How to Listen to a Podcast
You may have heard of the term podcast and are wondering what it is or how to get started listening? The word podcast originated from the combination of iPod and broadcast, and consists of audio or video files that are made available for download through various methods.
Basically, a podcast is an audio or video file that an individual or several individuals create and then put into a format that can be easily played by many devices or software such as the iPod, Zune, iTunes, and Juice (just to name a few). The production quality can vary greatly, you may have a kid in his bedroom recording on a desktop computer or it could be produced in a studio with state of the art equipment.
The topics that are discussed in podcasts vary greatly, just about anything you can imagine is probably being covered somewhere on the internet. I am somewhat of a geek and enjoy technology based podcasts and the majority of my listening material comes from twit.tv. I also enjoy video from time to time, and in those cases I will turn to revision3.com or dl.tv.
Downloading iTunes is the easiest way to get started. Why iTunes? The Apple iPod is by far the number one audio player in the world, which in turn makes the iTunes store the number one place to find podcasts. iTunes makes it simple to find podcasts that you may find interesting. You can narrow the offerings down by category, popularity, or even recommended feeds. iTunes does not require you to have an iPod or an iPhone, it is a standalone application. Find it free here.
Personally I use iTunes, but I find it slow and sometimes aggravating to use with a Windows operating system. Other options are available such as the open source program Juice. Juice is fast, free, and simple to use. Another option is to go to the website that is creating content and download the podcast directly. If you choose a direct download you can then use Windows Media Player to play the file.
Popular Program Options:
iTunes
Juice
Doppler
Popular Media Players:
iPod
Zune
Zen
A few places to get (technology) podcasts:
DL.TV
Revision3
TWiT
Online Backup Breakdown
This past weekend the hard drive on my wife Nicole’s laptop decided it no longer wanted to work. What could have been a disaster was averted by a backup I had completed about two weeks earlier. Nicole lost some files for work and about a hundred pictures. Thankfully, several gigs of data were sitting safely backed-up on an external drive.
Local backups are great, but in the event of a catastrophic event or theft they will do you no good. Offsite backups are ideal and can be easily accomplished by many services. I have spent the past several days using many different services and have found that on average you can backup your data for less than $10 per month. They can also automatically run backups on a schedule or when you choose to perform one manually. If you are concerned about security, backups are encrypted before, during, and after the transfer - though some are more secure than others.
The major differences between these services can be found in setup, choosing what to backup, and recovering files. Some services offer wizards and some are far more clunky to use. Let the breakdown begin.
SOS Online Backup
This service has a simple to use interface and has all the goodies that advanced users would be looking for. SOS would have taken the gold in this competition but on two occasions I had trouble connecting to the server. If the service is fully functioning, it cannot be beaten. Pricing begins at $50 per year; a free trial is available.
IDrive
The user interface is not as streamlined as other services but for advanced users this could be an ideal choice. Several configuration options are available and transfer speeds are top notch. A custom encryption key can be used which increases security. Pricing starts at $5 per month with a 2GB free version available.
MozyHome
Read the IDrive features and you will have an idea of what Mozy is all about. Mozy also includes the 2GB free version. Pricing starts at $5 per year with a 2GB free version.
HP Upline
Easy to user interface, with abilities such as sharing pictures with family and friends (other files can be shared as well), and local backup options. However, Upline does not allow interrupted transfers to be resumed, previous version access, or backup of files that are being accessed. Pricing begins at $5 per month; a one year limited trial is available.
Carbonite
Setup could not be easier, and recovering multiple files or a single file is accomplished with little effort. Files are encrypted twice before transfer and then encrypted again once on the server. Unlimited storage is $50 per year; a free trial is also available.
Carbonite is the service I recommend, it may not be the best choice for everyone but for the average user it will easily get the job done. If you are feeling adventures, check out the Gmail Drive.
My favorite piece of tech.
In our previous post Oprah declared her love of the Amazon Kindle and stated how it was by far her favorite piece of technology - this got me thinking, what is my favorite device? At first I would say my laptop, it is not only a productive device but a great source of entertainment however, I travel a lot and always pulling my laptop out can be a pain. This led me to my choice, the Apple iPhone. The iPhone is portable, has internet access via 3G, edge, or wifi and has a slew of applications that let me get stuff done.
Yesterday, I was driving home from southern Louisiana and I used the device for the entire duration of the trip. Here is a breakdown.
Music and podcasts - my vehicle has an audio input so I plugged my phone in and played podcasts over the vehicles audio system.
Google maps with GPS - I was extremely tired and missed a turn - an hour later I was in New Orleans and wondering how to get home. *After pulling over* I accessed the maps feature, and it immediately knew my location and showed me the path home. Very nice.
Applications - Since I had already pulled over I decided to log on to twitter and see what was going on, I also checked my gmail and the mail for this blog.
