I explain what each of the plugins (listed below) are used for and why I use them. I also share a word of caution before using one of the listed plugins and what you should do before running it.

This episodes is reserved only for those who are gspn.tv Plus Members. To learn more about Plus Membership, please visit http://gspn.tv/plus.

Items mentioned in this episode:
WordPress Database Backup
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KG-EnclosureFlex
Audio player
Akismet
Wordpress Automatic Upgrade

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Podcast Answer Man Podcast
Griffin iTalk iPhone Application Reveiw

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In this episode, I give my review of of iTalk. (iTunes link) iTalk is a new sound recording app for iPhone, iPhone 3G, and 2nd generation iPod touch that turns the iPhone or iPod touch into a mobile audio recorder.

I’ve been using the the application to record several episodes of my daily audio journal podcast titled “My Crazy Life.” However, I’m becoming increasingly more frustrated with the audio glitches that I point out in this review. I’m at the point that I love this application to just let it go. I’m contacting Griffin Support on Monday to see if I can find out if they are aware of this issue.

Don’t forget to call in your questions for the show at 859-795-4067

You can also post questions in the Podcast Answer Man section of the gspn.tv Community Forum.

Please Note: Don’t miss any Podcast Answer Man content. For Cliff, podcasting is a full time career! Two episodes of the Podcast Answer Man are available for free each month on the free feed. However, there are many more episodes available to you as a gspn.tv Plus Member. For more details, please visit http://gspn.tv/plus.

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This episodes is reserved only for those who are gspn.tv Plus Members. To learn more about Plus Membership, please visit http://gspn.tv/plus.

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Podcast Answer Man Podcast
Interview with Tim Bourquin of New Media Expo

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In This Episode, I share an interview I did with Tim Bourquin after he had finished interviewing me for his New Media Expo Podcast.

Don’t forget to call in your questions for the show at 859-795-4067
You can also post questions in the Podcast Answer Man section of the gspn.tv Community Forum.

Please Note: Don’t miss any Podcast Answer Man content. For Cliff, podcasting is a full time career! Two episodes of the Podcast Answer Man are available for free each month on the free feed. However, there are so many more episodes available to you as a gspn.tv Plus Member. For more details, please visit http://gspn.tv/plus.

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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.

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Never heard of Google Analytics before? No worries, I also show just how much useful information you can learn about how people find your site and what they do once they get there. Best of all, Google Analytics is absolutely free.

However, this episode of the Podcast Answer Man is not. This episodes is reserved only for those who are gspn.tv Plus Members. To learn more about Plus Membership, please visit http://gspn.tv/plus.

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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.

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While I am able to take an existing Wordpress Theme and modify it to meet my client’s needs, I must tell you that I can not take credit for the original designs that I’ve used. I’ve been an affiliate with Revolution Themes for quite some time. And as such, I’ve recommended several clients to use these great themes as the foundation for their online presence.

Effective this morning, my favorite themes are going Open Source with a brand new site named RevolutionTwo.com. What this means is that these themes are now going to be made available for free to the public.

My first thought was how in the world was the team behind these awesome designs ever going to make a living and to continue to be able to provide support for those who use the themes? I learned that they are now offering either a one year or lifetime membership to full support on all their themes.

As a long time customer of theirs, I can tell you that their support for these forums are second to none! Personally, I know the cost of getting a decent web site designed. It would cost no less than $1,000 and likely much more to have a site that looks as good as these themes. For only $99 you get unlimited access to all the Revolution Two Themes and you get full support for 1 year. For only $149 you get a lifetime membership allowing you unlimited support and access to all themes.

I would like to point out that I’m available to help on a one on one basis in learning how to customize these themes to meet your needs. I charge $95 per hour for my services. So you can see how much of a good deal the theme support membership can be!

If you choose to use the Revolution Two themes and/or membership, I’d love it if you would be willing to come to PodcastAnswerMan.com and click on the banner that links to them in the sidebar so that I can get the affiliate commission on the referral.

