Penmachine

I turn 40 today, and in honour of that, here is "Dodging Buses" (3.7 MB MP3 file), a three-minute instrumental number. Like many of my others, it has that signature Penmachine granky guitar-bass-drums sound, with a hint of AC/DC. I started recording it back in March, using my Yamaha Pacifica electric guitar tuned to an open E chord, but only in this past week did I add bass, mix, and then master it.

The name comes from something I've said numerous times during my past two and half years of cancer treatment: the saying goes that you could get hit by a bus anytime, but personally, I feel like I'm dodging buses every day. It's licensed for you to share and reuse, as long as you give me credit, so have fun with it.

Labels: birthday, free, music, penmachinepodcast, podcast

Last year, I wrote about CBC's two radio tech shows, "Spark" and "Search Engine", and how they were sometimes hard to tell apart. CBC management felt the same—"Search Engine" was downgraded from a full radio show to a podcast only last year, and recently got cancelled altogether, despite being one of the network's most popular podcasts.

Fortunately, TVOntario picked it up, and host Jesse Brown has now put out two episodes at the podcast's new home. (You can subscribe using the RSS feed or at iTunes.) The Facebook group stays the same, with the new name. If you were a "Search Engine" listener before, I encourage you to subscribe at the new feed.

And I do have to say, Brown's new clean-shaven look is a big improvement over his old scruffy '70s rock star beard.

P.S. "Spark," to which I've occasionally contributed, continues on at CBC, and is growing from a half-hour show to a full hour on the radio in the fall.

Labels: cbc, facebook, geekery, podcast, radio

My wife's podcast Lip Gloss and Laptops is giving away two $155 Aveda Earth Day gift packs of various cosmetics and body products. The draw is open to Canadian residents only, and you have to enter by the end of Earth Day, Wednesday, April 22, 2009. If it sounds like your kind of thing, the details are over at the LGL site.

What's the Earth Day connection? I haven't read the press info for the bundle, but I can tell you that the packaging is definitely green in colour, and you get a really sturdy canvas shopping bag if you win too.

Incidentally, I've never known how to say Aveda (or AVEDA, as they sometimes capitalize it). Ah-VEE-dah? Ah-VEY-da? AH-ve-dah? Anyone know?

Labels: contest, environment, lipglossandlaptops, podcast

Over the past year, I've put myself forward as something of an expert on GarageBand, Apple's intro-level audio recording and podcasting application. I've been using the program intensively, through every version upgrade, since it first appeared in 2004, and I've kept in touch with Apple (through both formal and informal channels) about it ever since.

Plus you can now buy a comprehensive video course I recorded to show you how GarageBand works.

So you might wonder what I think of Apple's newest version of the program. If so, I've just published a big GarageBand '09 review article over at the Inside Home Recording blog, which should interest you. There's also a link to my audio review from a couple of weeks ago.

Labels: apple, education, insidehomerecording, music, podcast, recording, review, software

My first-ever filling is done. As I expected, it was pretty straightforward. It took about 20 minutes once the freezing was in, on a beautiful sunny day with a wonderful view of downtown Vancouver from the dentist's chair. The only surprise was how sore my jaw got from keeping it open the whole time, with the dental dam in my mouth.

The local anaesthesia is starting to wear off now, but even that's not too bad. My upper lip no longer feels like a flap of rubber, for one. Unfortunately, I'm having some of those interminable intestinal side effects from my cancer medication now. That doesn't help, but it does make any residual dental pain the least of my problems.

Time to watch Destroyed in Seconds. It's a good distraction while I'm out of the bathroom. Speaking of distractions, I picked a better one to hear on my iPod during the procedure: the always incisive and funny Savage Love sex advice podcast.

I had to turn up the volume during the drilling.

Labels: chemotherapy, pain, podcast, television

My wife Air and her co-host KA have posted Lip Gloss and Laptops #132, and my co-host Dave and I have published Inside Home Recording #69 (dude).

The shows cover GarageBand '09, Simply Ageless Foundation, different types of audio delay, Barry M Cosmetics, too much Nickelback, and Rejuvelash Natural Declumping Lash Exhilarator. I'll let you guess which podcast addresses which products.

Labels: insidehomerecording, lipglossandlaptops, podcast

After I took some pictures of the taping of CBC's "Q" last night, I let CBC know about them, and this morning, here was the result:

That's my photo as the headline picture on the "Q" home page. You can also listen to the podcast version (MP3 file) of the episode.

Labels: band, cbc, music, photography, podcast, radio, vancouver

Paul Thurrott and Leo Laporte have used my tune "More Red Than Red" as theme music for their Windows Weekly podcast since 2006. But on their latest episode, they thought about maybe replacing it with the title track from the album "Enigma," by Microsoft's retired chief of Windows development (and longtime guitarist) Jim Allchin. So I tried to dissuade them at the Penmachine Podcast:

The "Turrican Van Halen" reference is part of the Windows Weekly show—it refers to the old Commodore 64/Atari/Amiga game "Turrican."

I made this available as Inside Home Recording TV Episode #5. You can also download it (H.264 video) or watch it at Viddler, Blip.tv, Facebook, YouTube, and Vimeo. Licensed for you to share and reuse, as long as you give me credit.

Labels: insidehomerecording, leolaporte, music, penmachinepodcast, podcast, video, windows

A few months ago I recorded a big series of more than 50 short instructional videos for the Quick Start to GarageBand course at MacVideoTraining.com, a new video training company co-founded by my former Inside Home Recording (IHR) podcast co-host Paul Garay. Some of their other training DVDs are available at lots of retailers throughout North America.

However, if you want a better deal, you need to do it online. You can buy my course, or one of several others from the company, with a 20% discount on any single video or bundle, through a new affiliate program at IHR. Just go to insidehomerecording.com/mvt and enter the coupon code ihr at checkout.

Labels: apple, education, insidehomerecording, music, podcast, recording

• Transom.org has some wonderfully comprehensive audio articles for podcasters, like the stand mic shootout, handheld mic shootout, and recording phone calls tutorial (via Doug Kaye).
• PhotoFunia lets you put your own face into various stock photos (via J-Walk). Some work better than others. A couple of sample pictures of one of my daughters and me:
  
• Mac OS iPhone project (via Melanie). It was bound to happen.
• Photographic shit disturber Ken Rockwell points to these two great posts about film photography from John Sevigny, on the theme of digital cameras: the thrill is gone: "Many of the film oriented products introduced at PMA [this week's big photo tradeshow] are far more interesting than anything digital that bothered to show up to the party. [...] My advice: get [a used Nikon] FM2 for less than $500, three or four lenses for another $500 total, and a 35mm film scanner for another $500. [...] Use the remaining $6,500 to fly to Brazil, China, Mexico or Thailand and spend several months photographing there."
• Isabella and Raul have started organizing Mental Health Camp, an unconference here in Vancouver about mental health issues, April 25, 2009 in Gastown. (UPDATE: It now has its own URL at MentalHealthCamp.org.)
• Remember that crazy Leica R9 SLR camera I blogged about in 2007? Well, Leica long ago stopped making the digital back, and now they're discontinuing the camera and lenses too. But not to worry: an all-digital, autofocus R10 will come eventually. And will be amazingly high-priced, just like its upcoming big sibling the S2.
• Rebecca posts about Rudyard Kipling's visits to Vancouver in the 1800s and early 1900s, and how much our city changed during that time.
• The Onion's "San Francisco Historians Condemn 1906 Earthquake Deniers" is almost as good as the old "Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory."

Labels: controversy, film, geekery, history, linksofinterest, mentalhealth, photography, podcast, recording, science, vancouver

More photos in my Flickr set and from others.

Labels: blog, conferences, friends, geekery, northernvoice, photography, podcast, vancouver, web

More photos in my Flickr set and from others.

Labels: blog, conferences, friends, geekery, northernvoice, photography, podcast, vancouver, web

Just slightly over a year ago, I tried to answer a question realistically, not for myself, but for numerous people who ask me. The question was: can you make money from blogging and podcasting? I've been blogging a long time, so some people think I might have an insight there. Who knows, really?

I answered anyway. My answer, in short, was that yes, blogging and podcasting can be your job, just like being a musician can be a job. But for most people, "making money" has to mean making a modest living, working hard (sometimes to the point of burnout), having some luck, and treating it as a small business like any other.

If you expect sudden riches, that's like expecting your garage band to become Coldplay, or your basketball skills to take you to the NBA. Yeah, a miniscule few manage that sort of thing, but it's not wise to bet on being one of them. Even Dan Lyons, who ran the immensely popular (and stingingly funny) Fake Steve Jobs blog for a couple of years, acknowledges that: "I never made enough to quit my day job."

Jason Kottke has a good response to that:

As businesses go, blogging is a lot like shining shoes. There are going to be very few folks who own chains of shoe shining places which make a lot of money and a bunch of other people who can (maybe) make a living at it if they bust their ass 24/7/365. But for many, shining shoes is something that will be done at home for themselves because it feels good to walk around with a shiny pair of shoes.

That's regardless of whether the economy is good or bad. Oddly enough, before I even read that, I shined up a pair of my shoes today. Personally, I have no plans to start a shoe-shining business.

UPDATE: Dave Winer makes an interesting point on this topic.