Camera - The camera is only so-so but if you can manage to get someone to stand still or have a stationary object to photograph it does a decent job. As I was traveling I crossed a bridge from where I could see another bridge, just down the river, that was partially covered in fog, it was very beautiful and I was able to snap a picture.
Phone- To top it off, the iPHONE has a phone built-in and I talked to my wife a couple of time during the trip.
This is just an example of how I used it yesterday; the iPhone has other options that I utilize daily. How do you use your phone?
The iPhone can be found at at&t or Apple , the 8GB model is $199, the 16GB model is $299.
Oprah declares the Amazon Kindle is her favorite gadget.
The nation’s number one daytime host will announce on today’s show that the Amazon Kindle is her favorite gadget. The blessing of Oprah will no doubt rocket sales of the device. Yet, you may be asking yourself “what is a kindle?”
Developed by Amazon itself, the Kindle is attempting to change the way people read books. Basically, the Kindle is a small, electronic book reader that also includes the ability to play audio books, access the web, and play music. Amazon has over 180,000 books available for download, with new releases costing $9.99 and older books ranging in price from $4 to $7. The price is a significant savings over traditional ownership methods (buying a physical book).
Web access is accomplished through a free network called “Whispernet” which in turn is accessed through a free wireless data connection. The wireless connectivity allows for book purchases, automatic delivery of newspapers, ability to read several blogs, and a few other features.
Amazon introduced the Kindle almost a year ago and the initial stock ran out in a mere five hours. It took Amazon six months to get more Kindles in stock. Needless to say the Kindle is a massive success. Find it on Amazon for $359.
Connect to your home PC (for free)
For years now I have been a user of a service called logmein. Logmein allows me to connect to my home pc from any computer with a web connection and a browser. Not only do I use it for my home computer but for several family members that are always calling on me for free tech support.
Logmein has a free option, which I use, or a full fledged service that cost $69.95 per year. The free version is very limited but it allows me to do what I need. With the free version I can connect up to 5 different computers. Once connected, I can control the computer and run programs but I can not drag & drop files, have remote sound, or sync files. Sound is not really an issue for me and for file transfers I usually just email the file to myself and then retrieve it from the computer I am on.
This is the simplest way for the average user to have remote access to a computer. Other options do exist, some being more technical than others and you may want to check them out.
Additional Options:
http://www.gotomypc.com
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsXp/using/mobility/getstarted/Remoteintro.mspx
http://www.realvnc.com/
http://www.tightvnc.com/
How to Start a Basic Blog
A simple blog.
In 2007 my wife and I had our first child, a boy. For my parents this was their first grandson and they couldn’t be more thrilled. Not only did our son have grandparents but great-grandparents and a great-great-grandmother – how cool is that? The problem: we lived more than 600 miles away from any of our family and everyone was missing what was happening with the newest edition to the family. We emailed pictures to the family as often as we could but sending large images was a hassle.
To solve this problem I finally convinced my wife to start a blog and I tried to make it as easy as possible for her. My wife was reluctant at first but, after blogging a couple of times and getting tremendous feedback from our family she turned into a blogging machine.
The following guide will get you on the web in no time.
What is it we want to do?
Update the family
Share pictures
Share video (most digital cameras produce fairly good video)
How are we going to do this?
Blogger – this is where our new blog will live
Picasa – storage for pictures and video
Picasa Software – manage images and video on your computer and upload them to your online gallery
Let’s get started.
Go to www.blogger.com and setup an account. The process is very straightforward. Here is what it will ask for.
Blog title – this will be the name of your blog and how people will identify you.
Blog address (url) - If you select sillykittens as the blog name then your web address would be http://sillykittens.blogspot.com
Hit Continue
Choose a template – this will “pretty-up” your blog and you can change it later.
Hit Continue
Your blog is now setup and the screen you are looking at is for posting. A post is a single entry, like a journal entry. Type in a title and then proceed to tell your family about how the little one likes to carry things to the bathroom and throw them in the toilet. Yes, our son does do that and he finds it hilarious.
The next step involves going to http://picasa.google.com/ and downloading the Picasa software. After install has completed the software will scan your computer and find all of your images and videos. These will then be displayed on the left hand side of Picasa in folders. My wife likes to catorgorize pictures by month taken but you can do it however you like.
After all of your media (pictures and video) have been found you can get them on the web by:
Clicking “Upload” which is located in the bottom toolbar. You will be prompted for login information (use your same Google account that you set your blog up with). After logging in you can upload pictures to an album. Again my wife likes to organize her online albums by month and year. Hit upload and your pictures will now be online.
Okay, great the pictures are now online but how do you share them with the family?
We go back to blogger.com and login. Once you are logged in make sure you are at the dashboard (look at the top right-hand corner of the screen for the link).
In the dashboard you will see “layout”, click that and now you see a layout of your blog.
