Inside View from Ireland

Using Two Mics

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I CARRY TWO MICS (at left) in my Bihn bag because I like to have gear that works with both my laptop and my digital audio recorders. I like mics that can be used in the field with dedicated recorders as well as being useful when lined in via my laptop's mic port. A few years ago, the USB mics I used generated hiss or hum that I could not reduce by a software gate so I started using the mic ports instead. I prefer the Rode or Beyerdynamic shotgun mics (both costing more than EUR 200) because they capture a wider range of the human voice. The Audio Technica lapel mic is convenient but as its recording level shows on the Audioboo clip, it's not as good as the Rode mic. It cost me EUR 120. Both of my mics are powered by a single AA battery and they have proven to be very resistant to damage in the field. In fact, the weak link is the XLR-to-3.5 cable. As I'll explain in a workshop at the ICT in Education Conference, it's easy to pull and disconnect internal leads on that cable. To hear the audio comparison of my two mics, click the link attached to my blog post.

Two Mics on Test

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On Audioboo: "Two Mics to Test IE9 Line-in".

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Handheld HD with Qik Video Connect Plus

 

 

I SPENT MY FIRST coffee with Qik today, using Qik Video Connect Plus. It's an iPhone app that is totally integrated to all the social services and it incorporates several clever real time effects. There are two versions of the application available: Qik Video Connect and Qik Video Connect Plus. I paid $2.99 for the Plus version because I wanted the HD quality video. You can get a free version, Qik Video Connect, in the app store. The app is clever but it doesn't remove the need for the user to remember to turn the camera so it records in the best aspect ratio. I didn't and the result shows in the video clip that I made.

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Qik -- Video Connect and my video.

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E7 post

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JUST A QUICK CHECK of mail2blog posting sent from my Nokia E7 phone. I'm trying to make the E7 work with AlonMP3, a piece of software that is not designed for new Symbian phones. The recording software works great with my legacy mobile recording equipment, shown at left. I want to pull all these things together on the Web Promotion for Business course that we're running. If this post goes up to my weblog, it means that my mail2blog service is working fine with my E7's Gmail service. I'm trying to attach audio clips directly to my blog posts--something that I thought I could do last year--but discovered that I cannot email directly out from the AlonMP3 software. After I emailed my blog post up to InsideView, I used the server software to attach the audio file to the blog post. I'd like to be able to email the MP3 file to the blog as an attachment to a post.

First Use of Rig

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Open Source Radio

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WHILE DRIVING IN TIPPERARY and listening to Adam Curry on my iPod Touch, I discovered something interesting. It's Open Source Radio, the Curry edition. Adam Curry has been running a streaming server for several years. We have one on wide-open bandwidth at LIT-Clonmel. The idea: push out a rotating playlist of songs that are truly interesting to creative multimedia audiences. Those audiences are communities of students, potential degree candidates, employers and graduates.

Curry is running his live stream on Thursdays and Sundays at 5PM Irish Time. You can listen live on the No Agenda Stream or get your fix as a podcast. The problem is Curry's podcast server isn't accepting all his three-hour shows for distribution.

Adam Curry's Open Source Radio

Recording with a live audience is the way to go. That audience gives real-time feedback by text, IRC chat, or hashtagged tweets. Curry's chatroom runs around the clock because he has a truly international audience. The sun does set on his audience--the Irish late night discussions are particularly vibrant. It's reinvigorated Adam.

CollegeLives Episode One

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I TUNED INTO College Lives, a half-hour audio segment on TippFM at 6:30 on Saturday evening. We had the bog-standard FM radio running in the kitchen and I walked around the house listening to TippFM online on my iPod Touch with TuneIn Radio. I had not heard the episode before it aired so I recorded the show while listening to it, then shoveled it onto this blog post. The little bells that you might hear during the show are from Boxcar, an iOS app recommended by John Hannafin. I set Boxcar up to make a single bell chime whenever someone added #collegelives to the public timeline on Twitter. And the sound of a cash register opening is Boxcar telling you that someone made a favorite of the tweet I posted about College Lives being live on air.

