Here’s something that I share often with my clients. I think it’s extremely important to have a high level of audio quality. However, for 99% of your audience, the first impression of your show is not going to be the sound of your podcast, it’s going to be the LOOK of your podcast. Let me explain.

There are many places people may find your podcast. Looking at my client’s and my own Google Analytics, it is clear that the two main sources of traffic to a podcast are Google and iTunes. When people find your podcast in one of these two places, the first thing people are going to see is either your website or your iTunes listing page.

Just look at this sample from an iTunes search and notice how the image of the podcast, OR LACK THEREOF, jumps out at you when browsing the list of shows…

Out of the ten podcasts listed above, only four of them have, what I would consider to be, a decent podcast artwork graphic for their show (Podcast Answer Man, MBA Working Girl, NAPL Workflows, and Train For Top Dollar). Notice how CIO Talk Radio doesn’t even have a logo, they just have the default iTunes image. I hesitate to point it out, but the “Fire Your Tech Guy in 15 minutes” podcast should have let the tech guy work another 30 minutes longer to produce a decent graphic for his podcast.

The point is this. I believe that your content is King! Though I don’t think any King should go through live without a QUEEN for your podcast which is your AUDIO QUALITY! Extending your brand doesn’t stop with compelling content that sounds great. You really should consider the LOOK of your website as well as the look of your artwork that displays in iTunes.

I’m constantly trying to “IMPROVE” the look of my brands. This is why I’ve hired my great friend, and a former sponsor of Podcast Answer Man podcast, Evan Agee, of Agee Design, to create a more professional looking logo for my Podcast Answer Man brand.

I sent him some ideas of what I was looking for and here’s a few concepts that he sent my way.

I’ve already sent Evan some thoughts on how I’d like to combine elements of two of the above concepts to create a logo that I think will look great. I’m very excited about this because I have plenty of new things that I’m working on behind the scenes and I wanted to have this new logo for all these new products and branding initiatives that I’m working on.

Are you looking to extend your brand? Are you looking for ways to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your podcasting efforts? I’m available for one on one consulting. Simply email me at Cliff@Ravenscraft.org or pick up the phone and call me at 859-757-1399.

Podcast Answer Man Episode 137
Broadcast Host v/s Telos One

I break out my Kodak Zi8 once again to bring you this very brief episode with my thoughts of how the JK Audio Broadcast Host compares to the Telos One Digital Hybrid (Both of which are available for purchase through me).

Here’s the video:

Right Click Here To Download iPhone Version

Discuss podcasting with other listeners in the Podcast Answer Man section of the gspn.tv Community Forum.

EQUIPMENT SALES: Please consider purchasing from me when making your next purchase for audio gear to improve the sound of your podcast. Email me at Cliff@Ravenscraft.org or call me at 859-757-1399.

PODCAST CONSULTING: I’m also available for one on one podcast consulting. Whether you want someone to get everything set up for you or you just need a little help along the way, I’d love to work with you. I’m able to demonstrate using screen sharing technology during our call which makes it just like I was there sitting next to you at the computer. If you are interested, email me at Cliff@Ravenscraft.org or call me at 859-757-1399.

Subscribe To The Podcast Answer Man Podcast:

Plus Members Subscribe Using Plus Feed Generator.

Many of my clients today ask me, “Cliff, did you always want to be on the radio?” or “Cliff, did you go to some sort of school for broadcasting?” Better yet are the folks who say “Cliff, you have a natural talent for podcasting.”

See, when my clients listen to any of my recent podcast episodes, they here a confident show host who seems to know what he’s doing and who has learned to communicate well. And when they learn that I actually don’t do a SINGLE BIT OF EDITING on my shows, they are simply blown away.

Now this post isn’t here for me to share with you about how great people say I am. Not at all! In fact, the point that I want to make here is that while I will admit there is a foundation that was laid by some core talents, what makes my podcasts what they are today is not based so much on talent, but more so on experience.

Let me give you an example. Click the play button here and listen to just the first two minutes of this recent episode of Podcast Answer Man.

Now, click the play button here and listen to just the first two minutes of this very first podcast episode I ever recorded.

I hope you noticed just a little bit of a difference there. I’m not going to go into great detail here in this post, because I really believe this video has a lot to say and I think you’ll pick up on it.

Here’s the video:

After viewing the video, do me a favor and click here to see what it took to get my overall quality from what it was in that first episode to what it is today. (Hint: Look at the “number” of episodes that I have recorded since December 2005)

So the message today is this. Don’t wait until you sound perfect to get started! The key principle in this video is called “Deliberate Practice.” The idea is that you just keep PUSHING YOURSELF!