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True be told, there is no shortage of bloggers that are suggesting that “podcasting is dead“. I’m here to shout from the mountain top that this simply is not true! Podcasting is not only alive, it is thriving!

When I started podcasting in 2005, I didn’t know anyone locally who had ever heard of a podcast. Today, almost everyone I know is aware that their local church “podcasts” their weekend sermons, that their local news station makes the evening news available via podcast, or that their favorite tv show is likely to have an “official podcast” put out by either the creator, wriiters, or producers of their favorite tv show.

For those of you who do not know this about me, I left a very successful career in insurance after 11 years to pursue a career in podcasting full time. I’m now entering my eleventh month and I’ve not experienced a single dime of debt from day one. I’m consistently contacted by people who hear about me via word of mouth and who want to be consulted about how to start their own podcast.

I’ve fallen in love the the medium of delivering content via rss technology that I’m working on a business model that will allow me to earn a majority of my income from producing my own content alone. Just a few short months ago, I decided to take my podcasts to a partial premium content model, charging $10 per month. In just a few short months, I’ve already have already had one 163 people join up as gspn.tv Plus Members, with new members added daily.

I introduce the fact that I was an insurance agent for eleven years to explain to you that that the insurance industry as a whole is an industry that is always the last to embrace the latest technology. Many insurance companies still do not accept credit card payments on their websites. Most of those that do, still charge you up to five dollars for the convenience.

A majority of insurance agency offices today are still filled with up to 10’s or 100’s of four drawer letter file cabinets full of manila folders with years worth of paper copies of client policies. You’d laugh if I told you the number of agents I know that have an email address, but have no idea how to check or send an email. This is an extreme example, as most agents do use email on a daily basis. However I bet that less than 10% would know how to scan a document into pdf format and email it as an attachment. Being as technology driven as I am, the fact that the insurance industry simply could not keep up with my taste of early adoption was one of many factors that led me to make the switch to my new career.

I share all this background to share the following email I got from an insurance industry continuing education company. A quick look at their website will prove that they haven’t done a refresh of their web design in the past five years. However, this insurance related company has adopted the technology of podcasting.

With the trend that I’ve seen in the adoption of new technology, the following email is an early indication that your grandmother may be asking for an iPod for Christmas so she can subscribe to the podcast for AARP radio.

CEUNEWS

CEU.com Adds Downloadable Course Audio
Continuing education podcasts allow students to take material on the road

You’ve come to expect the best in convenient, high quality continuing education courses from CEU.com. After all, you just need a computer and an internet connection, and you can get the courses you need any time, day or night. What could be easier?

Well – what if you could study the course material when you are away from the computer? When you are driving, riding the train, or even working out at the gym? Now that’s convenient!

CEU.com is happy to announce that we now offer downloadable podcasts of our course audio. This means that when a student signs up for a course, he or she can save the audio to an iPod or other MP3 player. Then the course can go with the student on the road, to the gym, while doing housework – wherever an audio player can go. He or she can review the material as many times as necessary without having to sit at a computer the entire time.

Audio learning is a great way to conveniently incorporate brief study sessions into your daily routine, and this can actually improve your ability to learn. In his book 400 Ways to Stop Stress Now and Forever, G. Gaynor McTigue emphasizes that frequent, short study sessions are the best way to keep information fresh in your mind. Using this method of learning allows you to better understand and retain the material on a deeper level, and it is far superior to trying to “cram” all the material at once. You are also less likely to procrastinate, since these short sessions fit so painlessly into your schedule.

“At CEU.com, we pride ourselves in using technology to its greatest advantage,” said Bruce MacMillian, CEU’s president and CEO. “Making the audio from our courses downloadable makes perfect sense, and it’s a great use of the technology. Freeing our students to take the audio with them to review at their convenience will help them to retain and utilize the information to enhance their careers, and that’s what continuing education is all about.”

Downloadable course audio is now available at www.ceu.com.

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Many of you are aware that I do podcast consulting and sell podcast equipment. However, not everyone is aware that I personally produce, with my wife and a few friends, twenty of my own podcasts which I have formed into the Generally Speaking Production Network (gspn.tv).

