading them too. If you have ideas or suggestions on other things I should know or do please let me know. Post a comment or email me.

Just Do It!

Interviews are always fascinating to me. Every time I watch a great Charlie Rose interview I say to myself Wow! I would love to have interesting conversations like that. The other day I listened to a Podcast interview that Dan Carlin of Hardcore History did with James Burke and my reaction was the same.

Several years ago my boss at the time had caricature done of each of his managers as a gift. The text of mine was "Just Do It!" which in fact is my motto. Any time I am faced with something I am not sure I want to do or something I don't know how to do  I believe the best thing to do is to just get on with it.

The beauty of the Internet and things like blogs and Podcasts is that with a blog it is very easy to be a writer, and in a similar vein it would be relatively easy to create a Podcast and become an interviewer. I am sure that 30 years ago Charlie Rose was not as good as he is today at creating interesting interviews. And good Podcasts take a lot of hare work and practice too.  So if I really want to be an interviewer I should Do It!

Of course I have lots of ideas like this and my problem/opportunity is actually focusing and doing it?!

Road Trip and how I will use Twitter

Duke and I are leaving Sunday for a three week road trip through Idaho, Yellowstone, Bismarck, North Dakota, Manitoba, Ontario, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Manchester, Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado. I'll be blogging while I'm gone but I will also be using my phone to post regular updates to Twitter.

For those who have never heard of Twitter, Twitter.com is a service that lets you post 140 character updates about what you are doing. I haven't found it all that useful because none of my friends use it.

One thing I have found nice is that I can have my Twitter updates show up on the right side of my blog.  So even when I don't have time to write a blog post I can do a quick Twitter update and then people who read my blog will know what I am up to. Plus I can update Twitter via a text message from my phone.

Another nice thing is that I can follow the Reno Gazette Journal on Twitter and be aware of what is happening in Reno while I am gone.

Anyway the bottom line is that if you are interested in where we are on our trip just watch the top right hand corner of this blog.

The Future of Computing

Digital Rules by Rich Karlgaard is almost always thought provoking. Recently he pointed to a fascinating article by George Gilder titled The Information Factories.  Gilder talks about how  we are moving towards massive centralized computing and what this means in terms of power consumption and  computer design. He estimates that "the total of electricity consumed by major search engines in 2006 approaches 5 gigawatts.....   Five gigawatts is almost enough to power the Las Vegas metropolitan area... on the hottest day of the year."   

Gilder who is known as a futurist says that "For the moment, at least, the power of massive parallelism has far outstripped the promise of alternative computing architectures" but he anticipates that just as centralized computing gave way to the PC revolution the pendulum will swing again. New technologies and the next wave of innovation "will compress today's parallel solutions.... and transform the calculus of storage, bandwidth, and power that gives centralization its current advantage."

I think it is prescient that when he is talking about the future of computing he  quotes Andy Bechtolsheim who is one of Sun's founders and is currently Sun's Chief Architect and Senior Vice President of Network Systems. I predict and, in fact, hope that Sun will manage to lead the way into this new future.

Shopping for a New Computer

Since my Compaq desktop computer died several months ago I have been using my work laptop as my home computer too. But now that I only have 6 more days of work left before I retire :-) I need to buy a new home computer. Since I am planning to do a lot of traveling and blogging as I travel I want to buy a laptop. I already have a good monitor and keyboard for home use. I am just starting the shopping/ research process. I would be very interested in any suggestions or advice that people might have about what to buy and how to buy it.

PDAs

A few weeks ago I took the time management class that Intuit offers. My main reason for taking the class was to improve my effectiveness using Outlook. Before I started at Intuit I had never used Outlook. I came out of the class with a great Outlook based system. It allows me to focus on what I need to do as opposed to letting my email manage me.

Anyway the purpose of this post is not to talk about Outlook or time management. The class got me interested in using a PDA again.  I had a couple of Palm Pilots a few years ago buy syncing them on  a Sun system was a difficult exercise and after I lost all my data a couple of times and then had the last one stolen out of the office where I was charging it I decided to go back to a paper based system. Currently I carry an address book, a calendar and a little Moleskine notebook in my purse. I like how easy it is to access them. The class made me think I'd like to have everything synced up and current in one place, especially my to do list.  So I thought I would take advantage of the fact that I am due for a new phone. I had decided to buy an integrated phone / PDA. A guy in the class said he liked his Palm PC.  And I have some Christmas money to spend.