Now if you are podcasting for your business and your brand is on the line, then perhaps you do what Chris Rock did. You try different venues to practice in until you’re ready for your big cable network special.

For me, I actually do all my deliberate practicing in my actual shows themselves. But then again, my brand is all about “growing personally.” The key here is to simply put out content. The more you do it, the more natural it will become over time.

Another valuable tool for promoting your audio podcast is creating a short promo that can be used by your audience to promote your podcast. It is with great enthusiasm that I share this YouTube video with you. It is a perfect example of what we podcasters should be doing to branch out and tell others about our audio content.

Here’s the video:

As if I weren’t impressed enough by their video promo, displayed prominently on the home page of their website, I was also impressed by the fact that they took time to create custom subscription graphics that fit the theme of their show.

I absolutely love the rss feed button in the wheel barrel and the tape measure wrapped around the iTunes Logo. Folks, if you are serious about your podcast and building a brand around what you are doing, don’t be afraid to invest in your website. It’s the first impression you’ll give to a majority of your audience!

Podcasters take notice Brian and Paul of The Handy Guys Podcast! They are doing several things right!

If you would like more tips and advice on how to improve what you are doing with your podcast, contact me for some one on one consulting. In fact, ask about my 100 point podcast evaluation product!

I’ve been a huge fan of the Kindle for iPhone application ever since it came out. I do not own a Kindle personally. In fact, I don’t even desire to own a Kindle. Why? Because I actually love reading books on my iPhone. I can change the text size in such a way that it makes it a perfect device for me to burn through pages of books whenever I have a few minutes of free time here and there.

A while back, the Kindle for iPhone app added the functionality to both add highlight and take notes on any section within a book. This was a major improvement above simply “bookmarking” a page.

This is important to me, because my major gripe about reading a book digitally was that I couldn’t highlight it and write notes in the margin like I could with a paper book. This functionality gave me the ability to do both.

So why am I so excited about the Kindle for the PC? It’s because I often want to share a quote from a book in a podcast. As much as I enjoy reading a book on the iPhone, trying to share quotes from books, on the iPhone, while talking into a microphone is not the easiest thing in the world to do. Kindle for the PC saves the day!

The Kindle for the pc does not, yet, allow you to add notes and highlight sections of books, though that functionality is coming soon. However, because the Kindle for the PC will sync with my Amazon Account just like my Kindle for iPhone will, I’m able to VIEW all the bookmarks, notes, and highlights that I made in the iPhone on my PC.

Here is an example of a highlighted page:

Here is an example of a note I entered:

You can bet I’ll be sharing a great deal more insights from the books I’m reading in my podcasts. I’m very excited.

You can download Kindle for PC right now by Clicking Here.

Podcast Answer Man Episode 134
gspn.tv Studio Tour

It’s not very often that I put a video episode into the Podcast Answer Man podcast feeds, let alone a 30 minute one. However, the community has been begging for a video tour of the gspn.tv studio for the longest time.

Until recently, I’ve never been happy with the video quality that I’ve got with my video projects. That has all changed now with my Kodak Zi8 pocket HD Camera.

In this video, I explain how I use each computer in my studio as well as show you the the equipment that I make use of in my podcast productions.

Right Click Here To Download iPhone Version

Discuss podcasting with other listeners in the Podcast Answer Man section of the gspn.tv Community Forum.

EQUIPMENT SALES: Please consider purchasing from me when making your next purchase for audio gear to improve the sound of your podcast. Email me at Cliff@Ravenscraft.org or call me at 859-757-1399.

PODCAST CONSULTING: I’m also available for one on one podcast consulting. Whether you want someone to get everything set up for you or you just need a little help along the way, I’d love to work with you. I’m able to demonstrate using screen sharing technology during our call which makes it just like I was there sitting next to you at the computer. If you are interested, email me at Cliff@Ravenscraft.org or call me at 859-757-1399.

Subscribe To The Podcast Answer Man Podcast:

Plus Members Subscribe Using Plus Feed Generator.

The main reason I haven’t done more of these videos than I have is due to the desire to have a much higher level of audio quality in the videos that I produce. There are a lot of point and shoot cameras that have pretty decent video quality, but I want to use my professional audio gear to produce the audio for the video and I don’t want to have to add the audio to the video project in post production. Therefore, the perfect camera for me would be one with an external audio input jack.

