Archive for September, 2006

Stefan’s Killer Podcasting Tips

Published on September 30, 2006 in Podcast | Videos. 0 Comments

I’ve been recording video tutorials and podcast for a little while now (2 years) and over that time, I’ve picked up a few tricks that have really improved my podcast and made them a lot easier to create.

… Not that I’m a great podcaster, but nonetheless these tips do help.

The Killer Podcasting Tips:

1. Speak about 25% slower (when recording) than you would normally.

2. If you screw up a word while recording, be silent for about 4 seconds and repeat the sentence - edit later.

  • the pause in speaking will create tell-tail wave pattern that will make it much easier to edit later.
  • trying only to restate the messed-up word, will create a discontinuity in the flow/rhythm of the sentence. That’s why I say to repeat the sentence when you screw up a word.

3. Edit your recordings later: constantly stopping and starting while recording is slow and it interrupts the flow of your podcast.

4. Imagine you are teaching/speaking to a single person sitting beside you when creating the videos/podcast. Don’t think you are speaking to a room full of people.

5. Use a conversational / relaxed style in your podcast - don’t try to be anything but yourself. Whatever you do, don’t try to sound like a professor at school - remember how boring those classes used to be!

6. Get a good mic! I now use the Electrovoice RE20 and I’m not looking back … it makes a huge difference.

7. Get to the point quickly. People have less patience when on the Web, so try to keep it concise.

Thanks for reading,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com

Podcasting Equipment Review: Alesis MULTIMIX8USB

Published on September 26, 2006 in Podcast | Videos. 0 Comments

In my efforts to get the best possible sound for my podcast and my videos, I’ve tinkered with a few mics, mixers and other equipment needed for the job.

Before I get into the specifics regarding the Alesis MULTIMIX8USB mixer, I want to point out one universal truth: you get what you pay for.

ABOUT THE Alesis MULTIMIX8USB

Let me point out two very important points:

  1. The MULTIMIX8USB will NOT work with Windows Media Encoder.
  2. The MULTIMIX8USB will NOT work with Camtasia and (possibly) other prorgams used to capture sound or video.

.. There is a driver problem that has not been resolved by the people at Alesis. It is a known issue but the only resolution to the problem is to get their firewire based mixer - it is much more expensive.

I don’t know much else about the product since I could not get it to work with the programs I use. That said, I’ve read several mixed reviews about the product … some like it, some don’t and others get it to work partially.

Alesis phone tech support was fast and we got to the answer quick - though that meant returning the product.

MY RECOMENDATION

I hate it when people dis a product and don’t offer an alternative (kinda like the democrats in the US,) so I am suggesting an alternative to get your mic hooked into your computer:

The Mobilepre USB from M-Audio.

I’ve been using this preamp/audio interface for a while now and after fixing a small problem hooking it up with my XP machine (great phone support btw), I have never had a problem since.

My only complaint about the Mobilepre is that you really need to crank the gain to get the volume you need.

I am now about to test the M-Audio Fast Track Pro - the next generation of the Mobilepre - it’s supposed to be a bit better.

Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com

Is Ruby slow compared to php?

Published on September 15, 2006 in PHP and Ruby. 6 Comments

Like any good nerd, we’ve been experimenting with a little Ruby and Rails development - it is always good to try new things …

One thing we have noticed is that simple Ruby web apps (running on the same server,) are noticeably slower than PHP.

We installed fastcgi with apache 1.3 (took an hour to do) and are running simple web applications.

I will get into more detail in other post / articles.

Book Review: Learning PHP & MySQL

Published on September 10, 2006 in Nerd Book Reviews and PHP. 1 Comment

Another great book from O’Reilly.

This book targets beginners to PHP but NOT total beginners to code and programming - I think that certain explanations of the basic programming concepts, may confuse a some people.

Doesn’t matter though, once you’ve done my free video tutorials (found on this site,) you will be able to breeze through this book.

Besides the basics of PHP programming, the book does a good job teaching basic database theory and concepts - but not so much to bore you to death.

Instead (like the rest of the book,) the coverage of database theory is just enough to get you going with MySQL.

Avery Personal Label Printer Sucks

Published on September 7, 2006 in General. 31 Comments

Avery label printer

A little of topic but I feel that I should warn people about this terrible product.

If your looking to print labels for mailings etc … don’t get the Avery Personal Label printer. It simply does not work well to begin with … and after a few days, not at all.

HOW ABOUT TECH SUPPORT FROM AVERY?

Avery has 800 numbers, but nobody answers, all you get is an automated message.

TO SUM IT UP

After printing a few labels, the printer started to become flaky, where it needed constant restarts and force feeding of labels.

… It got to the point that the printer simply would refuse to print anything! After an hour of messing with it, I gave up.

NERD RULE: If you are an experienced nerd and a computer related product or software does not work relatively easily, the product is badly built.