I went to the Verizon store a couple of weeks ago and found out that they won't sell you a integrated phone / PDA unless you subscribe to wireless Internet. I have a personal aversion to monthly fees. I already pay monthly fees for for cable TV, DSL,  telephone, cell phone,  utilities, and home owners dues. Why would I want to pay another $60 per month ($60 per month at 8% interest over 10 years comes to $10,976) for wireless Internet). I'm sure it is nice to have but I'm not convinced it is worth it.

So the question is... and I would love your input. Do I stay with the paper based system? Or do I buy a new PDA without the cell phone and wireless Internet? If I do get a PDA what kind should I get?

Zipingo

It is bugging me that I can't remember who first articulated the relationship between the number of participants in a community like ebay and its usefulness. The bottom line is that the bigger the community the more valuable the service. I know I have read this somewhere and it is one of the basic tenets of the Internet economics. As the number of people who use the  Internet increases so does the rate of attachment because the Internet becomes more and more useful. I can't even figure  out how to Google this to find what I am looking for. If someone can point me to a link I'd appreciate it.
I remember that the principal was described much more clearly than I am describing it.

UPDATE: Thanks to  atthecrux for answering my question. The law I am looking for is Metcalfe's Law , aka the "network effect".

But that is not exactly what I want to talk about here.  The purpose of this posting is to talk about Zipingo.com. It is a new service that Intuit has launched into beta test this week.  We are building a database of business ratings. The site describes itself as the "yellow pages with ratings."  Obviously a site like this isn't useful unless what you are interested in has been rated. So for now we are trying to get a lot of ratings. By the way I am not working on this project at Intuit. When I say we I am saying we as in Intuit.  Anyway Zipingo is only going to be really useful when it has millions of ratings so Intuit has added a link to Zipingo from Quicken 2006 and a link from Quickbooks. This should make it really easy for people to rate their transactions. It is also really easy to rate a business or your optometrist or your chiropractor from the site itself. Give it at try! I am really enjoying watching the growth of the number of rankings on the site. I've done 27 so far and the number this week is up to  41,777. It will be fascinating to me to see how it grows.

 

Laptop computers and Sun Ray cards

Up until the first of this month I worked at Sun Microsystems. We used Sun Rays which are basically terminals that I could put my smart card into and have my computing environment immediately available.  At Sun your smart card was your badge and it gave you access to your environment where ever you happened to be working. When you use a Sun Ray your whole computer is in a server room somewhere and the server just displays your environment where ever you are. Essentially your smart card is the key to accessing your computing environment.

Since starting at Intuit I've switched to a traditional Microsoft environment. What I've noticed though is that many people use their laptop the way I used to use a Sun Ray smart card. They plug the laptop into a docking station and then work on a terminal and  keyboard that is stationary in their office.

I totally understand that there are very basic differences in the two environments but if you think about it from a user perspective and don't worry too much about where the CPU is located then you can  perhaps see the laptop and the Sun Ray smart card converging. in both cases you  plug them in and your environment shows up on  essentially a dumb terminal where ever you are.

Why Web Based Applications are Becoming so Popular

I've talked about the Application Service Provider (ASP) model in a previous post. When I say ASP model I mean not running the application or keeping my data on my computer but instead  letting the application company host the application so that all I have to do it access the application and my data through a browser. As I said I really like the advantages of storing my data on the web. I don't have to do backups and it is accessible.  In a recent posting John Montgomery of Microsoft talked about why we continue to use ASP applications when the user interfaces and functionality aren't as good as those for the applications hosted on our own machines. I think his reasons are valid although I never think about the technology catching up. For me the advantage of being able to access my data from any browser and having someone else host my application so that I don't have to be a system administrator is incentive enough.  And in a lot of cases I think the applications are as good or better.

I mentioned Plaxo in my earlier post. I recently sent out an update with my new email address and phone number to everyone in my address book. It has been so much fun to get updates from all my friends and catch up on what they are up to. Plaxo provides functionality that I've never had on a locally based application.

Another ASP based application that I have been very impressed with in the short time that I have been aware of it is Right Now. It is customer support software that is used  by Intuit for Quicken Medical Expense Manager  and for  Quicken Rental Property Manager. Right Now provides an easy way to manage and update common questions and answers and the customer support user interface.

Another very successful ASP model software package is QuickBooks Online Edition.  In this case although the functionality is less than the desktop version I suspect that  the quality of  the application, the fact that the user doesn't have to administer his or her system, and the ability to access the application from anywhere have led to the success of the product. I should note that although I work at Intuit I don't work in the QuickBooks organization and my observations are very much those of an outsider.

Bottom line is that while some applications are still better on the desktop than being run through a browser there are many other applications that I would much rather run through the web.