The Long and Winding Podcast

Apologies to The Beatles. I've been asked by several people why Technology Corner is now a podcast instead of a broadcast. Some want to know whether this is good or bad – a step up, a step down, or a shuffle sideways. Many have been critical of Clear Channel. But it's not that simple.

First, Clear Channel: I haven't worked for Clear Channel since sometime in the mid 1990s, but Joe Bradley and I continued to include Technology Corner as part of his Sunday morning program. Earlier this year, Clear Channel decided there was some monetary value in running the Farm Bureau report Sunday morning at 8am on the most powerful station in the state's largest city. I can't argue with that. Clear Channel has lots of smart people who are responsible to deciding how to maximize profits. There are still a few cornfields that haven't yet been converted to housing developments within the city limits of Columbus and WTVN's daytime signal covers the entire state of Ohio. So that part was a simple business decision.

As for podcasting, broadcasters still tend to denigrate the medium. I know that I did. Broadcasters tend to think that podcasters aren't good enough to be on radio. In many cases – maybe most cases – that's true; but there are podcasters who understand production values, content, and pacing. Podcasting is just another way of making information available to people who want it.

But what about the audience? When Technology Corner was on the air, we had maybe 25,000 listeners. That's what the ratings services told us, but many of those listeners had the radio on for background chatter. They were getting ready for church, preparing for a drive to grandma's, packing fishing gear, or loading the car for a trip to the zoo. Some people listened actively because Joe and I received e-mail messages every week from people who had been actively listening. The Technology Corner website hosted about 150 visitors per day on average.

Now that the show is a podcast instead of a broadcast, I receive e-mail messages every week from people who listened actively and the website hosts about 150 visitors per day on average – about 1000 per week.

In other words, the program is reaching about the same number of active ears and active minds by directly involving a few hundred podcast listeners and about 1000 website visitors every week as it did when the program nominally reached 25,000 listeners, most of whom weren't really listening.

Podcasts offer advantages to the listener (no commercials, no program elements aimed at the lowest-common-demonimator share) and to the creator of the podcast (less time to create, more content). The Technology Corner podcasts are settling in at about 15 to 20 minutes per week. On the radio, our "hour long" broadcast was 15 to 22 minutes because we had to step aside for news (7 minutes twice per hour), sports (5 to 7 minutes, although they were supposed to be limited to 90 seconds, twice per hour), weather (about a minute every 10 minutes), commercials (as low as 0 minutes some days, 10 minutes or more other days), and various formatic elements (jingles, IDs, bumpers, etc.) Do the math. Podcasting is more like radio used to be. We have the time to explore a subject. When we have an interview, as we do today, you can hear the entire interview, not just a 2-minute sound bite that would fill the space between sports and the weather.

Podcasting means that I can create more content in less time and that you can hear more content in less time.

For the first few weeks, I thought about trying to find a way to get Technology Corner back on the air and I'm sure that there would be a market for it. But as I've become more aware of the advantages podcasting offers, that desire has receded further and further. There's something magic about a big transmitter that sends your voice out for people to hear 150 miles away. But there's something equally magic about preparing a podcast that's listened to not only in Ohio, but also in – to name some of the more distant locations reached by Technology Corner in the past week – Parker (Colorado), Beaverton (Oregon), Escondido (California), Caracas (Venezuela), Hamilton (Scotland), Chatham (England), Berlin (Germany), Warsaw (Poland), Prague (Czech Republic), Utrecht (Netherlands), Manila (Philippines), Tamil Nadu (India), and Canberra (Australia).

Wow! Welcome to the new world.

Radio is changing. When NPR unceremoniously fired Bob Edwards from the morning show and assigned him as a "senior correspondent" he moved to XM (one of the 2 satellite services.) His program runs when I can't conveniently listen, but I have an XM radio that includes a recorder. That means I can listen to the programs afternoons when I'm in the gym. NPR makes long-form program components possible, but XM goes even further. Edwards, who is from Kentucky, has presented a long program on strip mining – a program that goes far beyond what even NPR would have had time for.

XM, Cirius, and podcasts make it possible for listeners to choose what they want to listen to and when they want to listen to it. Terrestrial radio survived movies, television, and satellite, but but it might be in the process of committing suicide.

How to make a podcast

To create a podcast, you need just three things: A good microphone, a sound editing program that can create an MP3 file, and a quiet environment. A few other niceties are helpful, such as a stand and a pop-filter for the microphone. I'll run through the list of tools you can use.