Today, I found just the camera I’ve been looking for in the Kodack Zi8. I learned about this terrific camera while watching Cali Lewis’ GeekBrief.tv episode 641. Would you believe that within 30 minutes of watching her video, I had this camera in my hands? I’m not kidding! I immediately did a search online for the camera, looked over the specs, and started to call stores to see if anyone had it in stock. Luckily, I found a local Best Buy store who had ONLY ONE in stock. I immediately left the house and picked it up.

While the audio input jack was the most important thing I’ve been looking for in these little mini cameras, I am excited to tell you that the Zi8 also includes several other features that I’m excited about. It shoots video in full 1080p HD, though I’m more impressed with the 720p at 60 frames per second. It has terrific image stabilization. It takes 5 megapixel still images. Both the video and the still images are captures in 16×9 format, which I LOVE by the way. It takes high capacity SD Cards up to 32Gb so I could actually record as much as 20 to 30 hours of HD video on one card. It comes with software for the PC that allows me to very easily upload directly to YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, and other sites. And the video is recorded in to a .MOV file that I can just as easily drag and drop onto my Mac Desktop and edit it with Screenflow or iMovie.

Of course that’s a enough of WORDS about this VIDEO camera. So here’s the video I created as soon as I took it out of the box. Note: I didn’t spend any time at all editing this video. Just wanted to test video quality as quickly as possible. Take a look at this video and tell me what you think!

The only issue with that original video was that it was more than an hour long. Personally, I felt that it was worth every moment I spent soaking in all that Google Wave could do. However, the length of the video was a barrier to entry for the mass audience to get a feel for what would be coming from this service.

Finally, there is a much shorter video. In fact, here’s a video that does pretty darn well at explaining the main points in under eight minutes. Have a look:

The first round of Google Wave invites just started to roll out this week. Those who are lucky enough to get an invite in the first round will have the opportunity to “nominate” a few friends for the next round of invites.

I suppose that they did this due to the fact that Google Wave without anyone to interact with would be the same as if you signed up for a Twitter Account and didn’t know anyone else that uses Twitter.

Due to the amount of hype surrounding Google Wave, I’m concerned about people feeling let down at first glance when they finally get to use the service for the first time. This is exactly what happened with Twitter.

However, I feel that in about a year or so, Google Wave’s popularity will rank up their with both Facebook and Twitter.

Looking at the video above, I’m most excited about the “Bloggy”. (Jump to 3min 12sec into the video embedded above). As a podcaster / blogger / online community builder, I’m most interested in the ability for me to embed waves in various sites that I manage.

At this time, I sometimes post the same content in many different venues. For example, I will post an episode of Podcast Answer Man podcast episodes here on this site, the gspn.tv main site and the premium, plus member only site that I manage for gspn.tv. Each post on each site has it’s own comments section, none of them connected to each other.

I can envision the ability to use something like this bloggy feature to embed into each of these posts and turning off the individual comments sections. So basically, the google wave for comments would be right inside my show notes page. This way, if you are a gspn.tv plus member and viewing the show notes on that page… let’s say you add a comment there. Your comment will also show up on the main gspn.tv site as well as on this Podcast Answer Man site. Actually, I could even try to add it to the gspn.tv Community Forum somehow.

This is just the beginning of what I think Google Wave will be able to do for me as a Podcaster. It may take a while for this one to catch on. But I do expect that we are “riding the wave” of the “next big thing.”

I’m just posting this here to let you know that one of the many services that I provide is personalized equipment setup consults, even if you have purchased your equipment elsewhere.

This morning, I had an hour long consulting client who had purchased the following equipment elsewhere. (He said in the future, he’ll buy from me)

Shure SM7B Mic
Behringer 1204 Mixer
Edirol R-09HR Recorder
DBX 266XL Dual Compressor/Limiter/Gate

He was looking for a podcast consultant because he had no idea how to hook all the equipment up and what cables to use.

Within one hour with me on the phone (AND SHARING MY SCREEN WITH HIM using GoToMeeting) we did the following.

I pulled up images of all his equipment and created a setup diagram with him, while we were on the phone, explaining every step in the process.

I was able to walk him through what each of the buttons and knobs are used for on his mixer, I was able to give him advice on how to get the PERFECT audio levels every single time he records, and soooo much more.

In the end, he felt as confident that he knew exactly what to do and was on his way to a local store to pick up a few cables to build his studio setup.

I might mention that folks who have hired me to help them do this usually spend MANY HOURS researching this stuff online before they actually come to me for help. In one hour with me, they know what they need to know to get up and running so that they can do more important things LIKE RECORDING THEIR CONTENT.

After each of these calls, I save the equipment diagram and email it to them.

Here’s an example….