Labels: blog, money, podcast, web

• Some photographers buy old lenses (even manual focus, manual aperture lenses) for their brand new cameras. Here's why.
• This no-knead bread is apparently ridiculously easy, all the rage, and quite time-consuming to make.
• Darrell Fandrich lives near Seattle. He takes cheap Chinese pianos, puts a lot of work and experience into them, and creates a great piano, like "upgrad[ing] a Hyundai to run like a Bentley, for the price of a Honda."
• How to use Photoshop Elements 6 (which I don't own) to merge several mediocre group photos into a single good one.
• Since I have cancer, several people have told me (and told me, and told me) about DCA and essiac tea—among dozens of other potential cures and treatments. As I said about DCA a couple of years ago, I'm still going with the evidence, and it's not yet there for those particular treatments.
• Darren is a little frustrated with iTunes on his PC. And he draws a very cute sea kitten (actually, I guess it's probably a freshwater variety, so it would be, what, a pond kitten?).
• My latest camera collage is up to 8700 views, 43 comments, and 67 favourites on Flickr. Its predecessor from June has passed 41,000 views, 82 comments, and 217 favourites. And my original version from December 2007 has reached 11,500 views, 109 comments, and 39 favourites. Yep, we nerds love our camera porn.
• We've posted the first episode of the Inside Home Recording podcast for 2009: there are enhanced (pictures and links) and MP3 (audio only) versions, plus a separate full unedited half-hour interview with Peabody Award–winning producer Paolo Pietropaolo from CBC Radio.

Labels: cancer, food, insidehomerecording, itunes, music, photography, podcast, radio, science, software

Back in 2004, I began posting some of my original songs and instrumentals here on my website. Some months later, I turned those postings into a podcast you can subscribe to. In February 2006, I started using Apple's iWeb to publish it.

However, earlier in 2008 iWeb started exhibiting a nasty bug that prevented me from updating the podcast, so Penmachine Podcast subscribers saw their subscriptions lie fallow for eight months. But the drought is over now that I have ditched iWeb, and the Penmachine Podcast is back at (logically enough):

• www.penmachine.com/podcast

You don't need an iPod or iTunes to listen, just a computer. If you do subscribe, your old subscriptions should automatically update. But if you want to subscribe anew or resubscribe using the new permanent feed address, you can use these:

• One-click iTunes subscription
• iTunes Store link
• One-click Zune subscription
• RSS feed for other podcatchers

I'm currently migrating all the old music and spoken word stuff over, and have only made it about half-way back, to 2006. So there are still two years' worth of posts to go back to 2004. You'll see them reappear over the next few days in the feed and on the Penmachine Podcast page. And I'll be posting more new tunes soon!

Labels: music, penmachinepodcast, podcast, web

My wife Air was pretty shocked when her podcast, Lip Gloss and Laptops, won the Best of 604 award for Vancouver's favourite audio/video blog or podcast. At this evening's award ceremony at the Cellar nightclub in Vancouver, they were up against some tough competition, including Tiki Bar TV.

Alas, co-host KA couldn't make it down, so when their win was announced (to a big cheer throughout the room), Air accepted the award from Rebecca "Miss 604" Bollwitt solo. Also cool was that the runner-up for the category was our pal, the legendary Dave Olson. Rebecca will soon post the award results at her website, so check back there for the complete list of winners.

UPDATE December 12: Here's the list of winners. Lip Gloss dominated their category with 35% of the vote—quite a landslide.

Air and I were both nominated for our podcasts and for our personal blogs; in that second category, local mega-marketing blogger John Chow (how did I not know about this guy before?) took the prize, but everyone was pleased as punch that the runner-up was Corinna's Gus Greeper blog, which I wrote about last spring. It's instructive that two so very different blogs—one focused on doing business and making money online, the other intensely personal—can come one-two on the list.

Thanks to Miss 604 and her team for putting together a great event and a fun contest among Vancouver bloggers in just three weeks.

P.S. Kris Krüg made his own list of winners, and named my site here as one of his favourite personal sites. Thank you too, kk+.

Labels: kriskrug, lipglossandlaptops, meetup, podcast, vancouver, web

1. Ever wonder how great photographers capture amazing images? How do they happen to be there at the decisive moment? Scott Bourne's post at This Week in Photography about his recent photo "Cranes in the Fire Mist" tells you. There is some luck, yes, but much of it is long preparation and experience. Decades' worth, in Scott's case.

2. Today is the last day of voting for the Vancouver-area Best of 604 web awards put together by Rebecca Bollwitt, a.k.a. Miss604. The awards reception is tomorrow night. While of course I suggest that you vote for your favourites in every category, if you need a hint or two, my wife's podcast Lip Gloss and Laptops is nominated in the video blog/podcast category, and her personal site Talking to Air appears in the heavily competitive personal blog list. (Yeah, I got nominated for some stuff too, but why split the vote?)

3. If you listened to Canadian rock music in the '90s, you know the Vancouver band Odds. Well, they're back! After a hiatus of 12 years, earlier in 2008 they released a new album, "Cheerleader," under the name The New Odds. Recently they managed to get the rights to their original name Odds back, so (follow me here) Odds became The New Odds, and are now back to Odds again. Bass player Doug Elliott is a friend of mine, and also plays occasionally with my retro act The Neurotics, and appears on a track on my podcast. If you're on Facebook, join up as a fan on their new Facebook page.

Labels: band, blog, family, photography, podcast, vancouver, web

This week I'm spending all day every day at the B.C. Cancer Agency having my blood tested, blood pressure taken, and ECGs done as part of the Phase I clinical trial I'm participating in—hence my lack of blog posts.

It's not much fun, but I do have plenty of free time in between tests. I spent most of today sleeping after a mostly sleepless night of intestinal side effects (now much better). But yesterday I was more awake, and spent some of my time taking an old guitar riff I'd recorded more than two years ago and building an actual instrumental tune out of it. The result is:

• "In Phase One" - 3.1 MB MP3 file, about 2 min 20 sec

There's something of an '80s U2/Police/New Wave feel to the track. I'm not sure where that vibe came from, but it's still pretty obviously one of my kerrang-kerrang geetar instrumentals, as usual. I hope you like it.

Labels: cancer, chemotherapy, music, penmachinepodcast, podcast, science

For the past two and half years, I've been using Apple's iWeb to publish my Penmachine Podcast of original free MP3 music, interviews, and such. It's always been a pain to use, especially when the files aren't hosted on Apple's .Mac/MobileMe service (which mine aren't), but I kept working with it out of inertia and because it was worth knowing how iWeb works, as well as because I don't update that podcast very often anyway.

But earlier this year, Apple went and broke iWeb for podcasting, and seems in no hurry to fix it. So while I figure out how to migrate my podcast over to some other platform (probably WordPress, but we'll see), I'm just going to post the two new songs I have for it here. I'll add them to the Podsafe Music Network soon too.

New songs

Each link goes directly to the MP3 file for the song, so right-click or control-click to download it instead of playing it in your browser. Unless noted otherwise, all MP3s linked from this post are available under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license. Use them as podcast theme music, backgrounds, or remix them, or whatever—just give me credit:

• "Pepper Plant" (4.3 MB MP3 file) - Of course I've been working on new songs and speaking and going on the radio since March, but I've been too lazy to update the podcast. No more. Here is "Pepper Plant", an instrumental tune I finished in October 2007, but thought I would add to, or at least remix. Yet somehow I never did. Listening to it again, it sounds just fine, so I figured I'd post it up. I'd describe it as something like an old Booker T and the MGs instrumental tune, though not quite as groovy. Give it a listen and see what you think.
• "Spokesmodel Six Eight" (2.9 MB MP3 file) - Earlier in 2008, I borrowed a set of MIDI electronic drums from our friends KA, Jeff, and Clive. "Spokesmodel Six Eight" emerged from using that kit: its name comes from the 6/8 time signature I chose to play it in, since that's something not easy to find in the built-in drum loops for GarageBand. It's another track I expected to finish off, polish, and remix at some point, because it's nothing but drums and some guitars. No bass, no keyboards, no vocals, hardly any arrangement there at all. But it doesn't need more than that, and I particularly like the sounds of the guitars I managed to obtain. So rock out with it.

Old songs

As a bonus, here are all the free MP3 songs (again, mostly instrumental) I've published to the podcast since I started in 2004, in semi-alphabetical order. Tracks with an asterisk * are also available on my album Penmachine Sessions from 2005:

• All Blues Jam with Doug Kaye and Dave Dederer (not Creative Commons, all rights reserved)
• Alpaca Cheese
• Amarilli Mia Bella by Simon James
• The Burning Moon with Simon James*
• Camp Walk
• Can You Dig It? - Business Jive theme
• Clouds or Smoke?*
• Cold Cloth and an Ice Pack*
• Comcast Connection Blues - words by Chris Pirillo
• Deep Cycle Discharge with Simon James*
• El Campo
• Fakeout
• The Flu Song Medley from my band in 1994 (Creative Commons Music Sharing license)
• Fresh Snow in the Valley*
• Funkly Dougietude with Doug Elliott
• Gronk Patrol*
• Had a Plan, Had to Change It*
• Hotcake Syrup*
• How Tall Jennifer Is*
• In the Hollow - Stars Hollow Podcast theme
• It Wouldn't Hurt - 2001 demo
• Less Red Than Red - now the theme for Windows Weekly
• More Red Than Red
• Marina Bay (original master)
• Marina Bay (remaster)
• Meltdown Man* - appearing in the documentary film Paper or Plastic?
• Mighty Mullane (full version)
• Mighty Mullane (short version)
• Pirilloponzi with Chris and Ponzi Pirillo* (Creative Commons Music Sharing license)
• P and P
• Pissed Off Adam Curry (full version)
• Pissed Off Adam Curry (short version)
• A Pizza Without Time
• Pocketbook*
• Quick 'n' Dirty Drums - released to the public domain
• Stop Yield Go Merge*
• Stop Yield Go Merge (Les Thorn remix)
• Striking Silver - 12 minutes!
• Take Time for the Tub
• Tell Me About Gnomedex (full version)
• Tell Me About Gnomedex (instrumental version)
• Tell Me About Gnomedex (karaoke version)
• That's No Dream*
• Washing Off Like an Aardvark (full version) - later the theme for The Planet TV Show
• Washing Off Like an Aardvark (short version)
• Washing Off Like an Aardvark (shorter version)
• Washing Off Like an Aardvark (stub version)
• We Three Kings - Christmas tune
• You're the Big Sky (vocal version)
• You're the Big Sky (instrumental)

Labels: apple, free, itunes, music, penmachinepodcast, podcast

If you missed my interview on CBC Radio earlier today, I have an MP3 file of it available now (5.2 MB, about 12 minutes). I spoke with host Stephen Quinn about all the drastic stuff I've been through since June 2007, including my major surgeries and several chemotherapy regimes, as well as the new phase of my cancer treatment, that of living with the disease rather than simply trying to destroy it.

