Ericast On-The-Road: Audio quality? What audio quality?

The last VR+ test sounded like a payphone under water from the other side of the planet, so here's one last best-case-scenario for the app before my trial runs out!

Remember to call the listener feedback line and leave a comment! 206-339-3742 (a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC). Thanks for listening!

Ericast On-The-Road: Playing With VR Plus

Just a quick test -- listen to it for the details! -- but by the fact you're seeing this, it looked like it worked. Props to Chad for the tip!

Sorry for the lack of a full podcast this week... but maybe this update will help? :)

Remember to call the listener feedback line and leave a comment. 206-339-3742 (a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC). Thanks for listening!

Ericast 146 - Planning the Staycation

What am I doing this week? NOTHING! Or, "A LOT!" It depends on your perspective. I'm planning to hang out at home with the family. So, this week's episode is just a couple quick "reflections on life" plus a plea for the "silent majority" of you to check in and let me know you're out there.

It's easy: Just a quick call to 206-339-3742 (a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC) or, if you insist, send an e-mail to me (eric) at ericast.com.

Quote of the podcast: "It's like Foursquare, except verbal!"

Links mentioned in this episode:

• http://www.mnbloggerconference.com/ at http://www.cocomsp.com/
• http://www.smbmsp.org/ at http://www.mnstatefair.org/
• http://www.wordcampmsp.org/
• http://www.boldpath.org/summit10

Ericast 145 - Yup, It's Late

Another late episode and I'm taking this opportunity to talk about how we might avoid late episodes in the future... by asking you (the Ericast listener) to share ideas for a phone-to-podcast solution that 1) still exists and 2) might work for the Ericast...

• AudioBlogger.com worked great in 2005 but is gone (having been bought by Odeo.com, which is also gone -- at least at the moment)
• Gcast.com merged with GarageBand.com and GarageBand.com merged with iLike.com... and in the process, all of their phone-to-podcast offerings went away
• Gabcast.com went to a paid model -- not much cost to it, but still paid. Never used it more than the basic "play with it and check it out" level of experimentation.
• Cinch and AudioBoo seem like possible contenders?
• Drop.io has a phone-in offering (no security on the phone number and no way of knowing if you dialed the right one, which makes me uneasy...)
• Google Voice seemed like a logical option but I don't think there's an "automatic" way of getting the audio out of it -- voicemail isn't really the right solution for this kind of thing, anyway
• K7.net is outstanding for a listener feedback line or other voicemail option but it doesn't mail out MP3s (just WAV and some other non-MP3 format I forget at the moment)

Also mentioned is iSpeech.org, which is a neat text-to-speech-to-podcast option... but I still have the "how do I merge these feeds together?" question (and it seems like it doesn't automatically update its audio podcast; you have to go to the site and "ping" your blog, which is an extra step that I'd like to avoid.)

What are your thoughts/suggestions? You know the drill: 206-339-ERIC (a.k.a. 206-339-3742) or e-mail me (eric) at ericast.com. Thanks for listening!

P.S. For those who don't get the SNL "Pete Twinkle" references that I make here and there in the podcast, here's a clip from Hulu... which I probably don't need to explain is not "work safe". (In this particular "Ladies Bowling" sketch they proudly and colorfully tout their sponsorship by Vagisil. You've been warned.)

Ericast 144 - Emotions vs. Principles

A late one, yes indeed, but a conversation starter for us all: What are our strongly-held opinions/beliefs/preferences based on? Sometimes they're based on logically-argued principles, and the solution to that is to put those principles head-to-head and hash it out.

But then... there are those opinions/beliefs/preferences that are based on an emotional connection to something. And that's okay. The point is, you can't argue against an emotionally-based preference by throwing more "data" at the emotion.

Does that make any sense? Does it make more (or less) sense after listening to the podcast? Let me know -- 206-339-3742 (a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC) or e-mail me (eric) at ericast.com.