Tvindy

3 Things

A few items I consider newsworthy:

• Bakerina has finally done it! She's set up an online store at BakerinaKitchens.com. Finally it's possible to taste her creations and not just read about them. Go there and buy something to show your support. With any luck she'll soon be able to quite her day job. (But then where will she get her boxes?)
• Dr. Who will start airing on SciFi this Friday. This is the new series that the BBC released last year and has already completed its first season in the UK. I made a point to download all the episodes when they first aired, so I'm already a year into it. If you're a fan of the old series, you're sure to love this one as well. (The whole gay controversy thing just makes it better.)
• Tivo is ending their lifetime service option, possibly as early as tomorrow (March 15th). If you  buy the cheapest Tivo box for $49 (after rebate) and the lifetime service for $299, you're only paying $348 for everything with nothing more to pay ever again. That's not a bad deal at all. I ordered mine yesterday. (Now I just have to get cable.)

Podcasting Nightmare

I'm still learning the ins and outs of podcasting. The three episodes I've already done have each had their own unique technical problems, but tonight I encountered a worst-case scenario. After spending over an hour speaking to Geoff and Jenny of Mulubinba Moments, the recording program I use crashed as it was saving the sound file, and the whole interview was lost. It was a great interview too, and now it's been lost to the world, including the part where Jenny and Geoff send their greetings to Snowball and Bakerina, who will now never know that they have been greeted. Fortunately, Geoff and Jenny have agreed to let me do the whole thing over again.

Before that however, I will be traveling back to Oregon in the next couple of days to bring back the stuff I left there in storage, including my computer. That means I'll be able to podcast from my own home without all the constraints imposed by having to ninjacast all the time. I'll also look into more secure ways of protecting the recording. Losing an entire interview is a mistake I only intend to make once.

Podcast Update

Just a couple of updates about my podcast endeavor. First, I'm now listed in iTunes. Just do a search for "tvindy" in the iTunes music store. Second, I've set up a separate website for the podcast at tvindytime.com.

Podcast Liftoff

It's finally done! I managed to produce and publish the first episode of my podcast. It's not yet up on iTunes, but you can download it through PodcastPickle.com or PodcastAlley.com. It's very bare bones. There is no intro music or fancy effects. I was just focusing on having the best possible sound quality. I also did no editing. This episode contains the complete uncut Skype interview with Will. All in all, I think I'm off to a pretty good start. Let me know what you think.

Of course, there are still a lot of refinements to be made. My next challenges are coming up with a theme song and a website. Next week I'll be interviewing Jenny and Geoff. Stay tuned.

[Addendum: I've just become aware that there is a serious audio synching issue in the second half of the program which is quite distracting. Unfortunately, it would be very difficult to repair at this point, but the first half sounds fine. My apologies to Will for the oversight.]

Future Podcaster

I'm really getting into this new podcast phenomenon. And I've reached the point where I now spend far more time each day catching up on podcasts than I do on my daily blog reading. It's just so much easier. I can listen to them as I go about my daily routine. I plug into my iPod whenever I am cooking, eating, cleaning, driving and even bathing, so I go through at least a good three hours of audio every day. I wish everyone on my blogroll would switch over to podcasting.

Now I'm planning on creating my own podcast. It's definitely a lot more daunting than just starting up a blog, so I'll try to ease into it gradually with baby steps. I'll start with a sort of beta podcast to work out the process and develop a technique. This will just be a series of interviews with interesting people. (By the way, if you want to be interviewed, just let me know.) Then I'll eventually switch over to a more professional-sounding podcast with a specific theme. As I said, this will take awhile. So far, all I've done is purchase a good headset.

It's podcast city, baby

Ever since Apple's iTunes embraced podcasting, I've been immersing myself in a plethora of programming. In fact, that's all I've been using my iPod for lately. In case you're curious about podcasts and want some recommendations, I'll list a few of my favorite episodes for you to check out. You can find all of these in iTunes.

This Week in Tech episode 18: Every episode is great, but the best ones have John C. Dvorak, who is the only one who can really hold his own against Leo Laporte.

The Signal episode 6: This podcast is helping to hype the upcoming release of the movie Serenity on September 30th. (If you're a fan of Joss Whedon, you'll no doubt be checking it out.) I chose this episode, because I really liked the interview with Ron Glass.

The Nate & Di Show episode 5: Besides being absolutely hilarious (unless you're someone who takes your churchgoing with deadly seriousness), this episode will go down in history as a podcasting classic. It marks the very first podcast that got its author fired from his job. Poor Nate.