Incidentally, I had intended on publishing the audio to my Penmachine Podcast too, but Apple's iWeb software, which I use for that, has a nasty bug that's been around since April, and which doesn't seem any closer to being fixed. It prevents me from updating the podcast without a lot of extra work, so I think I'll just plan to switch over to a less awkward podcasting tool in the near future. I'll let you know when that happens—and I'll have some new original music to post there too.

Finally, a new episode of Inside Home Recording should be online tomorrow too.

Labels: apple, cancer, cbc, ego, insidehomerecording, podcast, radio, software, web

NOTE: This post is a pure podcasting nerd-fest. If that's not your thing, feel free to move on.

I help run two podcasts published using the fine open-source blogging software WordPress. A few months ago, when the latest version of WordPress, 2.6, came out, I immediately upgraded one of the sites, Inside Home Recording (IHR). Whoops. Mistake. The new version broke the key podcasting plugin we use, podPress.

So I held off upgrading the other podcast, Lip Gloss and Laptops, keeping it at WordPress 2.5 to maintain compatibility while waiting for a podPress upgrade. Over at IHR, where it was too late, I instead installed the new Blubrry Powerpress podcasting plugin as a substitute.

UPDATE 21 Oct 2008: For those of you using the Blubrry Powerpress plugin, there is a new update that fixes the problem I talk about below, which Angelo discusses in the comments. His summary: "We've just made a new version (0.4.0) which now displays an image in place of loading quicktime files. We use a simple blubrry play icon as the default play image, but you can provide your own play image by adding a custom define to your wp-config.php that includes the URL where your custom play image is located. This new option is documented at the bottom of the Advanced Tweaks page for the Blubrry Powerpress plugin." Kudos to the Blubrry team.

Now, Powerpress is fine. It does the job, and recognizes most of the detailed settings from podPress, but it doesn't offer as fine-grained control, and has one major problem: for non-MP3 podcasts, such as the Enhanced AAC files we use at IHR, it puts up a little movie player (as does podPress), but in doing so (unlike podPress) it also starts loading the podcast file whenever someone visits the web page. For pages with a lot of podcast episodes on them (like our AAC episode index, or even our home page), that really slows down page load times, wastes bandwidth, and throws off audience statistics.

So I wanted podPress back, but for various reasons the developer has been very busy, had his site forums hacked by spammers, and has otherwise been unable to update his free plugin to work with WordPress 2.6 for several months now. I couldn't wait any longer.

But it turns out the fix is a simple one. The new WordPress feature that seems to be interfering with podPress is post revisions, which track changes to posts. Cool, but I don't use it. The No Revisions plugin turns off that feature, and voila!, podPress works again too.

So I installed No Revisions at both the IHR and Lipgloss sites, deactivated Powerpress at IHR, upgraded to the latest WordPress at Lipgloss (using the great WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin), and everything seems to be working fine. Page load times have speeded up, simple players are available for all podcast files, and I'm back where I want to be.

If you're a podcaster with similar problems or have been postponing your WordPress upgrade, this solution might work for you too.

Labels: blog, geekery, linkbait, podcast, software, web

When I was a kid, financial news was perhaps the most boring thing in the whole world, except maybe the TV farm report that frustratingly preceded early-morning cartoons. (That farm news seems to have disappeared here in Vancouver. Even the telephone weather line I used to check, pre-web, before bicycling to university each day, no longer reports hay drying conditions in the summer.)

I can't say that my opinion of money and business news has changed much in the intervening decades. It's usually a snore-fest of inscrutable numbers, impenetrable market analysis, and a parade of old guys in dark suits and ties. (Yeah, I hire an accountant to sort out my taxes after my perfunctory sorting of income and expenses each year.) Despite the impacts of global markets on everyone's ability to get a job, buy things, use credit, and so on, it always seemed so disconnected from my daily life that I just couldn't get interested.

Well, these past few weeks have certainly removed world financial news from the "boring" category, but I still can't pretend to understand what's going on very well. If you're like me, I strongly recommend This American Life's recent audio episode "Another Frightening Show About the Economy." Before you listen to that, however, I suggest you check out its predecessor from May 2008, "The Giant Pool of Money," which dissects the American sub-prime mortgage disaster that preceded the current credit crisis.

Both shows do an amazing job of explaining terminology such as "commercial paper," "credit default swaps," "leverage," "financial instruments," and other stuff I never bothered to learn about, and of putting together the chain of insanity that led to today's bizarro state of affairs, where supposedly laissez-faire conservative governments around the world are desperately spending hundreds of billions of dollars to nationalize banks and insurance companies. Even if you work in the finance industry, are a savvy investor, or otherwise have a handle on this stuff, check out the two shows. You'll likely learn something anyway.

UPDATE: Here's an even more direct explanation (via Kottke).

Labels: americas, europe, money, news, podcast, politics

Last week fellow Canadian podcaster John Meadows, whose show is called "On the Log," interviewed me about my recent return to dabbling in film photography.

John's episode 38 (MP3 file) is titled "Film at 11." I talk about how I now approach making black and white pictures, as well as the cross-processed colour photographs I've taken in the past couple of months. Plus John and I discuss other differences between film and digital photography for archiving and backup.

The podcast is a good corollary to my recent talk at Vancouver's PhotoCamp and my Camera Works series here on the blog.

Labels: film, geekery, nikon, photography, podcast

The podcast I co-host, Inside Home Recording, turned three years old today. That's pretty old for a podcast.

Labels: anniversary, audio, birthday, insidehomerecording, podcast

A couple of months ago I noted that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has two technology-focused radio shows, "Spark" and "Search Engine," and that I couldn't always figure out how they were supposed to differ. (In the comments, Darren Barefoot noted that one way to tell is that "'Search Engine' almost always comes with a sense of righteous indignation, which gets a bit old after a while.")

It looks like CBC also wondered why they had both shows, and has now dissolved "Search Engine" as a radio show by having host Jesse Brown report on technology for other CBC Radio programs. This despite "Search Engine" being one of the network's most-downloaded podcasts. So there will still be a compilation podcast, and the blog will continue too.

That's not a bad solution. Of the two shows, I prefer Nora Young's lifestyle-focused "Spark" over Brown's more politically obsessed "Search Engine" anyway, and "Spark" is coming back in much the same form as before. "Search Engine" will be quite different, since Brown will be working on his own without a team of correspondents, producers, and researchers. We'll see how that goes.

It's worth listening to the last regular show of "Search Engine," however. In it, Brown interviews Canadian Industry Minister Jim Prentice about the lousy new Canadian copyright legislation currently before the House of Commons. Prentice doesn't come across well—but in this case, I think the righteous indignation is appropriate.

Labels: cbc, controversy, copyright, government, podcast, radio

I co-host Inside Home Recording, a long-running audio podcast about recording music and other stuff in your home or project studio. Earlier this year we launched InsideHomeRecording.tv, a companion video podcast that offers short tutorials on the same subject. I just put together my first episode, which shows the process I use for my wife's podcast, Lip Gloss and Laptops, to get good sound reasonably efficiently and cheaply:

You can download IHR TV #3 (H.264 video) or watch it at Blip.tv, Vimeo, and Viddler. A shorter version is also on Revver, YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook. You can receive IHR and IHR TV updates at twitter.com/ihr. And you can subscribe to either the original IHR audio show or to IHR TV.

Let me tell you, though, video is hard. I constructed this episode using a combination of Final Cut Express (to import high-definition video from our AVCHD camcorder) and iMovie '06—which is an old version of that program—for editing. There was lots of importing and exporting, syncing and chopping up and reassembling, and general mucking around with stuff to get it to something I liked.

The reason I undertook such a convoluted process is that Final Cut Express is a big, hairy, complicated program. It does more than I need, and is nearly impossible to sit down and figure out by using it, while the "re-imagined" new iMovie '08 is too simple, designed with a minimalist set of features for absolute video beginners, which even I am not. But iMovie '06 is the perfect mix for me. Even so, it took hours and hours to put the episode together.

My next one will come together faster, because I've figured out some stuff, but I have a new respect for people who make videos, TV shows, and movies for a living—especially editors.

