Steve Holden's Blog

Unconference Discussion on Podcast Directories

On Friday, Sep. 29, 2006 from 4:15-4:45 p.m. I am hosting a discussion on Podcast Directories at the Podango sponsored Unconference  which is at their booth at the 2006 Podcast and Portable Media Expo (PME).

My position is:

"Every podcaster needs to get their podcast into what seems like an ever increasing number directories to help them reach the right audience. These directory submissions can be complicated, time consuming,redundant, and could be used for RSS/Feed hijacking. To make matters worse, some of the most major directories are black box silos that can frustrate and annoy even the most patient person. What can be done about it?!?? Let's discuss ...".

If anyone has any ideas they'd like to share and can't be at the conference, then please send me direct email: [email protected].

If you are at the expo and want to have a discussion, come to the Podango booth at 4:15-4:45 p.m. (Friday) if it works in your schedule.

Quick Market Survey on MP3 Players

The San Diego Union-Tribune Sunday paper had a good number of non-Apple MP3 players for sale (cash prices listed).  Here is a sample of what I saw:

• Big Lots! - RCA Lyra 256-MB MP3 Player for $29.99
• Target - Memorex 512-MB MP3 Player for $58
• Office Depot - Philips 1GB MP3 Player for $69.99 (with a $30 mail-in rebate offer); Archos 4GB Mp3 Player for $159.99 (with a $20 mail-in rebate offer)
• Best Buy - Samsung 1GB U2JZ MP3 Player  for $79.99; Sandisk 2GB E250 MP3 Player for $129.99
• CompuUSA - Sandisk 2GB E250 MP3 Player for $129.99
• Circuit City - Sony 2GB Flash Digital Music Player for $129.99; Creative Labs 8-GB Zen MicroPhoto MP3 Player for $179.99; and Creative Labs 30GB Zen Vision:M for $299.99

It should be noted that the RCA Lyra also has a SD/MMC slot for expansion storage.  And the San Disk E250 has a Mini-SD slot for additional storage.

Also the only direct Apple iPods advertising that I saw was for the 30-GB Black or White iPod via BestBuy's online store (no price listed).

Recommended - Hersehey Felder as George Gershwin Alone

Christy and I got to have dinner last night at our favorite Chinese food restaurant Szechwan Mandarin (San Diego), and see The Old Globe's production of Hershey Felder as George Gershwin Alone.  It was great!  Mr. Felder is extremely talented and passionate about his work.  It runs through Oct. 22, 2006.

I noticed on Archive.org a few George Gershwin works available for sampling.  Also this 'official site' has a great deal of content, and Wikipedia is a good source also.

[SDH - Archive.org search seems a little unresponsive at the time of this post.]

MacCast Offline With GoDaddy Woes

My good friend and fellow podcaster Adam @ The Mac Cast (an excellent Macintosh uber-geek podcast BTW!) has run into some GoDaddy hosting woes.  Here is his story ...

[SDH - "Thanks Victor for the link!"]

Oakmont High School - Class of 1986 Reunion

Yesterday (9/16/06) was my 20 year high school reunion for the Class of 1986 from Oakmont High School in Roseville, CA.  It was a great experience.

I got to spend time with long time friends that I never lost touch with, and with many that I wished I'd kept in touch with. 

Good thing now is we all have access to each other's email addresses and we have no excuses now.

Costco By The Numbers via CNET

If you are a fan of Costco then you should still enjoy the facts and figures of this news artcle at CNET News.com.

Podcasters Helping Podcasters

One of the main joys I am getting out of podcasting, is actually the relationships and friendships associated with other podcasters.  The relationships with listeners is great also but it isn't the same.  In many ways it is the same great feeling I got working with other Newton enthusiast with NewtNews.

A couple of weeks ago I was able to help fellow podcaster Denise Howell with her 'Leo Laporte Skype Capturing' implementation.  Others also helped including Paul @ The Point and Victor Cajiao.  It was a group effort with everyone work together to try to get things working.  It was also done all remotely which is very cool.

I do have to give a big kudo to Mackie for posting high resolution pictures of their audio gear on their website so that even though I didn't have a Mackie unit like Denise had, I could see what all the features and options that were available from every angle.

Is The Strobe XP 300 The Worst Scanner Ever

Is it just me or is the Visioneer Strobe XP 300 the worst scanner ever? 

I can not get the stupid thing to consistently feed a document through to get scanned.  If I have a two page document, I sometimes have to try 20 times to get both of them to be straight and aligned.

Can anyone recommend a good, small, fast flatbed scanner?

P.S. I guess I am not the only one who thinks this scanner sucks.  It only has two stars on Amazon.

Thoughts on MindManager

If you are using MindJet MindManager, there are a couple of blog posts related to the product I thought I'd highlight:

1. Eric Mack is reporting some serious slow downs of his system related to MindManager.
2. You can learn more about MindManager on the Mac via this podcast.

On topic #1 -- I have to honestly say, on my Toshiba M400, that I haven't seen the performance issues that Eric is speaking about while I'm using MindManager.  I do seem to have a performance issue with Outlook and IMAP but that has been a long going issue for me, and happens independent of the system I'm on and what programs I'm using.

I have MindManger open and functioning for me nearly 60% of my work day if not higher.  My M400 though is typically powered and in laptop mode (vs. tablet mode) when I'm at a desktop workplace location (which is about 70% of a normal day).

On topic #2 -- I am looking forward to listening to the MindManager on Mac podcast, since I'm using that tool a great deal for doing show notes for JerseyBoysPodcast.

Great Baseball Game!

Conrad and I got to go to yesterday's evening San Diego Padres vs. Cincinnati Reds baseball game.  We had a great time, Padres won, and the San Diego Chicken was there making us all laugh at his skits. 

There was a time during the dark days of the Padres when the San Diego Chicken was the only fun part of being at the ball park.