 

College Lives Episode 01

 

Collegelives in the Studio

WE HAVE STARTED recording episodes of College Lives in Tipperary Institute and plan to have the first 24 minutes ready for broadcast on TippFM before Valentine's Day. Fran Curry, programme director for the local radio station, will advise on the broadcast time slot for the six shows. And in a related work flow, creative multimedia students are taking cutting room snippets for release onto Podcasting.ie, a dormant domain maintained by the college. Programming for the College Lives series is supported under the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland's Sound and Vision programme. Production services are provided by Edgecast Media in association with the Tipperary Institute's Applied Communications module.

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Follow Mike Kiely, Susan Cloonan and Conn O Muineachain for tweets related to  College Lives in Tipperary Institute.

 

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One GTD Audio Clip a Day

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I NOW USE AUDIOBOO as a productivity device, making one short audio clip every day of November as I try to get my primary email inbox done to zero unread mails and my unsorted pile of paper below one foot of pulp. During my audio journey, I've stumbled upon a dozen people who are also engaged in making short audio clips every day during the month of November. I don't think the others I've discovered want to use the month to finish a task or to weave the daily audio into a GTD routine. No matter. For me, combining the goal of Getting Things Done with an audio clip feels like meditation. Plus, it's as fast as tapping and talking on the iPhone or Android device. Today, I've got to attack email and paper (see below the line for the current status), scan an owner's manual for the Humax HD Fox T2, make a quick circuit outside through my unfinished symphony, summarise The 2020 Workplace, and prep for Limerick Open Coffee. All those items sit on a cluttered table top and are cleared as part of my daily Audio Moment today. (aka audiomo).

Audiomo Episode 02

 

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Current inbox backlog: 525 unread mails. Current paper pile: 14.7 feet high.

Jeanne Meister and Karie Willyerd -- The 2020 Workplace ISBN 978-0061763274

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Underway in Ireland

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IT'S TIME to reboot Underway in Ireland because podcasting has become an easy pocket-sized skill, thanks to Audioboo and Libsyn. Back in 2006, when I was churning out podcasts several times a week, an entire production process figured into the mix and that meant setting aside hours of time for post-production. Today, you can tell if someone has used high-quality editing skills but the emphasis is shifting to media swarms. When you work in that space, you're one step from live broadcasting. That's the space I'm going to slip into because I can go from my pocket-sized device (Xperia X10 or iPod Touch) straight to a subscribeable production, thanks to Audioboo. And a few clicks of the mouse later, I can pull the same MP3 file into a Libsyn database for complete statistical analysis. I have to teach this kind of process at the Tipperary Media Academy in LIT Clonmel so I want to stumble first and explain the potholes to creative multimedia students who follow.

Underway #76

 

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A Student Life: Exploring Multimedia

I WANT TO GIVE Steven Gill, one of my Media Writing students, some space on my blog to describe the start of his four year journey in creative multimedia. He's a mature student and clueless by his own admission. I like his self-effacing style. Here's his second draft:

   

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View on YouTube. Follow Steven on his blog.

 

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Of the podcasts left standing

LOOKING BACK AT FIVE YEARS of podcasts that I've collected, only a few of the original posse remain in my weekly playlists. I started thinking about the audio tapestry in my life after Conn O Muineachain tweeted that he was listening to some of my students on a recent Educast episode. Students put Adam Curry's Daily Source Code into that episode. The Daily Source Code paused in mid-February this year and I miss it. I got bored with Dawn and Drew more than two years ago and tuned themout. But I miss Steve and Jessie nattering on from Dublin. Brian Greene has slipped over to Blip.fm while Dean Whitbread, England's first podcaster, holds the line. I started paying for some enhanced podcast services while learning how to produce password-protected audio inside the creative multimedia programme at Tipperary Institute. Those enhanced podcasts have chapter headings and that makes it relatively easy to punch forward in the content, landing at electronic markers where new topics get discussed.

Because I grew up with a radio constantly playing in the house, I'll always hold a special place for audio in my personal life. I walk around with our little girl, often with a single earbud plugged in, listening to For Immediate Release, This Week in Tech, The Aloud Series from Los Angeles Public Library, This American Life, or some Deep House sessions by Steffen Coonan. I'm well overdue for ripping decades of cassettes and CDs onto my well-worn iPod.

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