Labels: audio, editing, insidehomerecording, lipglossandlaptops, podcast, video

Almost five years ago, I wrote about my favourite keyboards. Alas, things have changed somewhat: most of the links in my original post are broken, and Apple has stopped making the old transparent black-keyed Pro Keyboard and now produces some interesting but very different super-thin models instead (in between, the company made a tolerable but ho-hum white keyboard that also acted as an excellent crumb tray).

This week, John Gruber and Dan Benjamin wax rhapsodic on their podcast about the ancient Apple Extended Keyboard II, pictured. I have three, as well as two Apple Keyboards (not the Keyboard II) that use the same keys, several miscellaneous USB keyboards, a decent basic PC PS/2 keyboard, and a treasured IBM 101. The 101 is currently hooked up to my eMac with a PS/2-USB adapter, with keys remapped with the Mac's System Preferences.

The Extended Keyboard II and the IBM 101 are the twin holy grails of keyboard nerds. Unfortunately, my EKIIs have been sitting in a cupboard for years because I never got around to buying an adapter to make their Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) connectors work with newer USB Macs. But now Gruber and Benjamin may have inspired me to track one down.

I spent many a year pounding my fingers on an Extended II, in university and as a freelance technical writer. The IBM 101 is a very different beast, also built like a tank but with a more metallic, punchy feel, and an audible note to its astoundingly loud typing sound. As yet no one has been able to replicate what's good about these devices, so if you're a serious computer typist, you'll need to track down a vintage one.

And no, you can't have mine.

Labels: apple, geekery, history, podcast

You already heard the full-length unedited version of my interview with Nora Young (pictured) of CBC Radio's "Spark." Now here's the edited version in the latest complete episode of the show, with extra bonus material including me reading some of my blog posts, and my podsafe tune "Striking Silver" as background music.

You can download the whole episode as an MP3 file, or if you're subscribed to the Spark podcast, you'll get it automatically. If you prefer to hear "Spark" on the radio, it airs Wednesday, April 30 (tomorrow) at 11:30 a.m. and Saturday, May 3 at 4:00 p.m. (a half hour later in Newfoundland, of course), on CBC's Radio One network, which is 690 AM in Vancouver. This episode also features internetfamous blogebrities such as Merlin Mann and Amber Mac.

Finally, if you have any doubt at all that "Spark" is a cool show, they just received a promo message recorded by freakin' Strong Bad! How awesome is that? (MP3 also available.)

Labels: cbc, ego, podcast, radio

As part of my slightly twisted effort to use my cancer treatment as leverage to get me the kind of exposure and fame my more modest general talents haven't done, I was interviewed on Wednesday for the show "Spark" on CBC Radio (as I've already flogged).

You can now hear the full-length talk between me and the always sultry-voiced Nora Young—a voice made even huskier by her fighting a cold at the time. Here's a direct link to the MP3 file (24 minutes, about 33 MB) too. I'll probably link that up at my podcast after the edited version goes to air next week.

I like that "Spark" doesn't have the traditional media attitude of holding on to its source material like a state secret. It's unusual enough for a radio or TV program, publicly funded or not, to post full-length versions of edited interviews online. But to do it days before the final version appears is still more innovative. I'm not sure I'd even do that.

Labels: cbc, ego, podcast, radio

While I'm on this CBC kick, I may as well mention "Ideas," which is surely one of the best radio shows in the world. It has been running in some form or another since 1965.

Every weekday on the radio, and weekly on its podcast, the program spends an hour delving deeply into its title. Its documentary producers talk to politicians, physicians, scientists, theologians, philosophers, poets, artists, writers, historians, and others about topics as diverse as China's 15th century naval fleet, the modern relevance of Don Quixote, theoretical physics, Picasso and the musical avant-garde in Paris during the 1920s, and golf.

And that's just this week. I heard bits (alas, only bits) of the Chinese navy broadcast last night while I was running errands, and was entranced. I sat in the drugstore parking lot for a few minutes because I couldn't tear myself away.

There is a separate feature page (with RealAudio streams! Who still uses that?) and podcast (with proper MP3s) for the ongoing series "How to Think About Science," which started last year. There are already 17 hours in that group of shows alone.

"Ideas" will grow your brain. I recommend you dedicate some time to it.

Labels: cbc, podcast, radio, science

CBC Radio has two programs (also available as podcasts) that confuse me a little: "Spark" and "Search Engine." I like them both, but they seem to cover a lot of the same territory of life in the digital age. Sometimes I can't remember which one had a particular segment—was it host Nora Young at "Spark" who interviewed the guy who edits Hillary Clinton's Wikipedia entry? No, it was host Jesse Brown from "Search Engine."

I suppose it doesn't matter. I'm glad there's enough of an audience for my kind of techie social nerdity that CBC has two shows about it. Yay again to Tod for helping the network get on the podcasting train after jump-starting it with the CBC Unplugged show almost three years ago.

Anyway, I'm going to call "Spark" my favourite of the two shows now, because it looks like I'm going to be on it. Nora—that's her on the bike—indirectly heard about my recent talk on life, death, and my blog, and contacted me through Facebook (appropriately enough) to see if I might like to be on "Spark."

One of my weaknesses is appearing in the media. I've always loved seeing my name in print, or being on the radio or TV. So my immediate thought was, "hell yeah!" We'll likely record something next week for the "Spark" episode airing (and podcasting) at the end of the month. More details to follow.

Incidentally, Nora's other podcast, The Sniffer (not affiliated with the CBC), has been on my subscription list for a couple of years now. I recommend it.

Labels: blog, cancer, cbc, ego, facebook, geekery, podcast, radio

I didn't really get podcasting at all until the middle of 2005, which was some months after the technology first appeared in late 2004—and right about the time iTunes started supporting it. The first person to start a real podcast in our family was my wife, who launched Lip Gloss and Laptops with her friend KA in March 2006.

Their show has now reached its 100th episode. That would be a milestone in any medium, but in podcasting it's a big one. A good percentage of podcasts podfade and stop publishing long before their 100th show. Others, like my my personal podcast and the other one I co-host, publish irregularly and so take a long time to rack up the numbers (despite starting back in 2005, Inside Home Recording hasn't even reached episode 60 yet).

But other than a few holidays over Christmas and such, Lip Gloss and Laptops has come out every Wednesday for over two years. Even if you're not into the beauty and cosmetics industry, which it covers, it's an interesting and informative listen. (As the show's audio engineer, I hear every episode.)

So congratulations to Airdrie and Kerry Anne on their 100th show. I'm sure they'll be hearing lots more cheers from their fans around the world too.

Labels: anniversary, family, lipglossandlaptops, podcast

Back in February when my podcast co-host Paul and I made our most recent trip down to the Lab With Leo studios here in Vancouver, no one knew that it would be the last shooting week ever for the show. But not long afterwards, Leo Laporte emailed to tell us it was the end of the line: after ten years of creating Call for Help and The Lab for TV in the U.S. and Canada, it had been cancelled.

It's a pity that a tech show like The Lab, which covers a wide variety of topics and doesn't talk down to its audience, couldn't survive—or even get U.S. distribution. Fortunately, Leo (who has been covering technology on radio and TV for decades, and has even won an Emmy award) isn't standing still, and plans to launch an online version of the show in the next few weeks from his studio in Petaluma, California (also, incidentally, the town where Mesa-Boogie manufactures its guitar amplifiers).

As far as Inside Home Recording goes, we've started posting tutorials over at IHR TV, which may later include some live-action explanatory episodes like our segments on The Lab. And though it's far less convenient than driving a few minutes across Vancouver, if we ever find ourselves in California wine country, we might appear on Leo's new show down there too.

Labels: geekery, insidehomerecording, labwithleo, leolaporte, paulgaray, podcast, television

Over at Inside Home Recording, we recently started IHR TV, additional short video tutorials that augment our regular longer audio podcasts. As part of that effort, we used some of the money we get from sponsors and advertisers to buy two Panasonic HDC-SD5 high-definition camcorders. (Bought online, two of them cost only very slightly more than a single one at local retail stores.)

The last camcorder my family had, which sits half-broken in our basement, was an old Samsung analogue Video 8 tape-based machine, from 1998. Given the improvements in other consumer electronics, from personal computers to digital cameras to televisions, over the past decade, I'm not sure why I'm so surprised at this little camcorder, but it's a remarkable machine.

Consider, first, that it can record at 1920x1080i "Full HD" resolution, with something like six times the detail of our old camera, using a very nice mechanically stabilized Leica lens. It stores that information not on tapes, but on the same SD cards used by the still cameras and audio recorders we have at the house. The whole camera is only about a third larger, and almost exactly the same weight, as the old Samsung battery—being smaller than my hand, it almost gets lost among its accessories in our camcorder bag.

Perhaps most remarkably, Panasonic has put real thought into simplifying how the camera works. There aren't many buttons and dials, they're clearly labeled, and everything is easy enough to figure out that the manual (which is long and detailed, but only averagely written) is only necessary for some of the more detailed settings. The SD5 even takes pretty nice still photos.

Those huge HD videos, however, require a lot of horsepower to edit: only one of the computers in our house (my Intel MacBook) will even import the massive AVCHD video files directly. And, following the trend in pocket still cameras, there is no longer a viewfinder: you have to look at the pop-out LCD screen to frame your shots. Like too many consumer electronics today, the camera also comes festooned with garish and difficult-to-remove little stickers advertising its features, the software it comes with, and so on. I removed those immediately.

It lacks a couple of pro features that would be useful: the only sound-in is from the stereo microphone, so you can't connect an external mic or line-in sound, which is something I'll work around with a separate audio recorder if needed. (Very cleverly, though, the microphones can focus in on your subject as you zoom the lens, and electronically filter out some wind noise. Nifty.) Similarly, while it comes with cables to send sound and video out to a TV or other device, you can't record video from any source other than the lens, so I can't, for instance, use it to digitize any of our old footage.

With devices like these, it's no wonder people can now smuggle broadcast-quality video out of the world's war zones and trouble spots. We'll see what I can do with this camera and my mediocre video skills for our modest little podcast.

Labels: geekery, leica, panasonic, photography, podcast, video

I spoke to the BC Branch of the Editors' Association of Canada a week and a half ago, about how I've integrated my online and offline lives since getting cancer last year. I've now posted an enhanced audio podcast of my talk, which includes my slides as part of the MPEG-4 file (24 MB, about 1 hour).

If you're subscribed to my podcast feed, you may already have the file on your computer or iPod.

Labels: cancer, meetup, podcast, writing

My Inside Home Recording podcast co-host Paul has been making instructional videos for macProVideo.com for some time now, and he's good at it. So when he proposed that we start putting out short video podcasts in addition to our regular audio show, I knew they could be useful.

Now we've posted our first episode of Inside Home Recording TV (IHR TV). This one Paul recorded entirely himself. It's about using Propellerhead's ReWire to link their Reason software to Apple's Logic Pro.

We're trying something new with this video podcast. As usual, you can subscribe to watch on your computer, Apple TV, iPod, Zune, or whatever. In addition to posting it on our own site, you can also find each episode free at the video sharing sites Revver, Vimeo, Blip.tv, and YouTube. Plus we post them to Facebook, and will note each new show (audio and video) at Twitter.

Labels: apple, insidehomerecording, paulgaray, podcast, video

• I mentioned the other Derek Miller before. Looks like he's going to get even more famous—his latest album is a collaboration with Double Trouble and Willie Nelson. So when you see "Derek Miller with Willie Nelson," it's really not me.
  
  
• I didn't know that the Milky Way, in which we live, is a barred spiral galaxy.
  
  
• User interface design, simplified.
  
  
• "That's not the same." "Yes it is."
  
  
• I love the existentialism of Garfield Minus Garfield.
  
  
• The 20 biggest record company screw-ups of all time.
  
  
• Podcasting statistics, explained.
  
  
• Check out the iPod on the Space Shuttle. (They had to put in a different battery for safety, by the way.)
  
  
• From Stuff White People Like: "[Going to graduate school] is an opportunity to join an elite group of people who have a passion for learning that is so great they are willing to forgo low five-figure publishing and media jobs to follow their dreams of academic glory."

Labels: ipod, linksofinterest, music, podcast, school

There's going to be a podcaster meetup this Wednesday, March 12, 2008. Details:

6:30 p.m.
The End Cafe
2360 Commercial Drive (just north of the SkyTrain)
Vancouver, British Columbia

Alas, I won't be there—I have yet more chemo that day, so that night I'll be in sad shape, curled up in bed watching The Food Network, or sleeping. But my co-host Paul plans to be there, and I'm hoping some of the rest of you will too—if you're not at SXSW in Austin, of course.

You don't need to be a podcaster or blogger or whatever. If meeting other webby types is up your alley, head on down. Doing a little RSVP at upcoming.org or Facebook would help with planning, I guess, but you should also just be able to show up.

Have a drink or two for me, will you?

Labels: blog, chemotherapy, geekery, meetup, paulgaray, podcast, vancouver

Back in late 2004 and early 2005, following the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, I wrote a series of blog posts that turned into a popular online article about tsunamis.

Now a two-minute video based on it, created by three local film school students, is available in iPod-compatible format for iTunes or QuickTime—as well as on my podcast.

Click the preview below to play it, or the direct link to see it bigger (that big one is a 25 MB MPEG file, so it may take awhile to load):

My friend Sebastien, who is Head of Digital Design at Vancouver Film School, referred me to the three students (Jamie Peterson, Erica Edwards, and Shalinder Matharu), who needed a topic for an infographic project. My contribution was limited to a couple of basic scripts; they did the rest, adapting the article into the instructional video graphic using Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and After Effects (no, those are not real paper cutouts—I asked).

Obviously, they had to cut down the concepts a huge amount to fit into the short time available, but I think the result is effective. It's difficult to keep scientific accuracy in such an abbreviated format, but I believe any quibbles a real wave researcher might have (such as with the shape of the wave) are pretty minor. Nice job, Jamie, Erica, and Shal.

Labels: animation, blog, podcast, school, science, video

Despite the crap of the past week, I managed to get some of my hobby stuff done anyway, including a new episode of the Inside Home Recording podcast (in which you can hear me play electronic drums) and a couple of appearances on Leo Laporte's Lab With Leo TV show.

Unfortunately, it will be a few weeks before The Lab episodes go to air, and more time after that before they're available online. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks to the Holloways for loaning me the use of the swanky electronic drums on both shows, by the way.

Labels: insidehomerecording, labwithleo, music, podcast, television

My podcast co-host Paul and I will once again appear on tech TV show The Lab With Leo tomorrow, as we've done regularly since last spring.

The show records here in Vancouver, and the episode won't appear for a couple of months on air (on Canada's G4 Tech TV, Australia's How To Channel, and also on City TV weekdays at 11:00 a.m. here in Vancouver). We'll be taping two show segments this time, one on MIDI drums and one on headphones.

I'll let you know when the shows are available online as well.

Labels: insidehomerecording, labwithleo, music, paulgaray, podcast, television

Here's the last batch of my photos from the Northern Voice conference:

Labels: blog, conferences, geekery, meetup, northernvoice, podcast, web

Here are my latest photos from MooseCamp, which was the first day of Northern Voice. I've also posted some wacky night pictures from the way home.

At MooseCamp I had a chance to try out a Nikon D3 camera belonging to Matt Mullenweg. It's extremely impressive, probably the most solidly built camera I've ever held. But it is freaking huge—more massive than some medium-format cameras, I think. In contrast, John Biehler's new MacBook Air is shockingly light. Hold one and you'll understand what the fuss is about.

Labels: blog, conferences, geekery, macbook, meetup, nikon, northernvoice, photography, podcast, web

It wasn't really called TikiCamp, but the Northern Voice opening tiki dinner at the Waldorf Hotel in Vancouver was a ton of fun. Here are my pictures:

More from the main event tomorrow and Saturday.

Labels: blog, conferences, food, geekery, meetup, northernvoice, photography, podcast, web

Sometimes I forget how sick I am. Not often, but on a day like today when the sun is shining and I have a week off from chemotherapy, when I can take the car in for service, then buy some groceries and take the bus home, make dinner, clean up, help get the kids to bed, and record a podcast, there are times when I forget the cancer.

At times like this, I have to remember what I've learned in the past year, which is to say no.

When I was healthier, I'd often get roped into (or rope myself into) projects that might be fun, or might benefit me or other people, or might even make me some money—but that turned out to be way more work than I expected. Or I'd end up saying yes to many little things that, individually, wouldn't take much effort, but collectively sucked up way too much of my time.

I can't do that now, and it has been a good lesson. During the rollercoaster of surgeries and radiation and chemo and weight loss and weight regain and wild swings in blood glucose and mood and physical ability since the beginning of 2007, I've simply dropped quite a number of things, sometimes with no warning. The world kept spinning, and the people who had to pick up the pieces did a good job, or made do without my contributions.

Seeing that, I've made myself a rule. When I get offered some freelance work or come across a volunteer project or a hobby activity that I might want to do—the kind of thing I'd have reflexively said yes to previously—I ask myself a question: if I'm well enough to do this kind of work, shouldn't I be ready to go back to my day job? If not (and so far, my answer has always been no, I'm nowhere near healthy enough), then I shouldn't take on anything big and new either. I shouldn't, and can't, juggle what I used to.

It's refreshing. I do smaller things here and there, and have managed to keep doing some activities I really enjoy, such as podcasting, playing with my band on occasion, and writing this blog. I do some chores around the house, hack around with computers, watch a bit of Discovery Channel, hang out with my kids and make sure they get to school in the morning, and spend time with my wife so I can look into her amazing blue eyes.

For now, in between all my medical appointments and such, that's plenty. And that's what I say yes to.

Labels: cancer, chemotherapy, family, fatigue, love, navarik, podcast

As someone who's been a Vancouver blogger for more than seven years, and podcasting here for almost three, I often hear the question in the title of this post. But that's not what the questioners usually mean. What they want to ask is: Can you make a living from blogging and podcasting?

The short answer is yes, but don't go and quit your day job just yet. I didn't say that just anyone should try to pay for your food, lodging, and transportation needs (plus those for your spouse and kids) from blogs and podcasts, or that you could make a huge living from them. It's possible, but I don't do it, and haven't even tried. You should be aware that, just like anything else, making a living online would be a job, not some sort of free-money fantasy life.

My wife, who's also a blogger and podcaster, and I were talking about it this morning before she went to work (she's had the same stable, rewarding, good-paying professional day job for more than 15 years, and isn't planning on quitting that anytime soon). For us, our online activities are hobbies. They bring in a little money from ads and sponsorships, usually enough to cover their costs and maybe buy the occasional dinner.

Blogging for money

The people I know who work as bloggers, like Arieanna, work hard. She writes at least five different work blogs (plus others) all day, every day, sometimes until late at night. (If I had to scour the news for links about Mischa Barton all day, I'd probably go batty. And that's just one blog.)