Skepticality: Unfortunately, Skepticality doesn't number it's episodes, so look for the one entitled "Interview: Tom Flynn (Free Inquiry)", which has a good guest and a great conversation, one which I think best epitomizes what their program is about. Sadly, Derek (one of the hosts) is currently hospitalized, recovering from an aneurysm, so the the show is on hiatus. But there are dozens of episodes to download.

Soccer Girl episode 1: I didn't think I'd like this podcast, since all indications were that it was highly pornographic, but, when I kept seeing it come up in top ten lists, I decided to check it out. Soccer Girl and her guests are really quite entertaining. The first episode is a good place to start. I always love a good travel story.

Some Quick Links

Wow, I'm actually posting two days in a row! Perhaps I'm making a comeback. Probably not, though. Anyway, this is just a brief entry with some interesting links that I'm putting up before I go out for my first 10-mile run of the year.

The 50 films you should see by the age of 14 is an interesting list, but it seems a bit lacking. I would have included Bill & Ted and House. (from hackingnetflix)

Apple's done it again with the iPod Flea.

Longhorn will be out soon, but not quite yet, because it's still a bit annoying.

I love the concept of the new Optimus Keyboard, which will be available next year. Each key is a small color video screen that displays what the key does at the moment. In other words, if Caps Lock is on, all the letters will be capital. Otherwise they will be lowercase. If you're in a program like Photoshop, each shortcut key will display an icon for its function (so you don't have to memorize the keys). I would use it to switch between Dvorak and Qwerty and also for foreign language configurations. (from Zannah)

I'm off to run.

Blogging Blues

I really should write something. I seem to be going through a period of blogging burnout, which I'm sure will pass. This is the first time I have gone two consecutive days without posting (if you don't count periods of travel and/or finals). I'm also a bit behind on my reading. Bakerina recently left her blog open to guest bloggers when she went on vacation in Scotland. Not only have I not contributed an entry, as I intended, but I haven't even gotten around to catching up on what the other contributors have posted (except, of course, for this entry). Now I've heard through the grapevine that she's already back. Oh well, maybe next time.

I've recently discovered the wonders of torrents. I installed bittorrent several weeks ago in the hopes of being able to download Brazilian programming, especially novelas, but it turns out that Brazilians mostly use torrents for downloading American programs. It took me awhile before I found anything that interested me, and then I discovered I could use it for getting episodes of the new Dr. Who, which, as far as I know, are only airing in the UK. The writing is quite impressive, by the way, and, if you liked the original 26-year series, you should definitely check out Dr. number 9. (Yes, that silly attempt on Fox several years back is apparently cannon, and a complete waste of a regeneration cycle if you ask me.)

Tomorrow it's back to my stained glass Hello Kitty.

Another MyLifeBits Update

I've blogged about MyLifeBits before. It's an upcoming program by Microsoft that will make it possible to archive our lives onto a hard drive. I periodically check the news sites for the latest info on the project. Usually there's very little, and I've often worried that Microsoft has quietly canceled the whole thing. But today I discovered this, which is a series of video interviews with the MyLifeBits programmers, including Gordon Bell.

They don't really reveal anything new about the program. And, while I would have liked to at least have heard an estimated release date, I'm thrilled to know that the project hasn't been abandoned.

The main videos to watch are this one, which shows several parts of the program in action, and this one, which shows the latest prototype of the SenseCam and even makes mention of the Camwear 100 (a non-Microsoft product).

I can't wait until MyLifeBits is finally released. I don't even care how much it costs. Even if the price is infinite, I will still pay it, because that's just how cool it is.

Singled Out

I attended the U of O version of Singled Out. I competed in two rounds for a prize eighteen-year-old girl and dinner at the Olive Garden, but, needless to say, I didn't win either girl. (I did bring home a fabulous lint roller as a concession prize, though.) In the first round, I was eliminated in the category of phobias. The three choices were spiders & bugs, commitment, and heights. I chose heights, and that did me in. (Apparently, fear of commitment or of bugs is more desirable in a man.) In the second round, I lasted a bit longer but was ultimately done in by my haircut. The three choices were shaggy, clean cut, and military cut. Inexplicably, the girl eliminated all the clean cut guys. So here I am home alone in my dorm room. How tragic for me. Although some might argue that I really have no business dating anyone born after the Reagan administration.

In other news, I continue playing with my new netcam. It looks as though most of my readers are not as enthused by it as I am, but I'll continue with my little experiments anyway, and some of them will be blogged. I was hoping to eventually put up a feed of the interior of my room over a 24-hour period, so people could watch me studying and blogging and sleeping throughout the day. But aparently no one is interested enough to make it worthwhile.

Today I learned how to use the motion sensor. I aimed the camera out my window and had it shoot whenever it detected motion below. I got a lot of shots like this:

But in one frame I discovered a surprise visitor: