Harry Potter and the Cheapo Web Host

[barondave]

The battle to upload the files was long -- longer than it took to make the podcast from the soundfile -- but the battle was won. The podcast of my interviews re: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is finally up. The first post-broadcast Shockwave. Whee!

The series of interviews at the Mall of America for the midnight release event July 20 and the MN-StF picnic July 21st includes carbonel and fmsv, who had read the book by Saturday afternoon. No spoilers, but lots of guesses...

Everyone who subscribed should get an automatic download. Everyone else can listen/download the file from their browser (but not Safari, which is embarrassing for Apple...).

Okay, now I can back to whatever the heck it was I was doing before.

Comments

[asimovberlioz.livejournal.com]

Everyone who subscribed should get an automatic download.

Yes, iTunes downloaded it as usual.

[asimovberlioz.livejournal.com]

I just listened to your podcast while driving around in Burbank. By chance I saw selinawoman at KFC and told her I hoped she'd be at lasfs sometime soon. (It's an LJ world, it is.) Then I went to Fry's Electronics basically to look around, but bought some Super Glue and some fat-free Fruit Sours while I was there.

Much as I deplore KFAI's failing to include their "Shockwave" on their new schedule, I think you've made the transition quite well, if this is any indication. You really get remotes -- you're an experienced MITS interviewer and you select articulate interviewees who are very much at ease in your presence. (I can't recall ever having heard carbonel sound so relaxed.)

From the tech side, your engineer does a perfect job of balancing the foreground interviews with just enough crowd ambience that we listeners get a sense of the location and surroundings. The editing is also just right, without calling undue attention to itself.

There is one thing you do which I've never seen on any other podcast: You actually use the chapter stop feature to break the show into logical segments. That's something which should be done more, but which I fear might go away with disuse. (You know, like the index markings on early CDs, which could be used to provide access points within movements of Mahler symphonies, for example.)

And to top it all off, you provide fun snapshots of the event, including portraits of some of the interviewees. I hope you get to see how well this works on a 5G iPod and now on an iPhone.

So, take all of this as encouragement from a far-away friend. As long as you keep dishin' out the episodes, I'll be happily takin' 'em.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the egoboo!

I've done a lot of interviews, but I don't know what a "MITS interviewer" is. The interviews went well; one of the advantages of talking to literate people. carbonel was talking about a subject she loves, and it shows (plus, the MN-StF picnic was relaxed). I wish I had taken more pictures.

"Your engineer" is me. The entire set of interviews was conducted with my iPod/iTalk and edited on my computer at home, mostly on software that comes with a Mac. Getting a good crowd ambience balance is partly a function of the iTalk microphone, but I've learned a few tricks about directing an omni-directional mic.

You're the first person to mention the photos as part of the podcast! Glad to see that someone is paying attention! You're probably my first iPhone podcast listener!

Coming up: The Minnesota Fringe Festival (which starts Thursday) and I may feature music from CDs people have sent me to review and/or that have given permission for me to podcast.