If you look at blogs that are popular enough to pay people's salaries—like Arieanna's and the others at b5media, or the Weblogs Inc. network that includes Engadget and its siblings, or successful independent blogs like Daring Fireball—they tend to be very focused and updated many times a day.

They often attract lots of comments, which require moderation and feedback, and their posts tend to be well sourced or individually researched, and also well written and concise. In many cases, the words are carefully crafted to attract search engine traffic, and the blogger may spend quite a bit of time writing about things he or she isn't all that interested in, or at least (as in any job) may have days where the job is just a slog, rather than a joy. Money-generating blogs take a lot of effort, skill, and time to maintain. They're work.

In other words, don't expect to dash off a paragraph every couple of days about what your kids ate for breakfast and have the ad revenue pour in.

Now, if you can find a day job where you spend a significant part of your time blogging, that's another matter. If I weren't on medical leave right now, I'd be doing that over here (notice that the "Daily Blog" isn't very daily while I'm absent). But that blog—and private internal blogs and wikis the company runs behind a firewall—is just a slice of my day job, not the whole thing, so I don't think it counts either.

Podcasting for money

Podcasting, as an even newer medium than blogging, has an even less-established income stream. Search engine optimization and contextual advertising don't work as well for podcasts, audio or video. Like most bloggers (and like me), the vast majority of podcasters do what they do as a hobby. They (like me) might bring in a bit of cash from sponsors and podcast network advertising and so on. But podcast production is even more labour-intensive than blogging, and unless you put out shows quite frequently and build a significant audience on an appropriate topic (or topics, if you can manage several shows), it will be pretty hard to pay a mortgage.

Even Leo Laporte, whose This Week in Tech (TWiT) network attracts some of the biggest audiences in podcasting (numbering the hundreds of thousands each week), and who runs an extremely efficient podcasting operation largely by himself, still has a day job. Several, in fact. He remains a widely syndicated radio host, as he has been for decades, and also helms a cable TV show on which I've appeared (as a guest paid only in exposure and with a free take-out lunch) a few times.

Leo probably could make his podcasts a full-time gig, but presumably chooses instead to funnel what money he gets back into the network and to honoraria for his guest hosts. Others, like podcast pioneer Adam Curry, have used venture funding to create a buffer while they try to build businesses like PodShow into something large and viable.

Individual podcasters who work hard can also make a job of it. No one I know well does that, but among the tens of thousands of podcasts out there, a small number can keep their hosts fed, clothed, and housed. Again, those tend to be focused, well produced, frequent—and lucky. If you got into the game early, or happened to hit a certain niche at just the right time, or worked hard on a concept that struck a chord with the (still relatively small) podcasting audience, and then hustle like hell, you might be able to quit that day job, if that's what you want.

It used to be about the music, man...

In many ways, being a podcaster or blogger is like being a musician. Far more people play music, or blog, or podcast, for fun than make a living at it. I was a full-time musician for awhile in the early '90s, and it was tough work, with long hours, lots of low-budget travel (not a requirement online, fortunately), and crappy pay. I quit after I got married, because that life wasn't what I wanted long term.

The people I know who have made a career of music—and several of the guys in my band do just that, even though I haven't—aren't Rock Stars. They're working professionals. They do a lot of different things: they teach music, work as studio sidemen, tour with established acts, make instructional videos, play at casinos, entertain at weddings and corporate meetings, compose soundtracks, produce and engineer other acts, give seminars, and record jingles. They keep accounts, pay taxes, save money for retirement, buy health insurance, and run their careers as businesses.

I think anyone looking to work in blogging in podcasting is going to have to do something similar. Be professional, work hard. Use your online activities as leverage to do other things. Even in my blog's early days, it didn't make me any direct money at all, but it brought in plenty of work when I was a freelance technical writer and editor. Similarly, being an expert blogger or podcaster (or even better, both) can help you make money in other ways—such as helping other people and organizations make blogging and podcasting part of what they do.

It's not magic, it's work

If you're going to make money online, you'll need an entrepreneurial impulse, or you'll need to work with others who do. You need to know how these new media work, and how to promote and take advantage of them in all sorts of ways.

The Web and its technologies are still a frontier, and you'll probably have to bust your butt to succeed. You need to flexible and see opportunities you might not expect—selling cool T-shirts and mugs and stuff might make you more dough than any kind of sponsorship or advertising, for instance.

Or, if you're like me, you might prefer to let your blogs and podcasts be fun things that you do on the side, not something that you have to do every day, and which might burn you out after awhile.

The Internet is pretty damn cool, but it's not magic. Those who succeed on it are the same ones who succeed anywhere: they're smart, skilled, and have good ideas. They make realistic plans and knuckle down to put them in action. They hustle. And sometimes they fail and have to try again with a wiser view.

Labels: b5media, blog, johngruber, leolaporte, linkbait, money, podcast, web

Todd Cochrane, one of the hardest-working guys in podcasting, and his team at RawVoice have just launched podcastFAQ.com, which looks to be a great one-stop resource to learn about podcasting: what it is, how to find shows, how to make shows, and so on.

As someone involved in three podcasts (Inside Home Recording, Lip Gloss and Laptops, and my Penmachine Podcast), I often get questions about podcasting from both prospective listeners and people interested in making their own shows, so I expect I'll be pointing quite a few people in podcastFAQ's direction.

Labels: audio, education, geekery, insidehomerecording, lipglossandlaptops, podcast, web

A few days ago my wife mused that she'd like something by her bedside to listen to podcasts and music on, so she doesn't have to go to sleep wearing earphones. Gadgety guy that I am, today I went out and found her just such a thing, the Logitech mm50 iPod speaker system. While it has been superseded by Logitech's newer and very similar Pure-Fi Anywhere system, the mm50 is still widely available (for now) in the $100 to $150 range, brand new.

I've had my eye on the mm50 since Adam Curry advertised it on his Daily Source Code podcast a couple of years ago. For our needs it's the right mix of reasonable size (it's about the length of a loaf of bread, and as deep as a thick slice), portability, ease of use, and, most of all, sound quality. The unit I bought was a discounted open-box floor demo from Best Buy, and while there I compared it to a variety of other options. It sounded superior to most of them, and better than pretty much anything in the sub-$200 category, including its newer Pure-Fi sibling.

It's not perfect. While it charges any iPod plugged into its dock connector, and includes adapters for several iPod models, the mm50 doesn't act as a true iPod dock that you can connect to your computer to sync up. (Earlier releases of the mm50 did offer that feature, and it's still noted in the manual, but newer revisions like ours don't have the necessary pass-through dock socket.) Volume control is two buttons, rather than a more sensible knob. There's no bass or treble or other equalization control—although the sound is so good those don't seem necessary, and not having them keeps down the button clutter. The included remote, while useful, doesn't offer as much iPod control as some competing models. The internal battery isn't easily replaceable.

But the mm50 supports both AC power and its internal rechargeable battery, includes a nice zippered and padded carrying case, has smart stabilizing fold-out metal feet, features a regular 1/8" stereo line input for non-iPod devices, and feels remarkably sturdy. There's a two-year warranty. The "3D surround sound" isn't really 3D, but it sounds shockingly good regardless.

I think the mm50 is a good value, especially if you can find it at a reduced price now that it's a discontinued model. My wife sure likes hers.

Labels: apple, audio, family, gadgets, ipod, logitech, podcast, shopping

Speaking of food, three words: Mmm, cheese podcast.

Labels: food, podcast, religion

For some reason, when the chemo starts hitting me, I often find myself watching Iron Chef America on the Food Network. Although I'm usually nauseated, somehow the expertly prepared gourmet food still looks wonderfully appetizing. A recent Kobe Beef episode was particularly scrumptious (probably because I'm a bit anemic and have been craving red meat).

Semi-related to that, I don't often write songs with words, but every once in a while something comes to me. Here's what the Food Network led me to write last evening:

Sometimes I feel like I've been drinking
Even when I haven't beem drinking
Baby, I swear I haven't been thinking
Of anyone but you
And Nigella Lawson
In the kitchen
With a spatula
And a blowtorch
For the crème brulée

We'll see where that goes.

Labels: cancer, chemotherapy, food, music, podcast, television

This site runs on Blogger, as it has for more than seven years, but if I were starting over again today I'd probably use WordPress. That's what I recommend to my friends and relatives, so that other sites I work with, such as Simon's, my wife's podcast (as well as her personal blog), and Inside Home Recording all use it.

If you use the free WordPress.com hosting service, all maintenance and upgrades are handled for you by the fine folks who run it. But if, like me, you're reasonably geeky and need the extra customization available by running WordPress on your own server, the main hassle has been that, when a new version of WordPress comes out, upgrading the software involves:

1. Backing up your installation.
2. Downloading the latest version of WordPress.
3. Deactivating all the WordPress plugins on your sever.
4. Putting your website into Maintenance Mode (basically, activating a page that says, "Hold on, we'll be right back" to your web visitors).
5. Uploading a whole ton of updated files to your server, usually in several stages so you don't accidentally overwrite any of your own customizations, plugins, or themes.
6. Running an upgrade script to update the database.
7. Taking the site out of Maintenance Mode.
8. Checking to make sure nothing's broken.

I've gotten reasonably good at that, but it's still time consuming, especially for multiple sites. Today, while surfing around feeling gross from chemo side effects, I read about the Automatic Upgrade Plugin (via Scott Beale on Twitter). It does all of that stuff with only a few clicks.