This year, we received one of the greatest honors a podcast could hope to receive as it relates to the fourth annual People’s Choice Podcast Awards. This year, 81,000 individuals came together and nominated a total of 1,874 podcasts for 22 categories for the 2008 People’s Choice Podcast Awards!

Out of those nominated, only 10 podcasts for each category make it to the actual voting round. With 22 categories, this means that of the 1,874 podcasts nominated, only 220 are eligible for this year’s 15 day voting period.

I’m very honored to announce to that SIX of the 220 podcasts nominated were gspn.tv podcasts!

Below are the podcasts that were nominated and for which category:

About The Church - Education
Weekly Lost Podcast - Entertainment
Full Time Mom - General
Musically Challenged - Podsafe Music
Almost Daily Devotional - Religion & Inspiration
Podcast Answer Man - Technology & Science

I’m not practicing false humility when I authentically tell you that I believe this has a lot more to do with the power of an engaged community than our ability to produce content.

I want to thank everyone who nominated the gspn.tv podcast lineup above!

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In This Episode, I answer questions about noise reduction, mic choices, and so much more. I talk about Isolation, Absorbtion, Podcast Stats, and Condenser Vs Dynamic Microphones.

Plus Members get EVERY EPISODE of the Podcast Answer Man! To learn more about Plus Membership, please visit http://gspn.tv.

Don’t forget to call in your questions for the show at 859-795-4067
You can also post questions in the Podcast Answer Man section of the gspn.tv Community Forum.

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Since I’ve been selling audio equipment to podcasters from all over the United States, I’ve only had two items that ever needed to be replaced. Today was the second incident. The following comes from the Blog of one of my customers, Crystal Elerson from elerson.net. I really feel bad that she is experiencing any pain and inconvenience at all. However, at the same time, I’m so thankful for her kind words in the midst of it all.

Last Tuesday, I had a problem with my digital recorder right before my interview with Bernard Cooper. By Thursday, everything was working fine, and I had no problems interviewing Rick Moody. Today, I was set to interview Bernard Cooper again.

The mixer has this obnoxiously bright blue light on it that indicates it is receiving power. When the unit is plugged in, the light is always on providing a constant visual distraction. The unit, stupidly, has no On/Off switch. Today, as I was doing my prep work for the interview, I noticed that the obnoxiously bright light irritated me even more by not shining at all.

One loud female roar later…

I did what any former technical support person would do. I checked the surge protector. I switched power outlets. I unplugged and replugged in everything. I tried plugging the unit directly into the wall sans surge protector - two different wall sockets that both give power to other things. The only thing I didn’t do was try a new power cable because, of course, the thing doesn’t use a standard cable so I didn’t have a spare. I then dragged Dear Husband into the room to see if I was missing some obvious piece of information that Males always seem to think everyone should know but Females don’t have access to that Universal Guy Knowledge. Nope. He did everything I did and came to the same conclusion.

I then made the Call of Shame to Cooper to explain what happened. He laughed and generously told me he thought electronic equipment conspired against him anyway. Next time, I’m not telling my audio equipment who I’m calling… I’ll file that away with such wisdom as Never Mention Surplus Money Near a Working Vehicle (fastest way to car problems I have ever seen) and Do Not Announce Intent to Mow Grass (instant rain if we’re serious). Anyway, Bernard was lovely again, and I feel completely unprofessional for having to reschedule twice. I joked with him that I was enjoying our weekly chats. And I am - he has a voice I’d call to listen to at any time. Read me the phone book, and I’d just smile. I want my voice to sound that good but in a feminine way.

Next, I called the Behringer Technical Support Line to confirm my diagnosis: bad power supply or cable. They had me call the retailer I bought it from, who promptly called the company back to talk to his liaison there, and we’re working this out through a 3-way email because this is the first time a power supply/cable has gone out and needed replacing for this retailer (a lovely man named Cliff Ravenscraft who runs several podcasts - www.gspn.tv). I realized his webcam was on while I was talking to him, so I watched him immediately drop what he was doing to handle my issue - very cool.

