I watched the innaugural episode of Top Gear America this week. I watched it even after reading all of the reviews that completely panned it. I watched it even though I had to jump through a few hoops to actually check it out.
And yes. It wasn’t that great.
But I’m reminded of many other firsts that also weren’t that great, but went on to become great.
Bad enough for me not to watch again? No. Much like the other programs listed above, there is enough there that I find interesting, so I will be back and hope that as the lads work together more and get more in tune, that the show will improve.
I give them props for putting that first episode on the air. Don’t think, even for a minute, that anyone is particularly proud of their first outing on anything. I know that first episode of WRR wasn’t that great, but it was a damned site better than my first podcasting attempt.
In this world of immediate feedback on Twitter and Facebook and anyplace else you can think of, sometimes we need to sit back and remember that everything has to start someplace and just because it’s not as good as something else on the first-go-round doesn’t mean that it needs to be stopped immediately. Sometimes, a little bit of time is required to get things just right.
On Saturday, November 20th, I lead a session at PodcampAZ about Podcast consistency, keeping your listeners and getting new ones. I think there are some great tips here, hopefully you will find it useful.
Some of the items discussed in the show.
If you were one that attended my session, thank you for your time! If you have any follow up questions at any time, please do not hesitate to contact me.
This is audio taken from my Flip Video video camera. No video because the zoom was set to full and that’s a view of me that nobody needs, really.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Download | 19.7MB | 40:52
I was reminded about this, yet again, with the latest ‘notes’ meme circling through Facebook. I’m also reminded that Facebook Notes aren’t the greatest platform for publishing. I’m also reminded that Facebook notes also aren’t a good platform if you want to share anything you write with friends that aren’t on Facebook or not your Facebook friends.
Enter Tumblr. For those of you that follow me on Facebook, you already know that I use Tumblr quite a bit. In fact, it’s what is powering wind(the)frog(dot)net and has been for the past 3 years and change.
At first, I used Tumblr as an aggregator of everything I did online (see this page as an example). It allowed me to bring in the RSS feeds from a bunch of things and combine them into one. For that, it worked amazing.
Now, I’m using it more as my personal blog and collection of random crap I find on the internet. And for that it works equally amazing. One of the features that makes that easy is the bookmarklet that you drag to your browsers bookmark toolbar. When you find something you want to share, you click that and click post. Done and done.
It also has settings that will automatically send your posts to Facebook or share them on Twitter. When you share on Facebook, your posts show up in a way that is very similiar to Notes. Your friend can still click (or not) to view the entire post. But, when you post that stuff in Tumblr, you can share it with people that aren’t on Facebook or aren’t your Facebook friends.
I talked about it in the last video blog. Jump ahead to 1:45 to get started.
Tumblr is free and easy to use and does so much more than I’m telling you about today. If you are looking for a way to start a blog that you can easily share with anyone you like easily, then set up a Tumblr. Sure you can do this with WordPress or Blogger, but Tumblr makes it easy. tumblr.com.
For the past 12 months I have been highly recommending to anyone that would listen to upgrade their Windows Vista Machine to Windows 7 without actually using it as a daily driver myself. I’ve since been able to spend some quality time with Windows 7 on a fairly decent Dell PC and I don’t really like it.
Maybe I’ve been running on the Mac for too long. Maybe Windows 7 is that much different that Windows XP. Whatever the reason, there are a few things about Windows 7 that are bothering me. Oddly enough, it’s the same kinds of issues I had with OS X when I first started using it.
I do want to start by saying that the keyboard in the picture above, which is the keyboard I’m using to write this post, is the worst thing I have ever had to use. The keys require about 20lbs of pressure to activate and the spacing is weird. As I type this keyboard is actually causing pain in my left wrist. Odd, since Dell boards are usually much more user friendly.
One of the things I got used to with Window XP was taskbar notifications. Task bar icons were large and really lit up when something was happening to grab your attention. On Windows 7, it’s barely noticeable.
Windows 7 (and Windows Vista) has a much better interface when using alt-tab to navigate through open windows, including the desktop in the loop. But for whatever reason, I’m finding it unweidy compared to Windows XP. Maybe it’s because I’m keeping too many windows open since they all live under a single icon in the task manager. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t seem to work as well as I had hoped.
Finally to list under things I don’t like, whose idea was it to allow the right click menu to grow until almost a full page height? There isn’t a file in existence anywhere where I need 40 options of crap to deal with it.
This all really could be me. The machine I’m working on had a user account that I inherited from someone else, and I haven’t had the time to go in and create my own. Maybe, after I do that, things will change.
No changing this damned keyboard tho. I’m just waiting until there is an extra $30 in the budget to pick up an extra Apple keyboard to use instead.
What better way to get back on to the horse I slid off of then to jump back on with both feet placed firmly in the stirrups? I’m actually going to hosting a session at Podcamp AZ later this month about podcasting.
I’ve been producing one of the highest rated automotive podcasts for more than 5 years with a listener base that almost always shows growth. I would like to share with you some tips on how you can help your podcast retain listeners and snag the new listeners as they come around. And a few words about WordPress, since you can never have enough talks about WordPress!
If you are in Arizona and want to hang out with a bunch of new media folks, cruise over to the University of Advancing Techonlogy on November 20-21. There are already quite a few great sessions on the books. The last podcamp I did was in Southern California and there was a ton of great information shared and I had a great time. You can too! Did I mention it was free? You can register here.
Details on the session to follow. I’m going to use as a bit of a sounding board, since I’ve never actually done this before. Should be fun!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Feel free to use my stuff, just Be sure to let me know.