I tried it on two websites without a hitch, even using the Automated Mode that avoids the multi-screen, "Here's the next step, CLICK HERE if you're sure you want to proceed" process—with hardly a hitch.

Then, confident, I proceeded to the third site, Inside Home Recording, again in Automated Mode, got almost all the way through, and encountered the dreaded "500 Internal Server Error" page. I tried rolling back to my previous installation of WordPress manually. No dice. I noticed even the IHR forums (which use different software) were dead, which was mysterious and a bit freaky. And when I tried putting a generic "Sorry I broke the site" HTML page at index.php or index.html at the root of the site, it still didn't work. Yikes! I'd blown up the whole website!

I had a hunch, and took a peek at the invisible .htaccess file. That's a plain old text file sitting on the IHR web server (which I think is in Texas). The ubiquitous Apache web server software it's running uses .htaccess as a list to answer the question, "What do I do with stuff on this machine when I sent it out to the Web?" It seems that either WordPress or the Automatic Upgrade plugin had added some extraneous stuff to the end of that file. I deleted the extra text and, bingo, IHR was back up.

Having rolled back to the older version of WordPress, I made sure I had proper backups again (I remind you, back up, back up, back up your stuff), then tried the Automatic Upgrade plugin once more, but this time in Manual Mode (i.e. confirmed each step). No problems on this second attempt, and IHR is spiffed up with the latest software release.

Elapsed time from upgrade to blow up to fix up? Less than ten minutes. Sometimes I'm glad I have some web-fu when I need it.

Labels: backup, blog, family, friends, geekery, insidehomerecording, lipglossandlaptops, podcast, software, web

Over the past year, my Inside Home Recording podcast co-host Paul Garay and I have appeared six times on tech broadcaster Leo Laporte's cable show The Lab With Leo, which films (or, uh, digitizes, I guess) here in Vancouver. All six appearances are now available on Google Video:

We recorded them two at a time, which is why you'll notice that we're sometimes wearing the same shirts in more than one show. And I was taking some serious painkillers during each episode (with luck you won't notice that), since we made the segments during my spring chemo/radiation treatments, as well as before and after my major surgery in the summer.

We hope to record more in 2008 as Leo's resident audio recording experts—without those distractions.

Labels: insidehomerecording, labwithleo, leolaporte, podcast, television, video

The latest episode of Inside Home Recording, the podcast I co-host, has just gone online in MP3 and Enhanced AAC formats. Go listen if you want to hear about nice headphones from Ultrasone, rockin' guitar sounds from Guitar Rig 3 software, or the black vs. silver debate.

Also, if you like the background music that's part of my Guitar Rig 3 review, you can download that (it's called "Striking Silver" and is 12 minutes long) as an MP3. It's the first original instrumental I've posted to the Penmachine Podcast since "Fakeout" way back in February. But you know, it's been a busy year.

My wife's Lip Gloss and Laptops podcast posted their final show (MP3) of 2007 last week.

Yesterday evening I went to three different Christmas events, all with food. This week may have been about podcasting, but now it seems time to eat. And wrap. Ho ho ho.

Labels: guitar, holiday, insidehomerecording, lipglossandlaptops, music, penmachinepodcast, podcast

To honour the end of NaBloPoMo (in which I didn't participate officially), this final post of November will contain a mishmash of nothing in particular:

Cory Doctorow is reasonably digitally paranoid, but he has a point about Facebook: "Adding more users to a social network increases the probability that it will put you in an awkward social circumstance."

It's worth listening to what Dave Winer has to say about podcasting, since he helped invent it, so when he writes, "I've heard that podcasting didn't achieve its promise," that's worth reading. His response begins: "First, obviously it depends on what you felt was the promise. Second, it depends whether you think there's more to do." He does.

Evel Knievel was an icon during my childhood, the epitome of cool to elementary school boys in the '70s. He died today.

Finally, here's a video of our pal Dizzy the Podcast Puppy licking my daughter on the face, after some prompting:

Labels: animals, extremesports, facebook, family, friends, pets, podcast

My wife's Lip Gloss and Laptops podcast has been featured on the main page of the Fashion and Beauty podcast category in the U.S. iTunes Store (they're on the second page here in Canada). We also figured out today that the show is #34 in that top 100 in Canada, and #68 in the U.S.A.

So congratulations, LGL, on 84 episodes and a feature at iTunes.

In addition, my podcast co-host Paul Garay and I have posted our 50th episode of Inside Home Recording, which we recorded live at a Coquitlam restaurant a couple of days ago. Mmmm, calzone.

Labels: audio, food, insidehomerecording, lipglossandlaptops, paulgaray, podcast, recording

Today my podcast co-host Paul Garay and I recorded our 50th episode of Inside Home Recording (IHR). Usually we put together a whole bunch of separate segments and edit them into a proper show over the course of several days, but today we simply sat down at a restaurant and chatted for about 45 minutes about that process: how we usually construct our podcast.

Paul started IHR back in August 2005, when podcasting itself was less than a year old, and Apple had just added podcasting support to iTunes. It's the longest-running podcast on home and project studio audio recording. I joined on episode #16 in early 2006. It's been a fair bit of work for an essentially unpaid hobby, but also a lot of fun.

Episode #50 be a bit of a different show, but I hope an interesting one. We should have it posted in a day or two.

Labels: audio, insidehomerecording, paulgaray, podcast, recording

Mark Blevis, province-hopping Ottawa-based techie guy and co-host of the Canadian Podcast Buffet, among other podcasts, is putting together a podcaster-blogger-geek-nerd meetup on Monday, November 19 here in Vancouver.

It happens at 6:00 p.m. at Steamworks in Gastown:

I'm sure many of Metro Vancouver's finest will be there—and I mean finest geeks, of course. Right now I have no idea whether I'll go, but you should. There will be beer.

Labels: geekery, meetup, podcast, vancouver

My wife and I both co-host podcasts. Hers, Lip Gloss and Laptops, comes out more often, on a regular weekly schedule, while mine, Inside Home Recording, is more sporadic, usually every two weeks, although it's been a month since our last show.

There are lots of reasons for that, mostly that they are very different programs about completely different topics (cosmetics and music recording, respectively), with entirely different production styles and workflows. I also have my own individual podcast here at Penmachine, which consists mostly of instrumental recordings I've made and released to the public, as well as some interviews, spoken-word segments, and other stuff. Because of my cancer treatment, I haven't added anything to that show in months.

Today, by coincidence, is the first time all three shows have a new episode out within the same 24 hour period, and on Halloween to boot. Go give them a listen:

• Lip Gloss and Laptops Episode #80 - audio file (MP3), web shownotes - some spooky stuff, reviews, and letters
  
  
• Inside Home Recording #48 - audio file (Enhanced AAC), web shownotes - a new remix contest, Logic review, MIDI 101, drum recording
  
  
• Penmachine Podcast - "Quick 'n' Dirty Drums" - audio file, web shownotes - sort of a cheat: it's the mixed drum tutorial track from my other podcast, recorded in my basement

I hope you enjoy them—if so, they're all easy to subscribe to, and here's more info about that: Lip Gloss and Laptops, Inside Home Recording, Penmachine Podcast.

Labels: family, holiday, insidehomerecording, lipglossandlaptops, music, podcast

There's been a bit of a buzz recently about the book The Year of Living Biblically, where author A.J. Jacobs, an agnostic Jew, chose to live by all the rules in the Bible (even the obscure ones, and mostly from the Old Testament) as much as he could, for an entire year. The Bible is of course a fascinating book, even for atheists like me, for whom it is not a divine revelation but a magnificent human construction.

Like the Quran, the Hindu Vedas, Buddhist Sutras, the Analects of Kong Fuzi (Confucius), and the myths and stories of everyone from the Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans, and the Norse to the Inca, the Haida, and the vast diaspora of Polynesia, the Bible has profoundly affected, and been the foundation of, huge parts of human culture and history. I know less about it (and those other works) than I should.

I'm not sure Jacobs's book would be my best resource, though I'm sure it's funny and revealing—in a radio interview with Jacobs I heard this morning, I discovered that wearing clothes whose fibres mix wool and linen is apparently forbidden. Daily showers are, however, apparently fine, even though I've heard of some religious Christians and Jews who disdain "bathing for pleasure." And in the Bible (New Testament especially), there appears to be a whole lot more about helping the poor and needy than the behaviour of a lot of people who claim to be literalist Christians would indicate.

Perhaps a better introduction would be How to Read the Bible, by Richard Holloway, the controversial retired Anglican Bishop of Edinburgh. On the most recent CBC "Ideas" podcast, he and Paul Kennedy engage in a fascinating discussion (MP3, available on CD once that MP3 link expires) of his book.

Richard Dawkins, most prominent atheist, was raised Anglican, and he has called Anglicanism a watered-down, weakened strain of the virus he thinks religion is. Holloway surely does not disabuse Dawkins of that assessment, especially when he writes things like:

One of the constant themes of the Bible is the human capacity to get God wrong, which is why the distance between those who believe God is a human invention and those who believe God is real is narrower than we might think.

and:

The afterlife of great texts [like the Bible] eclipses the intention of the original author, even if we think we know what it was.

and:

Retrojecting ideas from a later perspective into the text of the Hebrew Bible became a major enterprise in Christianity, with two branches, historical and theological.

Those are just from the first chapter. I knew nothing about Holloway until I heard the podcast, but I suspect that a lot of believing people—especially those prone to Biblical literalism—no longer consider him a good Anglican, or a good Christian, regardless of his previous senior role in the church.