Social Media Serenity
A Balanced Approach To Social Networking

Right Click Here To Download

In this episode, Erik Fisher and myself, Cliff Ravenscraft, explain our reasoning for starting this podcast and share our thoughts on what we will be discussed moving forward.

Erik and I both share that our top social media sites/services that we use are Twitter and Facebook.

In the discussion, we discussed the Twitter Facebook Application and the Selective Twitter Status Application. Also, we made mention of Ping.fm and Hellotxt.com for the ability of posting your status updates to all the social networks

We also mentioned the use of Google Reader. In the discussion of what RSS feeds are, we referenced a video called RSS In Plain English.

Update 07/18/2009: Wayne Henderson sent me a Twitter message asking how to set up ping.fm to work within Tweetie iPhone application. I actually used my wife’s new iPhone 3GS to record this video tutorial on just how to do that.

Subscribe To The Social Media Serenity Podcast:

Plus Members Subscribe Using Plus Feed Generator.

You can download the theme by CLICKING HERE.

Podcast Answer Man 109
Edirol Recorder and Voice Mail Options

Right Click Here To Download

In this episode, I answer some questions from one of my clients who has recently ordered a few pieces of audio gear from me. He’s considering the purchase of the Edirol R-09HR recorder and wanted to know if I recommended that he should use an external mic when doing interviews.

I share a few sample recordings using the Edirol with and without an external microphone. In the example where I do use an external microphone, I’m using the Electrovoice RE50/B microphone. Both the Edirol and the Mic are available for purchase through me!
I take consulting requests and equipment sales directly from you at 859-757-1399.

Also in this episode, I share three options for having a Voice Mail Feedback Line. The first two options, J2.com and K7.net are free services. The third service, which is the one that I use, is BroadVoice.com. If you choose to sign up with BroadVoice, please use my listener feedback line as the number that referred you to them. My Voice Mail Number with them is 859-795-4067.

Discuss podcasting with other listeners in the Podcast Answer Man section of the gspn.tv Community Forum.

EQUIPMENT SALES: Please consider purchasing from me when making your next purchase for audio gear to improve the sound of your podcast. Email me at Cliff@gspn.tv or call me at 859-757-1399.

PODCAST CONSULTING: I’m also available for one on one podcast consulting. Whether you want someone to get everything set up for you or you just need a little help along the way, I’d love to work with you. I’m able to demonstrate using screen sharing technology during our call which makes it just like I was there sitting next to you at the computer. If you are interested, email me at Cliff@gspn.tv or call me at 859-757-1399.

Subscribe To The Podcast Answer Man Podcast:

Plus Members Subscribe Using Plus Feed Generator.

Podcast Answer Man 099
Feedburner/Google Server Transition

Right Click Here To Download

In this episode, I share my updated thoughts of the Feeedburner/Google sever transfer. I mention the January 19th blog post where I personally suggested waiting to do the transfer.

I’m happy to announce that Google seems to have resolved most every issue that anyone had reported up to this point with the exception of those who are using Yahoo Pipes as their source rss feed. In the episode, I personally give a green light and say that making the transition seem to be a pretty seamless one at this point.

Feedburner MyBrand Users:
For those who are using the MyBrand feature of Feedburner. Google is reporting that “After transferring your account, you will be sent an email with instructions on how to change MyBrand. You can also get these instructions on the MyAccount page after the transfer.”

You will be required to change your DNS CNAME to the Google hosted domain service, the same service that handles custom domains for Google applications like Blogger and Google Apps for Your Domain. Please note that the CNAME will no longer be the same domain as the domain that serves feeds, but the service level and functionality will be identical.

Discuss podcasting with other listeners in the Podcast Answer Man section of the gspn.tv Community Forum.

EQUIPMENT SALES: Please consider purchasing from me when making your next purchase for audio gear to improve the sound of your podcast. Email me at Cliff@gspn.tv or call me. My phone number is on the top of the the Equipment Page.

Subscribe To The Podcast Answer Man Podcast:

Plus Members Subscribe Using Plus Feed Generator.

I’ve decided that it was time to refresh the series. Episode one is the same as the old episode, basically asking people to give themselves a week before just giving up. Episode two is similar to one of the original episodes, explaining how to stop all those annoying Facebook emails. Episode three is brand new content, explaining how slowly put an end to all those annoying Facebook applications requests.

More refreshed episodes and new content will be coming soon. Of course you can subscribe to the podcast feed using the buttons below.

You can Subscribe To Facebook 101 With These Buttons:

Plus Members Subscribe Using Plus Feed Generator.

Here’s the first three videos:

Episode 1 – Give It One Week!

Episode 2 – Stop The Facebook Emails!

