Now reporting live from Long Beach, California, where it’s smokey (due to the fires), and I’m up on the 6th floor of a particular hotel with my $10 internet charge paid for, I continue my Tiger-to-Leopard blog series. Yesterday, I started out covering some of the Web 2.0 news, in particular focusing on the various Web 2.0 sites that have emerged on the internet. But what about some of the other phenomena that have emerged since Tiger’s release? The series continues…
Continue reading »

Tags: article, browsers, Firefox, Google, Mac OS X Leopard, podcasting, PodPress, TalkShoe, Tiger-to-Leopard, Web 2.0

Here we go with the second Webmacster87.info Best Of. The first one was posted in the middle of August and covered the my entire summer break, and was posted right before school started. Now, it’s been seven weeks since school started, and plenty has happened in that much time. In History, for example, we’ve already covered the years 1790-1860–that’s 70 years in seven weeks! And, as you’ll see below, a lot more has happened in these seven weeks. So, without further ado…
Continue reading »

Tags: Articles, Best Of, guest blogging, podcasting

This is one of David Pogue’s older web videos, one in which he talks about podcasting and then acts out a number of audio podcasts that you can find on iTunes. This is a really hilarious video which I’m sure all the other podcasters out there will enjoy. Check out the video.

More W87.info content will be making its way here soon…

Tags: acting, David Pogue, funny, podcasting, Video

Lorelle VanFossen, blogger extraordinaire, celebrated the 2nd anniversary of WordPress.com and her blog by inviting many guest bloggers to post various articles about blogging during the month of August. (The upcoming month of September will feature many non-stop WordPress/blogging tips.) She invited me to write a few articles, and I must say I really enjoyed writing them. The first one was Ways to Build and Retain Your Podcast Audience, posted almost two weeks ago, and the second one was Blogging and Social Networking as a Teenager, which was just posted this morning. I highly recommend that you check out these articles, which I am very proud of!

Tags: article, Blogging, guest blogging, Lorelle VanFossen, podcasting, social networking, teenagers

One of my goals for this summer was to really launch myself into my blog and take a part in it more frequently. Now, 90 posts later, I can definitely say that I’ve definitely done that. I’ve had a bunch of posts this summer, ranging from Digg stories to opinion articles to photos to reviews to a whole bunch more. And, as you can see, the posts have moved along pretty quickly on my blog, currently the posts only go back 5 days before you have to go to another page, meaning it’s easy to miss some of my better stuff. Therefore, I’m launching a new category of my blog called “Best Of”, which will seek to highlight some of my more significant posts and other happenings around my web. This inaugural “Best Of” will be covering the last two and a half months, and the next best of (coming October 1st) will be covering the next one and a half months. Afterwards, the “Best Of” will be a monthly feature on the 1st of every new month. Therefore, don’t expect most of these to be as long as this first one. So, without further ado…
Continue reading »

Tags: article, Best Of, favorites, podcasting

The 1990s saw the rise of a new phenomenon on the radio: call-in talk shows. As most of you know, the idea behind this is a host who leads the show and often offers his/her opinions on something, and then answers calls from listeners who can then contribute their comments. Then, the 2000s saw the rise of another new radio phenomenon: podcasting. Radio shows can now be recorded and distributed online so that listeners can listen at their convenience, and podcasting also opens the door for smaller podcast-only productions (as in shows that don’t go on the actual radio). It would only be a matter of time until talk shows and podcasting came together, and the result of that mix is a fairly new website called TalkShoe.
Continue reading »

Tags: live, podcasting, recording, review, TalkShoe, talkshow, VoIP

The Levelator is a pretty basic application that serves a single purpose, but one that is very useful for podcasters with multiple participants. I use it for PreviewCast and phpBB Weekly editing, and even luminaries like Leo Laporte use it.