I’m frustrated with the technical problems. However, I’m extremely satisfied with the support and service from both Behringer and Cliff Ravenscraft. If I’m going to have these issues, I’m glad to work with these people.

I’m so thankful for the understanding and patience of this client. It’s client’s like this that make me thankful every day that I’m doing what I love for a living!

Note: The blue light on the Behringer Xenyx 1002 mixer is very bright. I know at least one client that painted the little light with black fingernail polish.

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Out of those nominated, only 10 podcasts for each category make it to the actual voting round. With 22 categories, this means that of the 1,874 podcasts nominated, only 220 are eligible for this year’s 15 day voting period.

I’m very honored to announce to you that SIX of the 220 podcasts nominated were gspn.tv podcasts!

Below are the podcasts that were nominated and for which category:

About The Church - Education
Weekly Lost Podcast - Entertainment
Full Time Mom - General
Musically Challenged - Podsafe Music
Almost Daily Devotional - Religion & Inspiration
Podcast Answer Man - Technology & Science

The voting will open up at http://PodcastAwards.com on October 23rd and will run for 15 days. In the nomination phase, each person was limited to one vote per category, period.

However, when official voting opens, each person is allowed to vote for their favorite podcast in each category EACH DAY for FIFTEEN DAYS.

It is vitally important that if you wish for gspn.tv podcasts to have a chance of winning an award, that you vote each and every day once the voting opens. If you are willing to make this commitment to proving that the gspn.tv Community is one of the most engaged audiences out there, please let me us know that we can count on your daily vote by TELLING US HERE!

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In This Episode, I answer a question about how to make a portable studio setup. I also share how the TWIT.tv podcasts have been really burning me out with all their advertisements. Of course I share a major change as to the revenue approach for this podcast, announcing that starting immediately, we are switching the Podcast Answer Man to where only ever other episode will be released in the free feed. Plus Members will continue to get every episode. To learn more about Plus Membership, please visit http://gspn.tv.

Don’t forget to call in your questions for the show at 859-795-4067

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In This Episode, I share an update on the gspn.tv iPhone Application that I mentioned in episode 074 of The Podcast Answer Man Podcast.

I share my excitement over a real time website analytics program called Woopra.

I mention my blog post that describes How To Embed MP3 Flash Players On Regular HTML Sites.

I talk about SurveyMonkey.com and how conducting a survey of your listeners can help you learn things that could be useful in growing your audience.

Finally, I share with you one of my favorite new podcasts put together by a fifth grader and her father titled “With Liberty And Justice For All.” Check out the show, leave her some feedback, and tell her the Podcast Answer Man told you about her.

Don’t forget to call in your questions for the show at 859-795-4067

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I wanted to take a minute to say thank you to Wayne L Henderson for the kind words that he shared about me and the services I provide on one of his recent podcasts. Wayne has been a long time listener of my gspn.tv podcasts and he and is one our gspn.tv Plus Members.

If you happen to need voice over work for your podcast, Wayne does a great job.

MP3 Version

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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.

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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

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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?

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In this episode I explain why it has been a few weeks since I last released an episode of the Podcast Answer Man podcast. Of course you can see the new layout of the site here. Believe it or not, this theme you see on this site is the exact theme that I used to build this site for a client. I mentioned that we recently released our 1,000th episode for gspn.tv. I also mentioned that I spent more than 10 hours working on this 30 minute video project. I didn’t mention it in the episode, but this is another video project that I did for myself.

I took some time to answer a question from someone in the community regarding setting up an rss feed with feedburner so that you can change from one domain to another without asking your subscribers to subscribe to a new feed.

Here is a screen capture of where you change the original feed address in Feedburner:

Right Click Here To Download

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From what I understand, prongs on the adapters, that plug into the wall, can break off and remain stuck in the power outlet which creates a serious risk of electric shock. Users can either exchange their adapters in an Apple store, or order a replacement online.

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If you have not seen the Mac v/s PC commercials, you really should see them all!