Episode 3 -Annoying Facebook Application Requests

Anyone, who’s listened to the Podcast Answer Man Podcast, probably knows that I’ve been a huge fan of the Feedburner service from the earliest days of podcasting. It was not surprising, that as soon as Feeburner posted a little message on the account login screen saying they were moving all the feedburner accounts to Google, that my email inbox was flooded with questions as to how this change was going to affect our podcast feeds.

If you have not logged into your feedburner account recently, the message appears like this:

Basically, if you click on the “Learn More” link, it takes you to a Google Help Page titled ”
Transferring FeedBurner Accounts to Google Accounts FAQ.” Upon first glance, it would appear that the announcement is simply that they are merging the “account administration” with Feedburner and Google.

When Google acquired “Writely” (Now Google Docs), they did this same thing. Basically, it was as simply as clicking on a “transfer account to Google” link and if you already had a Google account, you just typed in that Google Username and Password and the account was then managed using your Google credentials from that point forward. If you didn’t have a Google account, you simply had to create one and that’s how you managed your account from that point forward.

I’m certain that this is “one” aspect of what Google is doing with Feedburner here and they intend to have all Feedburner User ID’s transferred to Google User ID’s by February 28, 2009.

However, this announcement states that log in credentials are not the only thing that will be changing with this transition. They make mention that that those who are using the “My Brand” feature of Feedburner, will need to update their CNam registries.

Not only that, but it would appear that they “might possibly” be changing the actual location of our podcasts feeds from “http://feeds.feedburner.com/YOUR-FEED-NAME-HERE” to something else. Although they do not clearly tell us what the new feed format will be in this notice.

Of course, wanting to be ahead of the curve, I wanted to go ahead and bite the bullet and do the transition on all of my feeds (have move more than thirty of them) so that I could figure out how this process is going to work and what the end result would be.

However, as soon as I choose the “move your account now” option, I got this error:

So it would appear that whatever the new feed structure will be, it is possible that someone else may have already chosen to have created an account on the new feed server using your feed’s unique name. This is not cool at all and the account transfer seems to be an all or nothing at this point.

In the mean time, I’ve created a “http://feedburner.google.com” account with my Google Log In. I’ve even gone so far as to set up a test feed and noticed that it gave me a “http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MY-FEED-NAME-HERE” feed address.

At this point, I wish I had more information to give you. Google has plenty of time between now and February 28th to figure all this out. My suggestion at this point is to ride out the storm for just a bit and not make and changes just yet.

When I know more, I’ll post here and likely release and audio podcast edition of Podcast Answer Man to give the full details of what is happening when I know more.

Until then, I’m going to rest assured by this Q&A from the blog entry on the Google site:

Q: How long will the feeds.feedburner.com/myfeedname address work?

A: It is our intent to keep backward compatibility with your feed address as long as this service exists.

Just keep in mind, if during the process, you run into any issues. I am available for one on one phone consulting. However, as I said, I would not make any changes to your feedburner account until things get ironed out a little be more.

So I opened my email this morning (Sunday, December 28th, 2008) and noticed that many people had written to tell me that they were getting error messages when trying to download episodes of our podcasts.

I’ve been with Libsyn.com for three years now. And before I go any further, let me tell you that overall, I’ve been an EXTREMELY SATISFIED customer for the most part. When they first started out, things were a bit rocky. However, at the time, they were about the only independent folks out there who had a simple level cost, unlimited bandwidth media delivery plan available. Couple that with the fact that the cost was better than awesome, they had a hard time keeping up with the demand at first.

As for the past two years, my service with Libsyn has been pretty smooth sailing with only the occasional bump in the road. Okay, I know, mixed metaphors, but hey, it’s just a blog post right?

I’m writing this blog entry for a few reasons. First off, I wanted to be able to simply point listeners to this post when answering all the emails asking if there is something wrong with their subscriptions to our premium content at gspn.tv.

So for those of you who were wondering, you likely received one of two errors over the weekend. Either iTunes showed you something like “(err=500)” when trying to download the files from our rss feeds, or you got an “Internal Server Error” if you tried to either access the file via the web or using our gspn.tv iPhone Application.

I want to assure you that there is nothing wrong with your subscription and this was simply a random outage that Libsyn.com, the company that we pay to host and deliver our media content, had experienced over the weekend. Everything is back up and running now.

Another reason I wanted to make this post was to make public a suggestion that I recently made to Libsyn’s support staff. Actually, I’ve made this suggestion about three or four times in the past as well, but it’s never been followed through on. I’m wondering if I were to propose this suggestion here in my blog, if enough people were to comment on this post that they think it’s a great idea, and perhaps implement it.

