I have not posted to my blog for 11 days! It’s OK for me to slip on this one part of my new years resolutions. I have been very busy, we could have a new baby anytime. Work and life are so busy right now. And Twitter might have played a small role in my not feeling like posting to the main blog. Its all good. For some reason I cant blog early in the morning and night time is for family and wife.
So life goes on without blogging it :)
My friend Maury asked about Free Conference Call.
It is really simple, its free and it just works. Sign up and they give you an account for 120 days, then you have to just get another account. They tell you what your call in number is and what your access code and pin is.
In a call you just push 9 and your pin code to record. At the end of the call press 9 to stop recording and end your call. Then they will email you a link of the call detail and file in WAV format.
I then run the file through The Levelator and cut the first 5 seconds off the beginning and end with Audacity.
Take the edited wav and convert to mp3 with CDex to get 44khz and 64kbps.
I like to listen to people talking about stuff and the fact that everyone being recorded is on a phone evens out the sound quality. So you don’t have a professional studio and a someone else on a call. This way everyone is equally low quality :) The result doesnt sound that bad. Here is the podcast with Eric Rice done this way
I would like to this again with others, just not sure when.
On the fly podcast with Eric Rice, I put out a call on twitter to see if anyone was up to doing a podcast, Eric stepped up to the plate,
Direct download, 22 minutes, 10 mb MP3
Christian Burns Podcast 003 – download 14:51
CastFire looks awesome but have you ever noticed that Robert Scoble’s videos tend to suck. (I got paid for that :)
http://www.podtech.net/scobleshow/technology/1387/looking-at-castfire-media-management-system
Today the John Edwards campaign announced plans to be “carbon neutral” in an effort of doing their part to reduce global warming. It looks like they are working with NativeEnergy and will be donating to help build clean electricity producing plants that then offset the need for standard “dirty” electric plants. An interesting idea to get the Carbon Neutral stamp on you organization.
I seem to think that what would really help would be to empower the makers and innovators of this world, all over the world. Those guys like Preston Tucker, who if they had their way, we would be driving something entirely new by now.
Jory Squibb built this micro-car that gets 85 mpg in the city and 105 mpg on an economy run. Now who in the world would want to build and even be seen in something like this? I would. This is a one of a kind, and if some folk got together and built 100 of them I am sure they would go together easier and faster and cheaper.
Here is a car made out of wood, TRYANE II
Fuel Consumption : 55-70 mpg
TOP SPEED (approx): l00 mph
Sorry to be posting about twitter so soon but I am working my brain around scaling issues and possibilities. Its the week of twitter and some issues have popped up.
In looking to see if anyone has tried my idea I went over to the twitter fan wiki and found a Google Maps / Twitter mashup, but it seems to only take the location in your profile, I am only seeing 3 people in Washington State.
What I want is the ability to send a txt and set your location that way. Also it would be fun to follow a geographic region,like a 10 mile radius around your zip code. Or follow everyone that is at an event, even if you are not there (SXSW). Or ignore a geo region (Leave SXSW).
This feature will come to pass. the question is where and who. Groups are coming to twitter according to Ev via Scoble.
Today I finally joined MySpace. Last night we had dinner at my parents house and my sister was checking her myspace, and she started showing me how many old friends are on there. Now I would rather they all start cool blogs or at least join FaceBook but that simply is not going to happen.
I found the interface to be highly frustrating, and slow. It would take so long just to get to the page that you add profile info. I cant belive how getto it is, but there are just so many people on it. Oh the ads! Hideous! No class.
So at least I have a presence there, and if someone wants to find me they can. Here is my space.
For not seeing any pictures of the event so far, it sure is fun to get little tidbits of info from all the in crowd at SXSW. I have a few twitter friends there and they give little hints of what is happening, where they are, who they are meeting.
It is strange to see how twitter is taking off. I think it has to do with Scoble’s push to update, read all of his friends’ posts and his giving out key info via twitter before he blogs it, like that he and his wife are having a baby. Scoble is a leader of evangelists, he influences and speaks to those that influence and are ahead of the curve. There was a day that you had to leave a comment on his blog to tell him something, but now you have to just update your own twitter log and he is sure to read it. That boosts our ego. The guy wants to know what we think. Now if we could just get twitter to implement the snap preview so that we had a clue where those tinyurl.com links were headed :)
Thanks to all my twitter friends, it sure is fun to time shift our chat sessions.