First, the microphone

Although you could, you don't need to spend $5000 for a microphone, but you should spend more than $5 for one. Start your search by limiting it to cardoid-pattern microphones. You'll do well with a microphone in the $50 to $200 range. "Pattern" in this regard refers to what the microphone hears. Your choices include these:

• Omnidirectional: Hears sound from all directions. Bad choice.
• Cardoid: Hears sounds in a relatively tight heart-shaped pattern in front. My preference.
• Super-cardoid: Has a tighter pattern than the cardoid in front, but also picks up from a smaller pattern to the back. More expensive.
• Bi-directional: Pick up from front and back. Handy if you're doing an interview.
• Shotgun: Strong front pattern with tiny lobes left and right. There's also a small lobe in back. Handy for isolating sound in a noisy room. Expensive. Inappropriate for podcasting.

Next, consider the type of microphone. Not all types of microphones are available in all patterns:

• Condenser (or capacitor): This is the best choice, if you can afford it. You'll need a power supply for the microphone, although some allow the use of an internal battery and some recording equipment provides "phantom" power. The AKG C1000S is a good choice and you can find these for $150 to $200, maybe less, because it's been discontinued. This is a particularly good choice because you can convert the pattern between cardoid and super-cardoid. (This is what I use.)
• Electret: These microphones have a bad reputation because the early models used in consumer devices starting in the mid 1960s were cheap and sounded cheap. Today's electret microphones can rival condenser microphones in sound quality and at a lower price. They also need no external power. The Shure Beta 87A is an example. It has a supercardoid pattern and you'll find them for less than $200.
• Dynamic: These microphones are sturdy. They're often the kind reporters carry around with them because they can be dropped repeatedly with little damage. Consider the Audio-Technica ATM29HE for not much more than $50 from many retailers. Its ruggedness and hyper-cardoid pattern will serve you well.
• Ribbon: These microphones produce some of the best sound you can imagine, but they're uncommonly fragile and are likely to pick up noise you won't want. They're also expensive ($300 and up). If you're setting up a professional recording studio and understand what you would use this kind of microphone for and why, stock up. Otherwise, avoid. One of the most beautiful microphones I've ever had the pleasure of working with was an RCA 44BX ribbon mic, but I wouldn't use one for a podcast; it was developed in the mid 1930s and was generally obsolete by the mid 1960s. RCA also made the 77DX, which is the one you see (although it's not hooked up) on the desk of many talk show hosts. Until recently, I wasn't aware that the 77DX was a ribbon mic. The 77 series was developed in the late 1930s and included 77A, 77B, 77C, 77C1, and 77D in addition to the 77DX, which was common when I entered the biz in the mid 1960s.) The 44BX had a wonderful warm sound, but was touchy to work with. The 77DX was used on the boom when I was trying to learn how to direct TV programs ("Camera 2, truck left. ... ... ... Camera 2, truck left. ... ... ... Hello, Camera 1. Will you please tell Camera 2 to truck left? ... ... ... ... Camera 1? ... ... ... Camera 2? ... ... ... Is anyone there?" From the control room we couldn't see the studio. We also couldn't see the VTR operator, who was on the other side of the Olentangy River. This led to conversations such as, "OK, you can turn off the VTR. ... ... ... Oh, you haven't turned it on yet? (Long embarrassed pause.) Hmmm .... Crew ... We have a problem.")
  OK, enough nostalgia.
• Others (carbon, piezo, etc): These microphones are not suitable for high-quality recording.

Next, a sound editor

To record your podcast and generate the MP3 file that you'll upload to a website, you'll need a recording program. These range in price from free to several hundred dollars. I use an earlier version of Sony's Sound Forge (version 7; the current version is 8). This is a $300 application, but Sony offers a slimmed down entry version called Sound Forge Audio Studio for about $70. It has everything you need for podcasting.

Alternatively, you might want to use the open source Audacity, which is free. The interface is considerably more primitive, but the features you need are all there.

When you create the MP3 file, you'll be offered some setting choices:

• Mono or stereo: Unless you need stereo, choose mono to keep the file size smaller.
• Bit rate: From 8 Kbps at 11 KHz (small file) to 128 Kbps at 44 KHz (large file). Larger files sound better, but are take more space on the server and require longer to download. Currently I'm using 48 Kbps at 44 KHz, which provides far better quality than any AM radio but packs 20 minutes into about 7 MB. I can probably use even lower sampling rates to get smaller files with acceptable quality.