It’s a real simple idea….

As soon as anyone on the libsyn support staff is aware of an issue that affects “multiple user accounts,” simply open up a blog entry on the Support Blog at http://support.libsyn.com.

Again, I want to interject that I’m a HUGE FAN of the Libsyn Support Team. I’ve never had an issue with Libsyn that was not resolved within a matter of minute or at most a few short hours of my notifying them of my issues. However, let me share with you my recent email support ticket to explain what I’m talking about here.

At 2:01pm, I finally found enough time to actually send a support ticket regarding the issue with Libsyn.com. I had already confirmed that it was not just an issue with my account by doing a search on Twitter. Here is the contents of that initial email:

I have three accounts with libsyn and I’m getting (err=500) errors in iTunes as are most of my listeners.

Can you investigate?

My three user ids are in the subject line of this email

At 4:22pm (Mind you that it is the weekend) I got the following response

Hello Cliff,


We checked your three accounts, and your files appear to be active and available for download. If you still experience difficulty, please send us the link to any affected file, and we’ll look further into the issue.


Please contact us if you have any other questions.


Thank you,

*******(I’m removing name)

Of course this prompted me to write back by saying….

******,

I appreciate you looking into my account. It does appear to be working now.

Could you do me a favor? Is it possible that when Libsyn has these sort of issues, that you guys ACKNOWLEGE that there WAS an issue? (I’m not yelling with my words… I’m not upset or irrate.. Just making a point..)

You see, your message simply makes it sound as if there was never an issue at all with my account, or that you can’t confirm that there was an issue on my account.

It’s clear, by looking at the attached image, or LINKED HERE: http://easycaptures.com/fs/uploaded/363/1755611919.png that you guys were clearly having issues with people getting Internal Server Errors…

My only concern is that this email response simply does not confirm that there was ever an issue and the http://support.libsyn.com support blog would make it appear as though you have not had any system wide issues since Monday, November 24th…

Is it too much to ask to post to the blog when you guys realize that there is a support issue that is clearly affecting several users?

I don’t mind my media not being served 100% of the time. For what I pay for my media hosting with you, I’m okay with 96% to 98% uptime with an occasional 12 hour issue once a year…. Just communicate with us so we know that you are aware of this stuff and that you’re working on it…

Is this doable?

Cliff

Next, I got the following response….

Hello

Sorry for the frustration. It was not our intention to avoid acknowledging an issue with the service this weekend.

To be honest, we noticed a couple of these reports yesterday early but really receive the bulk of complaints by this afternoon, which is when we (support staff) took action and contacted the tech team to alert them to the issue. Being the weekend following a holiday, the tech and support teams are actually spread around the country in various places, so we had to work quickly to communicate the problem to the team that could fix it and work on fixing the problem that caused the errors as well as fixing the erroneous files and alerting users. That is where our efforts were concentrated as opposed to posting to the support blog.

Again I apologize for the frustration. Please let us know if you have any other questions or problems.

Thanks
********

And then I responded again wit this….

*******,

I can appreciate that. Perhaps for those who come back to check their email on Monday morning, only to find emails piled up from their listeners alerting them to the issue, do you see how maybe posting just a quick note that there was an issue over the weekend that had been resolved might help keep someone from searching for an issue more than they need to?

I appreciate that it’s the weekend and that you guys did resolve the issue. Maybe I’m just being picky and I simply need more sleep.


It’s just that when I get a report of an issue from my listeners, the first place I go to is to the Support Blog. I know there have been other documented outages since the November blog date.. Even if you were to wait till you get back in the office on the next normal business day… It would be just so awesome to know that a quick look at the support blog tells me that you are aware of an issue and that you are either working to fix it or have already fixed it. This keeps me from filling out support tickets and really puts my mind at ease.

I appreciate all you guys do!

Cliff

Okay, so am I out of mind to suggest that they consider making it a policy that if any support issue arises that affects multiple customer accounts that the first person who realizes the issue meets this criteria should take two minutes, log into the support blog and simply say “Hey, we are aware of an issue and we’re on it!”

What are your thoughts?

Until then, simply remember that you can search twitter for the phrase “Is Libsyn Down” and you will likely find out very quickly if it’s just your account or a system wide issue.

I know what you are thinking. There are a ton of voice recorders in the App Store! This is not just another cheap voice recording application. This application allows you to create high-quality recordings. With my iPhone 3G’s on board microphone, I’ve been able to get some amazing sound recorded with it.