A few days ago I listened to a talk from Cory Doctorow at Duke University, graciously recorded and posted by the Random Signal Podcast. It was one of the best talks I have heard from Cory. Sometimes he sounds like a broken record because he has standard points that he makes in every interview and they all seem to make it to the web.
In the talk he mentions the murder of a friend in London last year, and that thanks to CCTV they were able to arrest and prosecute the killers, but that did not make his friend any less dead. Those in charge tend to want to add more surveillance so that they can track more people. We dont have the same level of watching here in the States but we are moving that way.
What really made me stop was the what if scenario. What if the bad people suddenly knew that there would be no consequences for their actions for a certain period of time, i.e. after a hurricane or another tragedy. We have good neighbors, live in the country and could easily work together to defend ourselves so it would not be an issue for us, but what about in places like the UK where you cant have any kind of personal defense device (handgun) and if those cameras where off, some people would act very differently.
If a gang started working its way from the city our way, they would not be able to terrorize many people, but in an urban environment, well, no thanks. I love living where we do.
So I would recommend listening to the talk and if you do, leave me a comment with your favorite point that was made.
Dang, I finally got to weigh myself. First time since I have been doing this fatblogging thing. On a doctors scale I came in at 259 pounds (117 Kilo or 18.5 stone), that is with my shoes and clothing. I am feeling good about that. Riding the bike as weather, family schedule and logistics permit. Makes me feel like a kid. As in before I had a drivers license.
No time to blog but I set up a wiki for the Rojas Winer Calacanis podcast player. More to come on that topic.
Isn’t it funny how there seems to be a company falling over themselves to help you do anything these days?
Imagine a service that wants to help you manage tasks just by thinking about them and then they appear on a website for you to arrange and edit. We are almost there but Jott.com lets you call their toll free number and you just speak up to 15 seconds and they save it, transcribe it, email it (with the text at the subject line), and you can view and arrange new “jotts” on their site after logging in.
It is set up in true GTD fashion, with new jotts going to the inbox, and you can sort them, set an alert to be sent by email or SMS, and process that inbox.
So if a to do pops into your head, just call jott, record the items one after another. Great for people on the road and away from a computer. No more notes that you lose.
Northern Voice was such a great conference but in a way it did not match my expectations. The only other conference somewhat similar that I have been to is Seattle Mind Camp. And this was not an conference, but it was fun. I think that what I missed out on the most was the Friday MooseCamp unconference. Had I been able to go to both days it would not have felt so rushed and I would have been able to have more conversations with people in real life. I am glad that all the sessions are recorded and podcasted.
Next year I will hopefully go to the entire weekend and I will make a point of interupting people and striking up conversations with those that are sitting at a laptop reading feeds. I had a fun conversation with Robert Scoble that I recorded and will post next week. I got to meet Scott Beale from laughing squid and shake his hand. I recognized Will Pate but didn’t get to talk to him, he was always talking to someone and time just flew. I did sit and join a conversation with Chris Pirillo which was fun. Big names at conferences? They are folk just like us.
But I think that the best part of the conference has been the feed of all attendees, at Planet.NorthernVoice.ca . It is nice to consume and digest the conference after the fact. I would love for MindCamp to have the same thing. NV is after all a blogging conference and we get to know each other the best through our blogs and writing.
If you are someone that gets great for ideas for internet startups than you must purchase domains. I use GoDaddy because they have a great system for managing domain and they also offer Domains By Proxy which is a wonderful privacy service. Before using GoDaddy I have lost a few domains due to forgetting to renew them in time and then someone snatching them to hold for ransom or something.
A few weeks ago I was letting a domain expire on purpose when I got a call on my cell phone. It was a GoDaddy rep checking in with me to see if I needed any help renewing that domain. That is service my friend. I told them that I was letting that one go but thanked them and also asked a few questions that I had been wondering about.
So anytime I make a purchase I use a coupon code but I hear so many on podcasts that the question is which one to use? Chris1 Scott1, Gang1, Jason1?
I always use blaugh. Why? It is the stickiest. It stays with me and I love that it is on every blaugh cartoon.
See it? I love the fact that the cartoon graphic can go anywhere and that ad is embedded in it. Great thinking and marketing.
So what GoDaddy code do you use and why?
Becoming an Unreasonable Man 