Downtime averted

Nineball Media has been good enough to upgrade equipment to the new iMacs… while the PowerBook was making nice with the new iMac, I realized that I would be without a computer for over an hour during my most productive time of the day. iPhone to the rescue… it’s amazing how technology can at once be the cause and solution of downtime. In any event, we’re all up and running now. For the speed freaks out there, I threw in 4 GB of RAM into the new computer… a podcast that took 7 minutes to crunch into an MP3 on the PowerBook took less than a minute on the new gear. Niiiiice.

Friday craziness: the 300 page iPhone bill

Little did any of us iPhone switchers know that AT&T sends you a bill with every call, text, and data use printed out on our monthly bill. I’m an e-bill guy myself, but apparently this woman gets her iPhone bill in old school paper by way of the post office. Her bill was three… hundred… pages. Yiiiiikes. Something tells me this video might be partially responsible for AT&T to alter their billing info policy… the trees will thank them.

Have a good weekend!

Rural wifi

It’s amazing how much one relies on being wired… I’ve had a maddening amount of access here in rural New York the last few days and I’ve never been more grateful for my iPhone for giving me just a taste of access over the past few days. Mental note: don’t think about doing work on a working vacation if there’s no wifi.

Mental note #2: McDonalds wifi is not worth the Filet o’ Fish. Ever.

Friday funny: Paint

Last week, we had members of KISS promoting… um, something. Projectors I think. This week, a parody on the wonders of everyone’s favorite bundled Windows application: Paint.

Have a great weekend!

Wizzard snatches up some talent

Wizzard Media (owner of Libsyn, etc.) has scored a couple of coups this week… first, they hired Podcast 411‘s Rob Walch as VP of Podcaster Relations… a great hire. Rob’s got great instincts on podcasting on the micro and macro level, plus he has a lot of credibility in the community. Check out Podcast 411’s Item 209 for the announcement. Congrats Rob!

Second, Wizzard has scored two exclusive advertising deals with two of the biggest shows out there… Keith and the Girl and Tiki Bar TV. Considering the former is arguably the number one podcast and the latter is among the top two or three video podcasts, this was a big score.

This is great news for the entire podcasting community.

The podcast recipe

While I was waiting for the Apple announcements yesterday I discovered a pretty compelling podcast tutorial on Apple’s website. The Podcast Recipe seminar is a free online tutorial that, while painfully corny in a few spots, actually gives some nice information on microphones, mixers and the scope of Garageband’s podcasting capabilities. If you’re a beginner, it’s not a bad place to start… if you’re a more seasoned podcast creator, but haven’t used Garageband before, it showed some of its basic capabilities.

Apple’s Mac announcement rumors

The last minute rumors floating about regarding today’s Apple announcement… brand new iMacs (including a price drop on the high end 24″)… new Mac Minis… a revamped iLife 08 and .Mac. All of these are great news for podcasters who are ready to upgrade their equipment. I’m not anti-Windows at all, but I’ve been using Macs at Nineball for the majority of my work. Depending on what gets announced today, there just might be some new gear on the way.

The announcements begin at 11 AM PDT… I’m not sure if there is any liveblogging of the event, but MacWorld is liveblogging the announcements… I’ll post the scoop as soon as I find out.

UPDATE: New iMacs… iLife 08… it’s a party. Details here.

Fake Steve Jobs outed

If you read this blog, I hope you’ve also been reading Fake Steve Jobs. He’s been very funny and has a spot on take on what we all think (or wish) el Jobso has going on in his head. For the last year or so, his true identity has been a secret… until the intrepid New York Times figured out the ruse. Fake Steve Jobs has been outed.

We’ll see how this impacts FSJ’s rants… now that we know he’s Daniel Lyons, an editor at Forbes.com, will that put a damper on the content?

KISS on technology

I present to you, your Friday ridiculousness. Cisco hired KISS to come and speak to their khaki clad crowd. Unfortunately, they also thought it would be prudent to get the band’s take on technology.

Memo to Cisco: Script… the… aging… rock… stars. I’m with Paul Stanley… we need mini projectors on handhelds.

Huh? Wha? Enjoy the weekend everyone…