Episode 01: Pilot Podcast: Web Standards
After an endless night of fooling around with my audio editor - and then losing the podcast to an awful program crash - and then being determined to finish this thing before I go to bed, I give you the Web Standards with Imagination very first podcast: Web Standards: Episode 01.
Frequent DustinDiaz.com visitors please let me know what you think. I’d love your feedback. I’m horrified of hearing my own voice and quickly became bored to death having it played back to me. Nevertheless, I hope you likey. Enjoy
This podcast includes…
- An introduction to this website
- Upcoming events
- Future topics, interviews, guests
- My background and experience
- In the news… (well, not really)
- Jason Beaird (Feature)
- The main topic: The three layers
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February 7th, 2006 at 8:02 am
Hurrah! I love podcasts (they give me plenty to listen to on the bus home from work), but I’ve yet to encounter one on Web Design/Development. I’ll definitely have to give this one a listen.
Do you have an RSS feed to subscribe using iTunes et al (by definition, a Podcast should use some sort of XML delivery)? If not, Odeo (odeo.com) or Feedburner (feedburner.com) might have the tools you need to set one up.
Cheers,
Baz
February 7th, 2006 at 9:28 am
When I play it I hear no sound…The slider’s moving, but no sound is coming.
February 7th, 2006 at 9:58 am
Works for me :)
Sounds good for the pilot podcast Dustin, congratulations on completing it.
Did you write down an outline of what you where going to say or did you just wing it? Some of it seemed a little scattered.
(oooh, you just said “holy sh!t”)
Dude, 1998 is late to the game?? Unless you’re trying to call yourself a guru, 98 is not late at all!
February 7th, 2006 at 10:21 am
Got it working now…I must not’ve been fully awake yet or something.
February 7th, 2006 at 10:25 am
I am *so* adding falling DHTML GIF snowflakes to my site, thanks for the kickass idea!
February 7th, 2006 at 10:32 am
Justin, you are dead on when describing this as “scattered”. It was the first indeed and I have many things to work out and improve for future episodes. Thanks for listening and giving some feedback. Like I said, I have quite a few critiques of it of my own but I’ll keep them to myself.
I still just can’t believe I went a whopping 47 minutes!
February 7th, 2006 at 10:38 am
I’m a feature? That’s scary. Now I have to listen.
I guess I probably would have anyway.
February 7th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
Finished listening to it, pretty cool. It does sound like at times you weren’t quite sure where you were headed, with lots of “ums,” “uhs,” and repeating yourself. Though after you got going, things went a lot smoother and you had me laughing outloud more than once.
February 7th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
Jason, I tried talking you up - but some how I think I’ve failed you. I’ll have to do a better one next time… perhaps I’ll have you live on the show one time or another.
Elliot, sheesh, tell me about it. It’s not until you listen to yourself that you realize all your studders and pauses. One thing I definitely want to work on is speaking slower and more clearly - and actually taking the time to think about what I’m going to say before saying it. Another thing I will be considering is adding voice influctuations, mainly for the reason of keeping the listener interested instead of hearing the same dull and monotone voice for 45 minutes…
I honestly don’t wish to bore anyone. Really! I’m glad I got you to laugh a little. Very encouraging words Elliot, thanks :)
February 7th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
Just finished listen to your podcast it was great! Can’t wait for the next
February 7th, 2006 at 6:31 pm
Sounds good! Don’t worry about the lack of direction or pauses, your delivery will improve with practice. As an audio guy who plays with webdesign from time to time, I’ll try to give you one tip to improve the audio quality:
Go to your local craft or sewing store and purchase a circular embroidery hoop 4-6″ in size. These are basically two wooden hoops that fit inside each other with a screw tightener on the outer hoop. Then go to any store that sells clothing and buy some ladies pantyhose. Insert the interior hoop into one leg of the pantyhose and then close the outer loop around it so that the pantyhose is streched tightly. Now take some scisors and trim the excess off.
This makes a cheap version of a ‘pop filter’ which you can also buy for $25-$35 and look nicer than the cheap version. When placed between the microphone and a speaker or singer, these contraptions almost completely eliminate the ‘pops’ or low frequency huffyness created from excessive breath coming in contact with the microphone capsule.
If you want to purchase one instead of buying one, or are just curious what these things look like, you can check one out here:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PS6/
Good luck!
February 7th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
Eric, Wow! Thanks for the awesome audio tip. I would have expected to hear this first from my audio buddy (you know who you are). I like that rather than just saying “Get an expensive microphone” you’ve laid out a pretty cool trick that I really wouldn’t have thought of.
I was however thinking of cutting up an old t-shirt and using that as a pop-filter, but then I didn’t want the entire audio to suffer from something that may have just been easier to edit with an audio program.
Anyway, yea, I’ll definitely be checking that out. I’m actually curious as to how my first skype conversation will work out. Anyone up for experimentation?
February 7th, 2006 at 7:48 pm
That was great! I feel like a big shot now, all hip and trendy-like even. Maybe I could call up Zeldman and let him know that he should let me speak at the Atlanta Event Apart with Jason Santa Maria and Todd Dominey because I was featured on the very first Web Standards with Imagination podcast - OK, well I should at least get a free pass. hehe. I haven’t really been looking for new freelance work since things have been pretty busy around here lately, but I appreciate the props nonetheless and it was cool to be featured.
I’ll be tinkering with stuff online for the rest of the night so I’m game for a Skype call if you’re around.
February 9th, 2006 at 12:25 am
Don’t worry about the pauses, there were fewer and fewer as you progressed.
It sounds like you have plenty ideas for interesting hours to come!
I am definately looking forward to the next one!
February 9th, 2006 at 6:49 am
Forgot this in my first post.
It might just be me but the volume seemed to be a bit low? I had to turn up the volume on my phone to max.
February 9th, 2006 at 7:13 am
I’ll try not to become the audio monger, but one more tip about volume:
When recording digitally, you want to record at the highest level you can without clipping (clipping sounds very bad). So before you record, raise the gain as high as you can without clipping. After you do that, the volume may still need to be raised and that’s where compression comes in.
A compressor essentially makes the soft stuff louder by lowering the volume of the loudest parts and then raising the volume of everything. This makes it seem louder and increases intelligibility at lower volumes since the majority of the sounds which effect intelligibility are the quieter consonants. Think of it as increasing the text size for accessibility of folks with damaged hearing ;)
The how-to’s of all this are quite different in each audio program, but if you want some more info or directions without me clogging up your comments, feel free to email me.
Good luck!
February 9th, 2006 at 10:05 am
Enjoyed the ramblings! You’re a brave soul.
February 19th, 2006 at 10:51 pm
While in college I had to do a presentation for one of my classes on something to do with engineering. There were only about 30 in the class but my presentation was just horrible. Lots of “ums” that I was not aware of. In addition to that i hyperventilated and sweated — not a good thing. Your audience I am sure is far larger. I think you will do just fine. May I add just a little tip? As my ME 459 professor says “practice practice practice” before your presentation. Good luck!
May 22nd, 2006 at 9:35 pm
The odio is playing it in “Chipmunk” voice.
Can you fix it please?
I’ll just download it.