Now, by nature, I know pretty much nothing about the past 2000 years of Christian theology, just as I am largely ignorant of what intellectuals among Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Jews, Zoroastrians, Jains, Buddhists, and others have thought and written about their own faiths—or what modern academics outside those religions have to say about them. I'm not particularly interested in becoming a religious expert either, for even all religions put together are only a part of how humans try to understand and organize the world (not the part that most interests me).

But from what I have heard and read this week, I like Holloway's approach, and will probably read his book at some point, which I guess means I'll need to get to reading that Bible eventually too. From previous comments on this blog (and surely some more to come on this post), a small number of you readers might think doing so will lead to a born-again conversion in me, especially with my cancer and everything now, or that I've already consigned myself to Hell unless I repent pretty darn soon.

If I were you, I wouldn't bet any money on that.

Labels: bible, books, cbc, controversy, podcast, religion, science

Several months ago my podcast co-host and I recorded a segment on guitar effects for The Lab With Leo TV show. The episode is finally available online through Google video:

We recorded another couple of bits with Leo this week, so it may be awhile before you can see those online as well, but they'll come eventually.

Labels: insidehomerecording, labwithleo, leolaporte, podcast, television

Back in June, my podcast co-host Paul Garay and I recorded a couple of segments for Leo Laporte's cable tech television show The Lab With Leo. The episodes went on air a few weeks later.

Today Paul and I are recording two more bits, about Apple's Logic Studio 8 and hybrid multi-function audio devices. The episodes we make today will go on air at G4 Tech TV in Canada and the How To Channel in Australia later this year.

Appearing on The Lab is fun, and I can say that Leo—a long-time radio and TV host, as well as a podcasting pioneer—is pretty much exactly the same nice guy in person as he is on air and on podcasts.

Labels: insidehomerecording, labwithleo, leolaporte, podcast, television

Back in the 1990s, you could occasionally spot Robert Plant wearing a Dread Zeppelin T-shirt. With good reason. I saw them play a concert here in town once, and it was one of the best shows I've ever been to.

If you want to find out why, listen to Tortelvis's caterwauling lead vocal on the most recent edition of the Coverville podcast, performing "Whole Lotta Love." They were even better in person. Uh-huh. Tortelvis even played the drum solo on "Moby Dick"—very well.

Labels: band, cover, dreadzeppelin, ledzeppelin, music, podcast

• With Apple's new iWork '08, the venerable AppleWorks (formerly ClarisWorks) is finally officially dead.
  
  
• Jeff at the Digital Camera Resource Page (my favourite digicam resource) has updated his Buyer's Guide of recommended cameras. I'm puzzled that he prefers the Nikon D40 to the D40x, but that's a quibble—and, I guess he made the choice to fit the Nikon into his under-$650 USD price category. For a simple one-page "best of 2007" digicam list, it's a great resource.
  
  
• The compact disc, developed by Philips and Sony, is now 25 years old, with the first commercial release being an ABBA album. The first CD I ever bought was Kate Bush's "Hounds of Love"—still a good album, though my copy was stolen some years ago. Oddly, it does not seem to be available on iTunes.
  
  
• Together with my wife, I'm planning to attend this weekend's unconference BarCamp Vancouver '07. It will be my first real geek meetup in several months.
  
  
• The winners for all but the final two categories of the 2007 Podcast Awards have been announced.

Labels: apple, appleworks, barcamp, cd, iwork, linksofinterest, photography, podcast

Today's my 38th birthday. Thank you to everyone who's wished me well, and to everyone who's coming to the party tonight (and to my wife, who's organizing the whole thing). If you insist on a gift, go to my friend Gillian's donation page for the Underwear Affair cancer fundraising run, which takes place next Saturday, July 7, one day after I get my major surgery. Send some money for research on cancers below the waist. That would be good.

If you missed the interview my wife and I had with Paul Grant on CBC Radio yesterday, I've now posted the audio to my podcast (MP3 file). Thanks to my dad for recording it. I think our podcasting experience pays off—we sound pretty good on air.

Also one more reminder that at the HBC Run For Canada tomorrow, my band will be playing at the start/finish zone on Coal Harbour near the north foot of Jervis Street in downtown Vancouver, between 9 a.m. and around noon. With upcoming surgery and stuff, it will be my last performance with the group for some time, so if you're up for some rock 'n' roll in the morning, that's a good chance for a free show and to see me play the drums.

Finally, thank you Alistair for finding the bizarre birthday photo that accompanies this post. I am not a walrus, but do I still get the bucket of fish?

Labels: band, cancer, cbc, music, podcast, radio

Mark Blevis of the Canadian Podcast Buffet just emailed me an audio file, a happy birthday message (I turn 38 tomorrow) from podcasters all over the place. Holy crap. Thanks everybody, I’m stunned.

Speaking of birthdays, Sunday is Canada Day, and if you're looking for something to do in Vancouver in the morning, my band The Neurotics will be playing near the start/finish line of the HBC Run for Canada down at Coal Harbour. We play from 9 a.m. till noon.

Labels: band, birthday, music, podcast

Because I'm still recovering from all the radiation and chemotherapy and such, I can't attend the Podcasters Across Borders conference in Kingston, Ontario this weekend.

However, I was able to provide cross-country phone tech support to get Tod Maffin out of a bind when his Mac Finder kept repeatedly crashing right before his 8 p.m. (EDT) presentation. We even delved into some Unix permissions wizardry for good measure.

Good luck Tod!

And yes, I'm feeling better today, so I think it's okay if I gloat a little.

UPDATE: Here's a photo of the presentation Tod gave:

Labels: apple, cancer, chemotherapy, macbook, macosx, pab2007, podcast, radiation, techsupport, todmaffin

Over on the other side of Canada, Mark Blevis of the Canadian Podcast Buffet and Sean McGaughey are each performing separate musical gigs in different cities tonight, as part of the Canadian Cancer Society Relay for Life. They say they're dedicating part of their performances to me and my cancer battle. If you're in Penetanguishene or Stittsville, Ontario (what strange names they give their towns there), why not head down and check 'em out?

Thanks guys!

Labels: band, cancer, charity, music, podcast

No video yet, but here are some photos of my appearance with my co-host Paul Garay on The Lab With Leo yesterday, taken by Sean Carruthers of the show's staff:

Paul had better be careful with those heavy metal hand signs—then again, I guess they were appropriate in this case. And yup, that's my new guitar.

Labels: ego, guitar, ihr, insidehomerecording, labwithleo, leolaporte, megancole, paulgaray, podcast, tv, video

I've listened to Leo Laporte's many podcasts for some time now, but before he started the This Week In Tech juggernaut, he was well known as a TV and radio host—which is still what he does for a living.

Leo's latest venture is The Lab With Leo, a syndicated technology television program available (so far) on G4 Tech TV in Canada and the How To Channel in Australia. While Leo is based in California, once a month he flies up here to Vancouver to record a batch of new programs.

Even though it started only a few months ago, there are already more than 30 episodes of The Lab, and today my podcast co-host Paul Garay and I were guests on two separate segments, about microphones and digitally recording guitars.

Those will be available online and on air in a few weeks, but if you'd like to see how things work, check out Paul's previous two appearances, courtesy of Google Video:

We also ran into our pal Megan Cole, who was recording a separate segment on the same episode. I'll let you know when the new material appears.

Labels: ihr, insidehomerecording, labwithleo, leolaporte, megancole, paulgaray, podcast, tv, video

Tod Maffin has posted the premiere episode of TodBits.tv, his new online TV show. It runs live every Friday at 7 p.m. Pacific, 10 p.m. Eastern, and I managed to get on the air (voice only, no video) briefly. If you have an hour to spare, here is the recorded archive:

Nice job Tod, even if the first show was rough around the edges. Hey, so were the Police, and they had two other shows and a bunch of rehearsals beforehand!

Labels: friends, podcast, todmaffin, video

Tod Maffin has a new show called Todbits.tv starting this week, and he's created a little promo commercial for it, with my tune "Hotcake Syrup" as background:

And the ever-talented Kris Krug has photos of The Police's dress rehearsal for their tour, which starts tonight here in Vancouver:

Finally, I don't know this guy, but here is what it's like to climb the world's tallest tree, a giant redwood:

Labels: climbing, forest, friends, kriskrug, music, photography, podcast, police, todmaffin, tree, video

If you're looking for fun stuff to listen to or watch, I have some suggestions. In addition to the latest episode of Inside Home Recording (the podcast I co-host), which we released last night, my IHR colleague Paul Garay also recently appeared on episode #18 of The Lab With Leo, tech media legend Leo Laporte's new TV show, now available online at Google Video:

You should also check out the latest release in my wife's podcast, Lip Gloss and Laptops. She and her co-host KA have now reached 62 shows, putting one out pretty much every week since February 2006.

Labels: geekery, ihr, insidehomerecording, lipglossandlaptops, podcast, tv

We skipped an episode because of my ongoing cancer treatment, but now my co-host Paul Garay and I have finally posted Episode #41 of our podcast Inside Home Recording. It's extra-long to make up for the delay, and includes a bunch of recording industry news, letters and audio comments from our listeners, a new giveaway contest we're running till July, reviews of speakers from Audioengine, and (most interesting for me) the beginning of Paul's "MIDI 101" series on how the ubiquitous Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) standard arose in the early 1980s, and still persists today.

You can either listen to the show on the website or subscribe in a variety of ways. If you like it, by the way, we'd appreciate a review at the iTunes Store.

Labels: audio, ihr, insidehomerecording, podcast, recording