We received a package from Andrea Beaty, author of several children’s books including Iggy Peck, Architect (a Time Magazine top-10 children’s book for 2007) and Dr. Ted. We ceremoniously opened our package this morning and uncovered two boxes of Gummi Bandaids for our two daughters, and three ‘prescription notepads’ that promote her book, Dr. Ted. [...]
It’s been a while since I’ve published outtakes from an interview and with the tight format of my Electric Sky Portrait episodes (10 minutes each), there are plenty. Here are the contents of the virtual cutting room floor from this week’s interview with Stephen Gritt, Chief Conservator, Restoration and Conservation of the National Gallery of [...]
For a thin guy, I sure cast a giant shadow. Even though I’m always transparent about the collaborative nature of the projects I’m involved in — Canadian Podcast Buffet, Podcasters Across Borders and Just One More Book to name a few — my collaborators including Bob Goyetche and his wife Cat, and my wife, my [...]
I’ll be participating in an ooVoo session as part of PodCamp NYC. The session begins at 2pm and focuses on the use of social media tools (such as ooVoo) to connect and inspire people to communicate in meaningful ways. I understand that one discussion will explore the use of social media to connect a community [...]
When The Police announced their reunion tour in 2007, I told my daughters that I’d dye my hair blonde if they came to Ottawa. While I hoped they would, I never expected that The Police would actually make it here. I had completely forgotten about my remark when, in February, they announced that they are [...]
As you may have heard, Ross (Zee and Zed, Dry Shave) had a heart attack and triple bypass surgery last week. Bob Goyetche and I have been in contact with Ross and Karen and have found out what they need and where to send it. Please send your humourous get well cards by May 5 [...]
During the Ottawa Geek Dinner on Wednesday, a group of us talked about the TED talks. I started asking people about their favourite TED talks and got some great answers (especially from Mitch Joel who had the privilege of being at TED 2008). It’s amazingly hard to pick them. Having said that, here is my [...]
In the last twelve hours I’ve received several identical (and supposedly personal) Facebook messages from legitimate friends urging me to check out an application that will identify who has a crush on me by sending text messages to my phone (I can only imagine the flood of spam and advertisements that this service has in [...]
Today’s Ottawa Citizen features an article by Kate Heartfield about Just One More Book!!, a children’s book podcast I produce with my wife, Andrea. It’s a great article with only one minor mistake — it was actually Andrea’s idea to merge our two passions of podcasting (me) and children’s books (Andrea) to create what has [...]
I produce a number of different podcasts. Each one is different from the others in content, delivery and style. Today, I learned something about doing different multiple, unique shows. It had been a while since I recorded a new interview for the Portrait format of Electric Sky. My approach is very much ingrained, though, and [...]
I was a (small) part of an email exchange on the topic of how Facebook policies affect your corporate logo should you decide to put it on that site. It was Robin Browne who had kicked off the discussion and I deferred to Andy Kaplan-Myrth of the University of Ottawa Law and Technology program for [...]
I donated blood this morning for the first time in years. For the purpose of this post, let’s suppose that today was the first time I donated blood. I was amazed to learn that a single donation by a single person will save three lives in five days. That’s right! A blood donation has immediate [...]
Today is Poem in Your Pocket Day. Everyone is encouraged to carry a poem with them and share it with friends, colleagues, coworkers and family. Have you written your own poem that you are willing to share, here?
With the nudge of Mitch Joel (Six Pixels of Separation) being in town, Robin Browne (DaBizBlog) has organized Geek Dinner Ottawa to take place on Wednesday, April 23 at 6:30pm at the Blue Cactus Bar and Grill (2 Byward Market). If you plan on going, please drop a comment here so that we can track [...]
Based on a number of conversations I’ve had recently, I’ve decided to host a webcast on audio mixing. This webcast will explore: audio mixing for creative effect how audio frequencies can impact your mix using your ears to mix for your listener Instead of demonstrating and supporting specific software packages, I will be discussing concepts [...]
I was recently invited to a social media gathering in Ottawa. In fact, I received two invitations from the host within ninety minutes of each other; one from Meetup.com, the other from Facebook. Unfortunately, I don’t believe I can attend the event. Nevertheless, I checked both sites to gauge response and determine if there is [...]
From the oxymoron file, VNC has successfully failed to connect.
My favourite part of being a podcaster is meeting people. In particular, I value having the opportunity to speak with others and learn more about the human condition in the process. That is to say that in the process of learning about bees, law, aviation history, museum exhibits and freehand drawing of circles (to name [...]
During a recent lunch, a friend of mine and I discussed our careers and how, over time, we’ve gradually moved up the various layers of the seven-layer OSI Reference Model. In English, we’ve moved further away from the bits and bytes level of data communication to the applications that make human interaction using machines possible. [...]
I joined the legions of enthusiastic iPhone owners last week when I powered-up my brand new smartphone. This week I join the chorus of iPhone owners who wonder about how, in entering the smartphone market with a much anticipated product, Apple went so far without going the distance. No way to Copy/Cut/Paste – Probably the [...]
When it comes to a career in art, design and illustration, Bob Staake has seemingly done it all. Among his many accomplishments, Bob has done covers for The New Yorker magazine, corporate work for the likes of Coca Cola, and has written some amazing children’s books. While this may be subjective, the pinnacle of his [...]
Okay… I made a mistake. After making my post The record industry doesn’t want your money — and only after publishing that post — I hopped on to iTunes and was shocked to discover that some of the obscure acts I mentioned in the post, and was so convinced were long abandoned by the music [...]
Something unexpected happened last night. While waiting for my main computer to complete a backup, I found myself on Twitter to continue an earlier discussion about Canadian 80′s music. Somehow, the conversation evolved into great music, big hair and cheesy videos. Things got out of hand when we discovered a lot of the bands and [...]
I just turned off a podcast interview I was listening to after offering the host about 10 minutes of my day (the interview was apparently 30 minutes long). I shut it off because the host broke what I believe to be a very important rule of interviewing: respect. In my opinion, the host made a [...]
Three years ago, I proudly announced to everyone who asked that I did not own an iPod, nor did I intend to ever own one. I was a supporter of the underdog, the iRiver, thank you very much. In August 2006, I realized that interface and integration was everything and bought a Video iPod. There [...]
I enlisted the help of some friends to share experiences and ideas related to conference and unconference organizing. The hope is to kick off a conversation in which everyone — conference organizers, sponsors, participants, vendors, etc… — contributes and makes future events more smooth, successful and creative. Contributors Dave Delaney Whitney Hoffman Jay Moonah Chris [...]
I dug into my archives this morning to see what I was blogging about last year at this time and was struck by a coincidence. On April 3, 2007 I wrote a post titled Less is more in which I discussed scaling back the number of social media/social networking tools I was engaged in in [...]
Having a portable digital recorder offers you the freedom to record anywhere you like. This also presents challenges. Nothing ruins a great recording the way electric and radio interference does. These types of interference can overpower what you are actually recording and can sweep across many frequencies including those which are home to voice frequencies. [...]
Okay. I realize that this is not a new idea. Nevertheless, please let me vent. A long, long time ago, websites were new and exciting… and static. Since updating websites was a pain in the you-know-what, they found their place as online brochures that could be updated even though that was rare. Only the hard-core [...]