I’m going to do a full review of the software on an upcoming episode of the Podcast Answer Man podcast. I simply had to get this post out there as quickly as possible as Griffin’s iTalk is free for a limited time from the App Store.

PLEASE NOTE: I have done a full review of this application in Episode 83 of Podcast Answer Man.

Please watch this video first and then see the information below the video:

Up to till this time, I’ve been using the JK Audio Broadcast Host to get from my phone line into my mixer. This device allows me to take a single analog telephone line and patch the audio to and from that phone line to my mixer. Basically turning my mixer into the “handset” of the phone. Been working great!

Here’s a diagram of the setup…

Today, I just got a question from a customer who wanted to know if he could use the Broadcast Host to hook up to his ISDN line. The answer is “no” because it is not an analog phone system. I called JK Audio and asked them what they have for this and they told me about the JK Audio InKeeper PBX.

It turns out that the InKeeper PBX is “exactly the same” as the Broadcast Host except that the connection to the phone line happens at the point of the “handset connection” of a standard telephone. This means that the phone is doing the translation from digital to analog signal and the InKeeper PBX plugs in where you would normally plug in the handset and the handset plugs into the InKeeper PBX. (See Diagram) (Note: this does not work with phones where the “dial pad” is in the handset).

Now, what is awesome about this is that with the handset being the point of connection, this means you could have a “multi-line” phone system, hence the name PBX, where you can switch back and forth between multiple phone lines, just like you were do if you were simply using the phone’s handset switching to another line. This is going to fill the need of many of my clients who want to be able to use multiple phone lines to allow for a queue of callers waiting. This also allows for someone on another extension to “pre-screen” those calls as well.

Here’s the diagram of the setup:

Please note, I do sell both of the above pieces of equipment. If you would like know pricing details, please contact me at Cliff@Ravensraft.org.

Of course, if they have WordPress, I immediately tell them to install the Audio Player Plugin for WordPress. However, for those who use another method of creating a website for your podcast, there is still hope. I’d like to share three options for posting a flash player for your podcast episodes on your standard html site.

Update: Someone left a comment on this post that makes a valid point. If you should choose to use this method for your site on individual posts, please understand that you are relying on the fact that these companies will still exist moving forward. If for example ODEO were to go out of business, it is unlikely that their flash player will continue to be available. Please just keep this in mind.

The benefit of the Odeo player is that it is somewhat attractive when compared against other options. However the drawbacks that I see are that you can’t change the color of the pink play button and there ODEO is branded on your site. If someone clicks on the “ODEO” logo on the player, they are taken OFF YOUR SITE! I could not find an option to change it to open a new window or anything. Also, this player lacks an adjustment option for volume.

CODE FOR ODEO FLASH PLAYER:
<embed src= "http://www.odeo.com/flash/audio_player_standard_gray.swf" quality="high" width="300" height="52" allowScriptAccess="always" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" flashvars= "valid_sample_rate=true&external_url=LINK-TO-YOUR-MP3" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" /></embed>

The Google Flash Player:
Next we have the Google Flash Player. The benefit of the google player is that there is no branding whatsoever. Also, the code allows for you to change the color of the background on your player to match your site. It seems odd to have the “<<" and ">>” when posting a single mp3 file. However, these buttons offer the ability to jump forward and backward in the file you are listening to. The only drawback I can see with this player is that, like many other google products, is pretty “simple looking” and just on the edge of being ugly. It’s quite functional and it does what it’s supposed to do.

CODE FOR THE GOOGLE FLASH PLAYER
<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3247397568-audio-player.swf?audioUrl=LINK-TO-YOUR-MP3" width="400" height="27" allowscriptaccess="never" quality="best" bgcolor="#ffffff" wmode="window" flashvars="playerMode=embedded" /></embed>

The Yahoo Flash Player
The Yahoo Flash Player is another option. Like the ODEO Player, there is Yahoo branding on the player with a small Yahoo logo. However, the nice thing is that it is an image only, it does not have a hyperlink that takes your listeners off your site. This is good. Like the Google player, you can see that are “<<" and ">>” buttons. However, on the Yahoo player, these buttons are specifically designed for next track and previous track. Truth is that this player can be used to play a single mp3 file or can be set to read data from any podcast rss feed. While I’ve not tried it, there seems to be an option to change the skin color which may be useful in helping to make the player fit within your color scheme.

CODE FOR THE YAHOO FLASH PLAYER
<embed src="http://webjay.org/flash/dark_player" width="400" height="40" wmode="transparent" flashVars="playlist_url=LINK-TO-YOUR-MP3-OR-RSS-FEED&amp;skin_color_1=-145,-89,-4,5&skin_color_2=-141,20,0,0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" /></embed>

Do you have any additional flash players you would like to share? Please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments section.