Finally, a quiet location

I'll leave this up to you. I find that the house is usually quiet early on Sunday morning, so that's usually when I record Technology Corner.

Arranging and uploading

Making a podcast available requires uploading 2 files: The MP3 that contains the audio and an XML-format file with an RSS extension that contains a description of the podcast "channel" and each podcast program or "item". The XML file must be edited in a plain text editor (Notepad, if you have nothing else) and the XML standard is extremely strict.

Fortunately, Apple's Itunes store has all the information you need to write a good file. And Apple will act as your agent to advertise and make available your podcast. You'll still have to obtain server space and upload the files, but this need not cost more than $5 to $10 per month.

Other resources:

• Apple's Podcasting FAQ
• How to publish a podcast
• Podcasting News's Make Your First Podcast

Secure that computer!

Now's the time for students to head for college. Most will be taking computers with them and most of those computers will be small, portable machines that can easily be stolen. But that's not all that can happen. Viruses and worms can wipe out assignments. And it doesn't really matter whether the computer is a Windows machine, a Mac, or a Linux system. The cautions that apply to students also apply to home users.

I had an opportunity to speak with Tom Olzak, author of the book Just Enough Security: Information Security for Business Managers. You'll hear the full interview on the podcast. One of Olzak's main points is that the data is more important than the computer. Machines can be replaced. So can data, but with much more difficulty.

Every computer needs several layers of protection, starting with methods that secure the physical machine, that lock the bad guys out, and that provide protections against the theft of information. Olzak has more than 23 years experience in programming, network engineering, and security and he is the director of information security for a national health care company. Previously he served ten years in the United States Army Military Police with four years as a Military Police Investigator.

Nerdly News

The Great Battery Recall

Last week, I grumbled about Apple's lack of notification regarding its recall of 1.1 million Sony batteries from various notebook computers. This week, the notice is finally on the main page of Apple's website.

Barely. It's ...

• In tiny text.
• Near the bottom of the screen.
• Where you have to scroll down to see it.

Click the image at the right for a larger view.

But at least it's there and Apple is also sending e-mail messages to people who own computers with batteries that might be included in the recall (mine isn't.)

Dueling Operating Systems

This could get interesting. In the time it's taken Microsoft to move its next-generation operating system to RC1 status (release candidate version 1), Apple has upgraded OS X (the cat series) 3 or 4 times. The next version is in the wings. And so is Vista.

Purists would say that OS X versions 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, and 10.4 are just "step" upgrades, although each of those upgrades has provided a substantially larger feature set than the one before. Step upgrades are usually included in the price of the operating system, but Apple has charged more than $100 for all of the upgrades except 10.1, which converted 10.0 from a good proof of concept to a functional operating system.

The next version from Apple (Leopard) brings some features to the table that every Apple owner will want – and that might be enough to continue chipping away at Microsoft's market share. Make no mistake, though: Apple will continue to putter around at sub-10% market share (Apple's hometown paper reports about 5% market share in the US, about 2% worldwide.) That's not a problem for Apple, though. Consider the market share of Lamborghini, for example, when compared to Toyota.

Automatic backup will be built in. Apple calls it the Time Machine. Attach an external drive to a Leopard-powered machine and the operating system will ask if you want to back up everything. You still have to remember to store the backup drive at a safe distance from your computer, but this certainly simplifies a task that most people know they should do, but still put off until disaster strikes.

Each time you plug in the backup drive, Time Machine will copy the changed files to the drive.

Another winner in Leopard is called Spaces. Windows users will recognize this as multiple desktops. Specific applications can be open on alternate desktops, which are swapped in and out. It's been a feature provided by some graphics sub-systems on Windows machines for more than a decade.

Apple's implementation sets it apart, though, because users can drag and drop applications from one space to another. Applications can be open in more than one space and certain applications can to locked to certain spaces. Apple hasn't revealed whether spaces can be defined so that they always open when a specific user logs in, but this should be possible because the feature is implemented at the operating system level.

We'll see what Vista shows in response to that.

Annoying legal disclaimer

My attorney says I really need to say this: The TechByter website is for informational purposes only. I assume no responsibility for its accuracy, although I do my best. The information is subject to change without notice. Any actions you take based on information from the radio program, the podcast, or from this website are entirely at your own risk. Products and services are mentioned for informational purposes only and their various trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners. TechByter cannot provide technical support for products or services mentioned.