OK. The audio is still a little rough — I’m still learning how to make the software and the hardware play nice together — but this will give you an idea of what the podcast I keep talking about would be like. Please give it a listen and tell me what you think.
I interviewed my old college friend Peter Smith on Tuesday for the pilot episode of my podcast. Peter is the acclaimed religion reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal. His wife Holly teaches at the same high school from which my mother graduated, although it’s long since moved into a different building. The interview went well – almost too well; Peter was such a great guest that I didn’t have to work very hard as an interviewer.
I tried putting together a complete episode of the podcast today. I’m still getting comfortable with Audacity, the open source audio editor I’m using to put things together. I did the interview itself using Skype and a Skype add-on program that records calls. But I recorded my voice for the beginning and end of the podcast using a standard microphone. Ironically, it’s that audio – not the headset audio from the Skype call – with which I’m having problems. It’s distorted.
I will play with it further this week to see if I can get everything mixed and balanced somewhat correctly. If I can get something with which I’m satisfied, I’ll try to post it. Posting to this site isn’t viable for a continuing podcast, especially if I’m able to build up an audience, but I can probably put up a sample episode to share with my regular readers without going over my bandwidth.
I think I’ve found a podcast host that will cost me about what I originally thought the last podcast host was going to cost me, and yet give me the space I need for the format and schedule I originally wanted.
Well, I’ve finally got a name for the podcast – which I’m not going to tell you yet. I’ve even got theme music, thanks to a site called JewelBeat which sells royalty-free music at very inexpensive prices.
I’m trying to get in touch with a friend of mine who’d agreed months ago to be a guest on the podcast to see if I can line up an interview with him for my pilot episode.
On the downside, I was taking a second look at the prices at the site I planned to use for my hosting today, and comparing them to estimated file sizes, and got some bad news. The site offers unlimited bandwidth (which is good) but regulates your usage by only allowing you to upload a limited amount of content each month, depending on which plan you’ve chosen.
Because (except for my jazzy theme music) my podcast will just be people talking, I’ll be able to use a low bit rate, for the highest level of compression. Podcasts that play a lot of music need to use a higher bit rate in order to ensure better sound quality.
My vision up to this point was for a half-hour weekly podcast. And I’d hoped that the podcast would be relaxed enough that, unlike a radio show, we could be flexible enough to run longer or shorter depending on the discussion. But a half-hour a week, at the highest level of compression, would put me over the limit for the cheapest hosting plan.
So my options are for a shorter podcast – 20 minutes a week, 25 at most – or a less-frequent podcast (a bad idea in terms of encouraging regular listeners) – or going up to the next level of hosting, which is more than I think I’ll be able to raise in tip jar contributions.
But I won’t have to make a decision until I’m ready to start on a regular weekly basis. Maybe the pilot episode will help me make this call. Maybe 20 minutes will seem like plenty, and I’ll decide to go that route for the time being. Or maybe I’ll decide to just wait for a while.
I’ve been saying all year, actually since late in 2010, that I want to start an interview podcast on faith issues some time in 2011. I haven’t gotten there yet. But I am looking at perhaps producing a pilot episode some time soon. I could use this to raise awareness of the upcoming podcast (and perhaps connect it to a PayPal or Amazon tip jar, to raise money for the hosting provider I want to use), but it would also be a great thing to have in my portfolio, to show my abilities in new media.
One problem, and this seems like a silly thing, is that I still haven’t come up with just the right name – unique, easy to spell and remember, and descriptive of what this podcast is all about. The podcast will, I hope, feature intelligent, open-minded conversation on what it means to be a Christian in a seemingly post-Christian world. Every time I come up with a name I really like, I Google it and find some existing media brand or product that might potentially cause confusion.
Hopefully, I’ll come up with something soon. Meanwhile, I’ve found some software for recording Skype calls that seems like a good solution for conducting my interviews.
By the way, I used the term “podcast” above for clarity, but I’m thinking I may follow Leo Laporte’s lead and refer to the project as a “netcast.” Leo, who struggles with getting non-tech types turned on to what’s available in online programming, thinks “podcasting” is out-of-date and misleading, since some technophobes seem to think a podcast can only be listened to on an iPod.
If you’re interested in trying Google Plus, and haven’t gotten an invite yet, you can click here.
It’s still too early to say where G+ is going, in my opinion. A lot of the technorati appear to be using it, but I think for some of them the appeal is that it hasn’t been adopted by absolutely everyone.
When I write a blog post, I’ve tended to link to it from both Facebook and Google Plus, which is probably annoying to the people who follow me from both places. But I’m trying to cast to the widest possible net.
Some of the people on Leo Laporte’s TWIT network say they’ve been using Google Plus as a substitute, not for Facebook, but for Twitter, which makes no sense at all to me.
I really do like Google Plus’s “circles” feature, which lets you easily decide with which groups you want to share a particular status update or link.
Disclosure: This web site is a member of the Amazon.com affiliates program, and has been for a number of years, although I’m not very aggressive about it and sometimes don’t even think about opportunities to link to it. It’s been several years since my last payment; I’m waiting for my commissions to reach the level at which they will make a payment.
Just ignore this. I’m verifying a feed.
There are two different catastrophes that can cause spam to be sent out from your e-mail address.
One is that your system becomes infected with a worm or virus and begins sending out such e-mails without your control.
Another is that your e-mail gets adopted by a spammer sophisticated enough to “spoof” a return address. You aren’t actually infected, you aren’t sending out any mail, but the mail being sent out by the spammer has your e-mail address in the “From” line.
The second problem appears to have happened to me today. I’ve gotten dozens of bounce-back messages from e-mail, which probably means hundreds or thousands were sent out.
I have up-to-date anti-virus software. I’ve checked the logs and stats at my web and e-mail host, and I am certain the e-mail isn’t coming from me. In fact, it couldn’t be coming from me; the forged e-mail address uses my domain name but the account name — the part before the “@” sign — is completely made-up, obviously selected at random by the spammers. So the e-mails are coming from somewhere else but have a forged return address which appears to be part of my domain. The bounce-back messages are coming from those people who have certain type of e-mail spam protection systems, or who are on vacation and set to auto-respond, or for whom the spammer had an incorrect address to begin with.
It’s frustrating, and in practical terms there’s nothing I can do about it. It happened to me once before, and it was over in a day or so. I hope that holds true this time.
If you’ve gotten such a message, and have come here to check out the domain name, I apologize.
When I bought my webcam several years ago, it was (for that point in time) a cheap and under-powered model, and I’ve never been very happy with it.
Today, I was noodling around our new Roses store in Shelbyville. Roses is a discount store, somewhere in the chasm between Dollar General and Walmart, but the shopping center where it has opened has been without an anchor tenant for four years and everyone is delighted to have any sort of new business there.
When I stopped by briefly yesterday to take a photo for the newspaper, I noticed they had a $10 webcam. Today, I figured that I would pick one up. For one thing, there was no possible way it could be worse than my current webcam. For another, it had LEDs on the front to help illuminate the subject, and the lighting is very poor on the side of the room where I face when I am seated at the computer. And it was only $10, so what would be the harm?
Well, I have to say the picture is — while slightly fuzzy — better than my old camera, and the video is smoother. It’s nothing to write home about compared to my Flip Video, of course, but for Skype conversations and other live use it’s actually a pretty good buy for $10. I’ll put it to the test in about 45 minutes, when I use it to talk to one of my mission trip teammates by Skype.
I got to thinking … what would I have thought in the 1970s if you had told me that someday, anyone in America could by a home TV camera for $10. If you adjust for inflation, the 70s-equivalent price would be even cheaper than that.