Do you find this sort of information useful? Why not help support this sort of content by becoming a gspn.tv Plus Member.

Thanks For Subscribing To Podcast Answer Man:

Plus Members Subscribe Using Plus Feed Generator.

In this video episode I explain how to create a one click subscribe button for the zune and for iTunes. Doing so for iTunes is as simple as changing the url pre-fix of your rss feed from “http://” to “itpc://” Creating a zune one click install button is as simple as using this online zune podcast subscription tool.

Right Click Here To Download iPod and iPhone Version

Here’s how I saw it go down on Twitter:

First off, let me say that my thoughts and prayers go out to Leo during this time of loss! Weirdly enough, I almost mean that as much seriously as much as I do in a lighthearted way as I would express the same sentiments to someone who has lost someone near and dear to them.

I thought that the reason why people used a Raid 5 backup (RAID 5 : Combines three or more disks in a way that protects data against loss of any one disk; the storage capacity of the array is reduced by one disk.) was because hardware such as an individual hard drive is susceptible to failure and so that if all the data is mirrored on all three or more drives, if one drive fails, you have two or more good copies of the data. However, it would appear that a simple failure of the hardware known as the “Raid 5 Card” can completely wipe out the benefit of having more than one external drive backup. This is exactly why I’m not at all fascinated by Raid 5 or Drobos!

To many of us geeks, we put so much of who we are into ones and zeroes. Luckily, Leo didn’t loose any of his own content, just all the blood sweat and tears poured into the systems that were in place to deliver the content. However, the contributions from hundreds, if not thousands, of people who left comments on his blog or posts in his forums have been forever lost. At least all those done since the last “good backups” of each of the sites he maintains.

I’ve lost data to hard drive and other hardware failures in the past. Each time, I say that I’ve learned my lesson and take an oath to do daily/weekly backups of all important data. That plan usually lasts for a few weeks and then live without adequate backup protection continues.

I almost lost all hope of adequate backups back in the Tape Drive Backup Days. It seemed that these backup tapes almost never completed a successful recoverable backup of data. However, today, things to do seem a little more hopeful.

In the past, I relied so heavily on the operating system and computer program backups. Today, it appears that as long as I keep my most important data organized in a single directory on my drive, I could recover within hours if I simply had a solid backup of that folder with all the sub folders of data that I have saved.

The question is, what is the best technique of backup up this valuable data? Is it external drives, Raid5, Drobo? Is it online backup? I think that for true security, it is best to use more than one approach. However, so many of us today, still do all our computing with no such backup program in place at all.

Since starting my own business, data backup has been a high priority on my project list. At the core, I have an external hard drive hooked up to my computer and I use the paid version of Allway Sync to keep my Important Docs and Podcast Archives folders consistently synced with my external backup drive. I must say that I really do love this little software package as it gives me a ton of control over what gets synced and I can choose to have it sync both ways so that when I delete something on my local drive it keeps it on the backup or it deletes the it off the backup drive as well.

The only issue here is that if I have a fire in my home, I’m going to loose both my hard drive and the external drive both and therefore loose all my data regardless of how diligent I am with keeping everything backed up.

I could get more than one external drive and allow for multiple backups to multiple external drive and store all but the current one off site. However, who on earth will keep up with that? This is why I’m looking into also creating an online, off site, backup solution in conjunction with my external drive backup.

I’m currently looking at Carbonite Online Backup, Mozy Online Backup, as well as using Amazon’s S3 Web Services with a program called Jungle Disk.

As I move forward into into my search for the right backup solution that works best for me, I’ll do my best to come share what I learn with you.

Of course, I really would encourage some community discussion here in the comments section. What sort of things are you doing in the area of backup?

There were Times when I found it quite neccessary to do some basic image editing out and about right there on the Mac OS without having to load up my XP in Parallels. So I went ahead and shelled out $59 to pay for the full version of Pixelmator.

I’ve had this on my computer for several months but only just now started to search for some tutorial information on how to use the software. I have decided that with all these web design projects I’ve been taking on, I better start getting used to using a more feature rich image editing program. I know it’s no Photo Shop, but there really does seem to be some great functionality to this Mac Only image editing application.

As I find items that help me, I’ll post them here in the new Tech Tips section of the Podcast Answer Man site.

This video starts off in such a way that I could hardly understand what the person was saying at all. However, if you stick with it long enough, this is very valuable information on how to remove the a white or black background in Pixelmator.

Of course, I found some great links to some other Pixelmator information using this link!