nineball media

I am a huge fan of BIAS’s SoundSoap2, but I was without it for a few days after upgrading the trusty Nineball Media computers to Mac OS X Leopard. Turns out that on a reinstall some people were running into permissions issues that are easily solved by making folders in your Application Support directory… check this out for more scoop. I actually had to go a step further and make two folders. You’d think these installers would be smart enough to do it on their own, eh?

In any event, I’m now able to scrub background sound out like a champ, thanks to SoundSoap being back. And the crowd roars… with less hiss.

Amazon is pushing a new device called the Kindle… what sets it apart from other readers is the fact that a computer is unnecessary. You can buy books over the air using the Sprint wireless network. Books download in about a minute, and the cost of the wireless access is (pardon the pun) folded into the price of the book.

No computer… wireless access… seems pretty cool if you can get into reading e-books. Looks like the interface is legible and works well. Still, the $399 price point is pretty steep, and of course the e-books aren’t free either. However, I’ve always sort of liked the idea of converting the concept of the iPod’s “music library in your pocket” to books. Maybe not as a replacement, but this could be something that shows up under the tree… in 2008 when the prices go down.

I’m a big fan of the simplicity and sound quality of the Samson C01U… I recommend it as a good starter mic for beginners that want a very nice, warm sound on a budget. The Apple Blog agrees… check out this review.

Memo to candidates in need of a few thousand extra votes… buy the iPod Touch in bulk and distribute at NYU. An NYU journalism class polled 3000 NYU students and discovered our long-fought for principles of democracy cashes out at about $299. So… candidates, what do you think? Suuuure it would be totally illegal, and suuuuure it might not actually be true for every NYU student, but it’s got to be better than schlepping to another meet and greet or debate. Kick back and keep one of those iPods for yourself!

I’m monitoring a client recording session this afternoon in a very challenging sound environment… A lunch banquet keynote. Rather than struggle with the sound isolation, I’ve decided to embrace it… It might be an interesting “sound seeing” experience for listeners to hear the klinking cutlery with a full bodied sounding speaker rather than a tinny muffled sound. We shall see what emerges in post-production!

Has anyone else recorded these types of events? Directional mice seem to be a good answer, but I’m interested in hearing other experiences too.

Day two was significantly quieter… I suspect Vegas claimed a few victims overnight! Going to one more session on social networking proved to be one too many as the info wasn’t as helpful as yesterday’s sessions. I just finished a session on mic technique by the rep from Shure – the crowd was pretty sparse, which was a shame because he put together a nice (if a bit techie) piece. Shure mics are outstanding for the more advanced podcasters out there (their price points tend to be higher than I’d recommend for newbies).

I got to meet Rob Walch at the Wizzard Media booth, and we had a nice chat about all things podcasting and – of course – the iPhone. Rob’s an important voice in podcasting (Podcast 411 is a place I tell all people to check out). I also got a chance to see Justine from iJustine wandering about. She was the one with the massive iPhone bill video that got a kajillion views this summer on YouTube.

All in all, a great show. I think I’m going to skip out on the Mark Cuban keynote… if he was going to talk about whether he was going to buy a hockey team, I’d probably go, but for now… I’m ready to grab some coffee and wait up for my red eye back to DC. I’ve got a lot of work to do based on some of the great info and networking here!

Google may be coming out with a big announcement in the next couple of weeks according to a Wall Street Journal report… will Goggle slap Apple silly in the mobile phone market?

I’m realizing how much this blog leans towards Apple products… a true tech blog should spend a little time away from the fruited tech giant. Maybe tomorrow…

Nineball Media’s latest acquisition, a pimped out new iMac has been feeling a little sad lately. It doesn’t like speaking with the great tubes known as the Internets. After running every diagnostic and even reinstalling OS X (yes, one day before the new one comes out, I have to install the old one again), I came to the conclusion that I had to call tech support.

Now, tech support gets hammered all across the computer industry, and for good reason. It’s hard enough to figure out computer issues over the phone, but it’s even worse when there’s very little talent and it’s spread very thin (and often, across time zones and oceans). The experience with Apple was, all things considered, pretty good. Thankfully, I had pretty much exhuasted their checklist, so my supposition of a fried Airport card was confirmed by Andrew (from now on referred to as “my boy Andrew”). We got a doctor’s appointment set with the not-overstated at all genius tomorrow at 1. Nineball shall not have to rely on its older equipment for more than a day. My boy Andrew made it so.

One note… I’m not sure how long the process would have taken if I hadn’t taken an hour before the call to my boy Andrew to do a fresh reinstall of OS X… I think even he would have made me do it and then call back if it hadn’t worked. Word to the wise… before calling tech support, exhaust all options you can think of, even the ones that border on really annoying (like, say… reinstalling an operating system one day before the new one comes out).

One other bit of Nineball news… I just signed up for the Blogworld and New Media Expo in Vegas in a couple of weeks. Since I missed out on the Portable and New Media Expo in California last month, I thought it would be good to check this one out. If you’re heading to Vegas and want to meet up to chat about podcasting or whatever, feel free to drop me a line…

Hard to believe how much has changed in 6 years… just check out the quaint notions of price, size and how big someone’s “entire music collection” was back then…

Based on earnings reports released yesterday, Apple’s officially a bigger company than IBM. Really, we already knew that… what we get from these reports is confirmation that Big Blue is slowly slipping behind the pack. It’s amazing that 25 years ago, the personal computing marketing wars pitted the Apple II versus the IBM PC… how things have changed. What never changed was how IBM always used old imagery for new technology… I mean, Charlie Chaplin hawking a computer? That would get some ad exec fired these days…