Click “Add a gadget” and then click “Slideshow” and enter the information for your Picasa Web Album.
Now hit “Save” and then hit “Save’’ on the layout page. That’s it; you now have pictures from your album being displayed on your blog.
The Beloved Start Page
Choose a new Start Page
Remember back in the day when Lycos, Netscape, Excite, AOL, Compuserve and a few others dominated the homepage of most browsers? Times were good, news, weather, and the daily horoscope greeted us with a nice and simple format. Well, for the most part, those days are over. Web 2.0 has nudged us right along to a new group of home/start pages and the decision of where to begin each web experience could not be harder.
I began this quest by coming to the conclusion that my current start page was just not cutting it any more. The page I wanted would need to have the ability to display rss feeds, e-mail, news, gadgets, and of course have search capabilities. After hours of playing experimenting with the different options, I have put together a list of what I like and don’t like about the most common places to use today.
iGoogle
Google stumbled into the homepage game and in the beginning I was not impressed. Sure, it displayed my gmail, calendar, rss feeds, gadgets, and Google search but it was very web 1.0 looking. Everyone always says “looks aren’t everything” but we all know the truth and thankfully Google realized this too.
Google began offering the ability to cloak your page with a theme and it has made a significant difference. Some of the themes are not too shabby and even change depending on the time of day.
Bottom line: If you are an avid user of Google products this makes for a respectable start page.
Score: 7/10
NetVibes
If NetVibes was a 17-year old school girl she would be the prom queen. Graphics galore, easy customization, with feeds and modules covering everything I can imagine. Getting started is easy as well. Within 20 seconds you can have a customized page including a theme, location based data, modules of interest, and suggested widgets.
After you get started you can customize more with thousands of widgets and the ability to add your favorite rss feeds, you can even title the name of your new creation.
Bottom line: NetVibes tugged at my heart strings the very first time I paid a visit.
Score: 9/10
Pageflakes
Proof that you can’t judge a book by its cover. Pageflakes and NetVibes are very similar in looks but after you spend some time with both you will begin to notice a difference.
Pageflakes is easy to setup, the whole process can be completed in less than a minute, and is just as easy as NetVibes. Widgets can be moved, themes can be applied but what begins to bug me is some of the small things that could be easily changed. How to changes settings is not very apparent and some of the modules do not allow me to do everything I would like, for example – I could not pull in all my email accounts from different providers onto the page.
Bottom line: Pageflakes is good but NetVibes does it better.
Score: 7/10
Windows Live
Microsoft has really dropped the ball when it comes to convincing users to use the products they put out on the web. The Live experience is not straightforward or easy to find for a lot of users. When I sat down to write this review I could not get to my customized start page that I had setup a few months ago it had been replaced by a boring page showing hotmail, spaces, and services being offered.
The page is a simple, streamlined page that may appeal to some users but it offers nothing that I want.
Bottom line: Wait until MS decides what they are doing
Score: 3/10
My Yahoo
Yahoo was the king of the web for many years and is still a prince when it comes to the number of users they have, however, they have not joined the revolution whole heartedly.
I admit that for years Yahoo is where I went for stock quotes, tv listings, odd-news and a few other items but, even though these items still exist they no longer hold the appeal that they once did. The page can be customized to a point, three columns allow for a drag-and-drop interface and a multitude of themes can be selected but that is about it.
Bottom line: As with Google, if you are an avid user of Yahoo products this is not a bad place to be but, Yahoo has really fallen behind.
Score: 4/10
Mr. Jobs, I want more functionality
I finally converted to the iPhone about two months ago and for the most part I love it. The beautiful display, full ipod ability, thousands of apps to pick and choose from which would make any person be overcome with glee upon initial use. However, the iPhone is not without flaw and here is a list of things that I want to see.
- Flash for the browser
- Ability to send MMS messages and forward text messages
- Copy and Paste
- Password manager or allow the Firefox browser
- Increased battery life (the latest update did improve this though)
DIY - iPhone Bedside Stand
Flickr user piPhoto has some interesting photos showing how to use the packaging that the iPhone came in to make a stand so that the iPhone can be used as a bedside clock with the alarm clock app installed. Make sure and put your phone in airplane mode or you may wake to an almost dead device. Kudos sir.
Apple continues to take shots at Microsoft
Apple continues to capitalize on the public perception that Windows Vista is a complete failure and riddled with problems. This particular ad mocks Microsoft for spending too much money on advertising and not putting that money into the further development of Vista. I will admit that originally Vista was a bit buggy and XP was the OS I personally preferred but SP1 (service pack 1) fixed most of what I had to complain about and I now use Vista on a daily basis. The major complaint that still remains is the slow boot time but this is mostly trivial. On a side note, I wonder how much money Apple spends on the adverting that seems to show up more on television than campaign ads?