Here is one of my favorites:

Several weeks ago, news came out that Microsoft was going to pour THREE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS into a Microsoft ad/marketing campaign. What was shocking about this story was that they announced that Bill Gates was to appear in the new ads and that they had hired Jerry Seinfeld to bring some talent to the campaign.

Here are their first two attempts at this campaign with Jerry:

Attempt 1:

Attempt 2:

It is no surprise that Microsoft said bye bye to Jerry! I must say, that regardless what hidden meaning may or may not be tucked into these commercials, it just seemed to be lost on the masses, including myself.

However, the latest advertisement coming from the Microsoft ad campaign is what we have all been waiting for. Something that deals DIRECTLY with the Mac v/s PC ad campaign. Let’s face it, Microsoft had been beaten up and knocked out in the prime time boxing match known as commercials. To this day, when we are browsing past commercials and see a Mac v/s PC commercial come on, we always back it up to the beginning to watch.

The question in my mind was… “What does Microsoft have to say about what Apple says about them in the attack ads?” Finally, Microsoft answers this very question and I must say… I think they knocked one out of the park with this latest Microsoft ad.

Take a look for yourself:

Brilliant! I love it! I think I may go and watch this one again! Tell me what you think in the comments!

Me? I’m a Mac when it comes to doing anything with video or just on the go with my MacBook laptop. I’m a PC the other 70% of the time, especially when I’m producing audio podcasts!

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Cliff,

I’d like to say thank you for your video tutorial for creating Zune and iTunes subscription buttons. The timing could not have been better because I had a listener specifically ask us to create an easy Zune subscription button just 2 days before you released your video. I took the information you gave us and created my own Zune, iTunes and RSS subscription buttons and imbedded the code just as you instructed. Thanks for you all you do for the podcasting community.

Darrell

The Fringe Podcast

www.TheFringePodcast.com

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This week the company faces a full-scale revolt. The issue: Apple’s summary rejection of a program on the grounds that it duplicated a function on one of its own programs.

The point of this entry is not to go into the full details of this story. I’ve already done that in previous posts. (The iPhone App I Had Developed, App Store Rejects My Application, & Podcasters Blacklisted From App Store)

I’m really hope that the entire new media & overall geek community will rise up and join together so that our voice can be heard in Cupertino! As I am notified of stories and blog posts about this issue, I’ll do my best to come and update this blog entry. Feel free to add your own links in the comments section of this blog.

Please note, If your link does not show up by default, I’ll manually go in and add the html for the link.

Here’s what I have so far as of 09/15/2008
iPhone: Big trouble in the App Store
Chuqui 3.0 - Reaction to Developer Leaving the iPhone Platform
Mobility Today Application
Why iPhone is an ureliable platform
App Store I’m Out
Of Course You’ll Keep Developing For The iPhone
Podcaster Developer Uses Little-Known “Ad Hoc” Mode To Distribute Banned iPhone App

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As it turns out, this may not be just a simple misunderstanding and with this story I just read on gizmodo.com, it seems that iTunes is actually taking the stance of BLACKLISTING podcasters from developing applications intended to allow streaming of their content via wifi, 3G, or Edge Networks. The application referred to in this story is called “Podcaster and was designed to allow you to subscribe, manage, stream and download podcasts directly to your iPhone and iPod Touch. Who doesn’t want this? Right?

The developers of this application were delivered a similar rejection letter to the one that Apple, Inc. had sent to me saying…. “Since Podcaster assists in the distribution of podcasts, it duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes.”

I must say that over the past few years, I’ve really warmed up to Apple. I purchased my first iPod just about two and a half years ago. Since then, I’ve purchased a total of five iPods for our family and three iPhones (I sold my original to get the new 3G).

In June of 2007, I purchased my first ever Mac Computer (A Macbook Laptop). I even started a Podcast (HelpIGotAMac.com) devoted to helping people who have spent a lifetime of computing on a PC warm up to their very first Mac Computer.