You drop an AIFF or WAV file on the Levelator, and the application then goes through and scans the different channels of the audio to equalize their audio levels. For example, when we record PreviewCast, sometimes we may have something happen where someone may be louder or quieter than everyone else, or there may even be a mix of volumes. No problem, I just drop the recorded audio on the Levelator, and it pops out a new audio file with all of the voices at the same volume. It works very well, and has dramatically helped to improve the PreviewCast audio quality.

Levelator does what it advertises, and it works very well. I recommend it for anyone who records podcasts over Skype or other teleconferencing methods, because it will make the quality of your audio SO much better, and you’ll practically never have to worry about volume levels of your participants again.

Final Rating:

Tags: audio, podcasting, PreviewCast, recording, review, Software, volume

No, I’m not talking about the next season of new cars. For one thing, I wouldn’t call 95% of the cars out there “worth it”, mostly because their gas mileage would make any non-American laugh with their fingers pointing, and for another thing, I really don’t care about cars anyway. Nevertheless, yesterday, Apple released iLife and iWork ‘08 (along with some other new stuff, which aren’t the focus of this article), which Steve Jobs claims to be their biggest updates ever to both releases. But after spending a couple of hours today following the announcements through Engadget’s live coverage, rubbing my eyes all over the Apple.com website, watching demo videos and tutorials, and all that stuff, I’m ready to judge for myself if iLife and iWork ‘08 are really that substantial, and if they’re each worth their respective $80 upgrade price.
Continue reading »

Tags: 2008, announcements, Apple, documents, GarageBand, hardware, iDVD, iLife, iMac, iMovie, iPhoto, iWeb, iWork, Keynote, Mac, Microsoft Office, movies, Numbers, Pages, photos, podcasting, presentations, PreviewCast, Software, Special Event, spreadsheets, Steve Jobs, web design

If you’re a podcaster, there’s three stages of producing a podcast: recording, editing, and distribution. There’s a number of ways to record, edit, and distribute podcasts, but when it comes to distribution, you can’t get much better than a WordPress blog and the PodPress plugin.

Believe it or not, a WordPress blog is all you need to generate a feed for a podcast, because when it comes to distribution, all that you really need is the feed. (Wow, I’m a poet and I didn’t even realize it.) However, what if you want a way for visitors who come to you website to listen to episodes? How do you deal with those iTunes RSS tags in the feed? And is there a way to make it easier to add the enclosure to the feed? Enter PodPress.
Continue reading »

Tags: feed, iTunes, plug-in, podcasting, PodPress, review, Software, WordPress

Shout-out: Happy birthday today to my Mom!

There are a number of applications and processes that help make PreviewCast and phpBB Weekly happen. One of those apps is Audio Hijack Pro. Audio Hijack Pro is one of a small handful of apps that serve a unique purpose: to record audio coming out of your Mac into an audio file.

The core essence of Audio Hijack Pro is this. You can select any application on your computer that outputs audio, “hijack” the audio, and then record it. AHP comes with presets for a couple of applications such as DVD Player, iChat, iTunes, QuickTime Player, Safari, and Skype, however you can set it for any application on your computer. When you click Hijack, then any audio that the application outputs to the computer will instead be routed to Audio Hijack Pro, and AHP will become responsible for outputting the audio. (There’s a Mute button available that can Mute the audio from outputting through your speakers, if necessary.) To actually record the audio, hit Record.

Audio Hijack Pro also offers many many options for how you want your audio to come out, including support for AIFF, AAC, MP3, and Apple Lossless. You can also very cleanly refine the bitrate, quality, and many other settings as well, including a more advanced area where you can add filters and effects. (Not that I use them.) And of course, Audio Hijack Pro offers a “Default System Input” option if you just want to record something through your microphone.

The one place that Audio Hijack Pro falls short is that it is not one of those drop-dead simple apps that most people want to have at their disposal, however the application will hopefully get easier to use in the future. However, it is a very effective app for helping me make usable recordings of things from Skype chats to YouTube videos, and be able to do things with them, and it many users may find it a very useful tool in this fashion.

Final Rating:

Tags: audio, hijacking, Mac, podcasting, recording, review, Software, utility