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Ampliflied Chicago Public Radio announced a new online service called Chicago Amplified. It offers audio of community lectures and other events. Sounds a little like IT Conversations, doesn't it? Good idea, except I can't seem to find an RSS feed for it. Just heard from Adam Poor kids. They made it all the way from Chicago to Jersey City with two cats in the car, and at driving hour #17 got lost 8 blocks from their apartment. Thank goodness for cell phones and Mapquest. Yeah, I still use Mapquest. Force of habit. Rough Should be packing
Heard free skypeout, podcheck called parents started wondering about recording
did search, found powergramo
works tried iv with my hs junior Fear of writing I keep thinking that the OPML Editor would be a great tool for teaching freshman comp or a high school composition class, or even younger. The trouble with lots of writers, students or anybody else, is getting started, but if you can make yourself put down something -- anything -- often that creates the energy to continue. You know, like the thing Goethe said about there being magic and power in making a start? So I'm posting an example of an ultra rough notes outline above. The next post will flesh it out. Smoother, but wordy and rambling I really shouldn't be farting around with recording Skype calls. I should be packing. The next door apartment opened up and I'm going in next week. I'll post more about it later because I want some advice on how to make myself throw things away. Anyway, I heard on Podcheck Review that Skype Out is free through the end of the year. (Notice there's no link? Now that Coroner Gillmor has stated there is a perfectly good and noble reason for not providing links, I figure I can not link, guilt free. I used to think I was just being lazy. Now I can try to tell myself I'm giving my three readers the gift of freedom to go check out Podcheck and Skype or not, just as they choose.) So, I phoned up my folks in Michigan, who are going to help me move and organize (my mom's a great organizer). While in Skype I wondered for about the 45th time about easy ways to record Skype calls without having to use a mixer and two computers and all kinds of stunts. I did a search and found a free program called PowerGramo. It's something like Hot Recorder, but it's a Skype plug-in and places itself on your Skype menu. It works pretty well. The docs are funny. English isn't the writer's first language. Here's a test I recorded with Aaron, my 17-year-old. He's on his cell phone. Of course he would not speak up; he never will. So I had to do quite a lot of work on the clip in Audition. Tightening up the ramble Normally I'd just leave a post like the rambler above, because... well, because I mostly think of this blog as a journal. Sometimes I like to take a little more trouble. If I wanted to clean up this ramble, it might come out something like the next posts -- plural, because the need to split it into two posts is the first thing I see when I get serious about how it reads. I'll make one post about moving, and another about the Skype add-on test. The OPML Editor makes it easy to reorganize an outline. You just drag nodes around until the order makes more sense. Moving day is next week I'm moving 30 feet down the hall starting on Thursday. I'm going to like the apartment better. It's just slightly bigger, plus it's on a corner of the building allowing for a cross-breeze. I hate having a place where the windows are only on one wall. It's a great time to do it, with my first-born having just moved out. It would be so easy to just haul everything over there, but I've decided to take advantage of the opportunity to get myself more organized. I have been paring down my possessions, but not nearly enough. In the last 12 years I've gone from moving the larger share of my marital home contents to a 3-story townhouse, to a 3-bedroom apartment, to a 2-bedroom apartment. I find it hard to make myself give or throw things away, so one thing I've done to push myself is invite my mom, who is a great organizer, and I'm going to give her permission to be brutal with me, and ask the tough questions like, "If you haven't used that in 5 years, what makes you think you ever will?" How do you go about making yourself pitch things like size 8 dresses you hope to be able to get back into, or sentimental objects, or VHS tapes? Don't know much about history I hadn't used Skype for a while, but I heard Scott Fletcher or his new podcast co-host mention that Skype-out will be free through the end of the year. While I was there I remembered again that I'd like to be set up to record a Skype call if I ever want to do that. I've thought about doing a few audio interviews for the OPML Editor 1.0 site. Because I don't feel like packing, sorting and organizing yet, I indulged in a search on new ways to record. I'd looked around a little before, but not all that seriously, and I seem to remember sighing a lot in the research process when I saw that many of the methods involved a mixer or two computers. I'd downloaded Hot Recorder before and liked the way it claimed to work, but I never really tested it. I may have been put off slightly by knowing I'd have to pony up if I liked it, and wanted to record something longer than the x minutes allowed in the free version. I found PowerGramo in the comments of a podcasting forum. It's free and plugs into Skype. I tried it out on a call to my son's cell phone and found it very easy to use. The quality could be better, but some of the trouble is my mumble-mouth kid, so the jury's still out on that part. Also, I wasn't using headphones, so you can hear a speaker echo. I'll definitely keep messing with it. |
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