However, I must say that as a Podcaster, I feel slightly snubbed by the rejection of applications where money and time were poured into by podcasters when there were absolutely no clear guidelines or indications that such useful applications would be against any company policy.

Apple is turning out to be a very different company from what all my friends had been telling me about. I’m not sure I like this way of doing business.

UDPATE: Finally, this is starting to get some widespread attention. Here is a story posted on MacRumors.com.

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Stephanie and I started podcasting back in December of 2005. Since then we have launched nearly thirty unique podcasts. As of today, we still have more than 18 shows that remain in production at gspn.tv. The numbers I’m about to share with you do not include any episodes that I produce for any of my consulting clients or for Watermark Community Church. I have also excluded blog and video blog entries where either an audio or video media file was not delivered via a syndication feed.

As we are quickly approaching our third anniversary of podcasting, I was searching through our podcast archives today, to see if I could coordinate our 1,000th podcast episode to coincide with our 3rd Podcast Anniversary on December 16th. Imagine my shock when I browsed through all the archives only to recognize that the very next gspn.tv podcast episode that we will produce will be our 1,000th gspn.tv podcast episode that we have officially released.

I’m not kidding when I say this rocked my world. I’ve intentionally put off my morning recording of My Crazy Life and the Almost Daily Devotional as I’m considering waiting for Stephanie to join me for this milestone in our podcasting efforts. Since I was looking at some of the archived data, I looked at some other interesting facts. In just under three years, we have served more than THREE MILLION file downloads. Given that the over all average length of our episodes is approximately 45 minutes per episode, that works out to be approximately 750 hours worth of content produced.

I can’t decide if this constitutes as me “tooting our own horn” or not. I simply found this information to be quite astonishing and I simply had to share it with someone. Look for a special episode of My Crazy Life to be recorded some time today or this evening for release tomorrow.

Seriously, I had no idea that it was this much.

UPDATE: Click Here To Listen To Our 1,000th Show!

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A few weeks back, I was browsing the Apple App Store to see what Apps were available for download on my iPhone. I was surprised to see a Diggnation Application that had been made available.

Diggnation is a video podcast that I used to enjoy watching to catch some of the more popular tech news stories of the week. Unfortunately, Diggnation is a video podcast that exceeds thirty minutes for each episode. As I was not always able to devote this much time to watching a video podcast each week, I often found myself getting several episodes behind in my podcast subscription feed.

A few months back, I had actually unsubscribed from this video podcast due to the fact that, at the time, I only had a 4gig iPhone and I was getting errors saying that I didn’t have enough space available on my iPhone to sync everything I needed to sync. I know that I had an option to change my settings to only sync certain podcasts or only the most recent few episodes. However, I didn’t want to impose such limits on my other podcasts. I simply unsubscribed.

The Diggnation Application was genius! One feature I’ve always wanted on my iPod was to be able to wireless get the most recent episodes of my favorite podcasts without having to first download them to iTunes and then sync my iPod. This application doesn’t actually download the podcast episodes on the iPhone for keeps and then sync it back when I connect to iTunes again. However, what it does is simply goes out and pulls up the rss feed for Diggnation and then allows me to click on any of the episodes and then the built in media player on the iPhone or iPod Touch will then stream the file over wifi, edge, or 3G.

As I continued to browse the App Store, I found the Mobility Today Application. Mobility Today is simply an audio podcast and the application does the same thing the Diggnation Application does accept it simply streams .mp3 files instead of video files.

Now since I produce eighteen of my own podcasts at gspn.tv, I figured this would be an excellent application for our listeners. Often times, our listeners sync their iPods and iPhones before they leave the house for the day, hoping to have the most recent gspn.tv podcasts. However, I often release anywhere between two to eight podcasts in a single day and our community members would listen to many of them on their way home from work or while at the gym if only they had them available.

I contacted the creator of the Diggnation and Mobility Today application and hired him to build me a similar application for gspn.tv. However, I went the extra step of having him code and create the functionality of having the ability for our gspn.tv Plus Members to sign in with their user name and password so that they would have access to all the premium content only available to Plus Members.

After weeks of waiting for approval from the iTunes App Store, checking the App Store each day to see if my App has been made available, I finally got an email from Apple. Here is what they had to say….

From: de———s@apple.com
To: Cliff@Ravenscraft.org
Subject: gspn.tv: Application Submission Feedback

---

Please include the line below in follow-up emails for this request.

Follow-up: 54817423

Hello,

gspn.tv cannot be posted to the App Store, as the App Store is not the appropriate channel for distributing podcasts.

The iTunes Store has separate categories dedicated to each type of media. Music, podcasts, and movies are delivered through that channel. Information on publishing podcast on iTunes can be found at: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302199

Regards,

Victor W*******
Worldwide Developer Relations
Apple, Inc.

Needless to say, this news did not make me happy. Here my email response back to Apple.

From: Cliff@Ravenscraft.org
To: de———s@apple.com
Subject: RE: gspn.tv: Application Submission Feedback

---

I’m writing regarding the FOLLOW UP: 54817423

See below referenced email:

Regarding your decision… There are two applications that are already approved, in wide use, and have great feedback ratings that are EXACTLY like my application…

Here is one for Mobility Today

Here is one for Diggnation

Please note: both applications listed above are for a single podcast. My application includes all 18 of my podcasts as well as functionality of being able to sign in with your user name and password so that my Plus Members can gain access to their Premium Member Only Content that is available to them.

I’ve paid a great deal of money to have this application developed and my listening community is desperately waiting for the App to be released as many times they are out and about during the day when I release as many as five new episodes during a day but they don’t want to wait till they get home and sync their iPhone or Touch to listen to the shows.

Please reconsider!!!!

Cliff


Cliff J. Ravenscraft
Generally Speaking Production Network
Email: Cliff@Ravenscraft.org
My Podcasts: http://gspn.tv
Follow Me On Twitter: http://twitter.com/gspn
Podcast Consulting: http://PodcastAnswerMan.com

I can’t help but wonder who is in control of approving these applications and what guidelines they are going with. I personally find the Diggnation and Mobility Today applications quite useful. I had never heard of the Mobility Today Podcast before getting the application and I find myself checking out from time to time.

I also find myself occasionally watching Diggnation and prefer to do so through the application rather than re-subscribing in iTunes.

I know that the gspn.tv Community is very much looking forward to the release of this application and I hope and pray they reconsider their denial of this application when both of the above mentioned apps are pretty much exactly the same as mine with LESS FUNCTIONALITY!!!!!

Update:
Earlier this evening, I received a Twitter Message from someone asking “But why would you want podcasts cluttering up the app store. Podcasts already have a place in iTunes.” Of course I don’t think that the iTunes App Store should simply be another directory. However, if any podcaster has the inspiration to create an application that has a use beyond the functionality of simply being listed in a directory and pays the money to have an application built, and such an application does not violate any regulations of creating such an application, then I certainly feel like it should be approved.

I honestly don’t feel that the App Store will become cluttered with podcast rss reader applications. If it does, then SIMPLY CREATE A CATEGORY IN THE APP STORE FOR IT! Heck, it just means that there is a legitimate demand for such an application.

As for cluttering up the App Store. How many 99cent piece of crud applications do we need where you simply push a button and your iPhone plays a 3 second audio clip? I mean seriously, there is an application called Jerk In A Box. The description of the app…. “Hurl insults and talk smack like a pro without saying a word with this fun app. Each button plays a unique insult clilp that’s sure to give you and your friends a laugh. Chain them together and mix and mach to create new insults. It’s trash talk on the go!”

I mean seriously! The App Store will take this and deny my application? REALLY?

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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!

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In this video episode, I share with you the iPhone application that I’ve had made for our podcasting network. It should be available within the next few days or it could take up to three weeks to get into the iTunes store. I’ll keep you posted.

Here Is The Video:

Note: The iTunes Version of this video has a much higher video quality. For the best viewing experience, click to download using the link below and watch with either QuickTime, iTunes, or your video iPod.

Right Click Here To Download This Episode

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