Photo by morgret

A while back I told you I was going to try to write/record a song a month for 2008. How am I doing so far? Well, I’m proud to say that I’m on pace to reach 100% if we only plan on having 9 or 10 months this year.

So I missed a month or two during summer, but I remain hopeful that a burst of creativity will help me fill the gaps.. One of the things that’s helping actually, is Stevie Z’s Song Challenge. He noticed a lot of people in and around podcasting tend to be musicians too (why is that? -there’s a post topic for later), so he challenged us to write a song based on specific criteria..

Three of us answered the August challenge, and I won’t even bring up the fact that the guy who challenged us DIDN’T EVEN GET HIS SONG INTO HIS OWN SHOW.. but I digress

It was a lot of fun to do, and Stevie’s right, after a phone coversation with Mark Blevis, I realized that I got so caught up in the style of the song that I forgot the actual topic that was assigned. So I had to add an extra verse at the end of my tune to bring it back on subject, but if you didn’t know you’d never notice … hehe… Anyway -it meant I had a song for August, and could relax stress-free for the 5 remaining days until September.

So congrats to Mark Blevis and John Meadows for each creating awesome tunes with me this rainy August, and I look forward to hearing more tunes from them in the future

Go and listen to the August challenge results right here

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I’m going to bitnorth tomorrow, and from the line up I’ve seen it’s going to be a great weekend with some truly remarkable people. This is going to be a great opportunity to meet and connect with people from around Montreal and talk tech and stuff all weekend. I’m looking forward to telling you all about it when I get back.

In fact, “covering” the event is what led me to being invited to it,  - So I’ll show up with audio/video recorders in tow, and try to capture the vibe of this event. I haven’t been to an event in a while where basically no one knows me, so I’ll get to practice my “15-second pitch” this weekend.

As I understand, all attendees are speaking at the event, which is going to bring viewpoints from all over the place.

For my topic, i’ve surprisingly chosen an area I’m somewhat familiar with : Podcasting. You may have heard of it, but your mom might not. In fact, my topic is called “Lessons Learned: How accessibility stunted Podcasting’s growth.”.. Even though podcasting seems maintstream, almost old news to us online folks, there are still a MAJORITY of people who have no idea what it is when you bring it up.

I’m going to flush it out later today, but I think my talk will focus along two lines; first, the word podcasting itself. That debate is over, and I know we’re stuck with the word, but I still think traction would have been easier to get had we all chosen a word that people already knew. The second thing is the whole subscription/rss thing. It’s the facet of podcasting that most of us technology people locked into, because it was cool to have payloads in feeds, but it took a while to make it understandable/useable (I still don’t think we’re there). I think the biggest boost to podcasting wasn’t RSS, it was the PLAY button on the websites.

What do you think? Do you think accessibility played a role in limiting the growth of podcasting? Do you think it’s still an issue?

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flickr pic by Christopher S Penn

One of the cool things we did at PAB this year was the addition of the JOLT! sessions.  No slides, just 5 minutes and a message. We convinced Julien Smith to do one, and and it packs a punch.

Take 5 minutes or so, and go listen to Julien’s take. You’ll be glad you did.

It’s not about podcasting, it’s about life.

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Let’s try 8tracks..

flickr pic by Michel Van Hoof

Here’s my August mix , that link should work until the RIAA slams it down..

edit - you don’t know what’s coming on until it plays, which is cool. It seems to play only the first 2:00 or so of a song, which is not. 

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Photo credit : Leo Reynolds

I’ve been re-tagged! Dave REALLY wants to know 6 things about me.

The first thing to know about me is that I’m all about reusing intellectual capital when possible (meaning = i’m lazy), so I’ll re-post part of my June 2007 post featuring 8 things, and leave the extra 2 in! Yes, 2 extra things! At NO cost to you the reader! I know, I know… I just can’t stop giving…

Ok, you might want to sit down, this really isn’t that interesting…

1- I played high-school football for 1 game, then the team folded.

2- My first public singing in solo was playing the part Coach Van Buren in our high school production of “Damn Yankees”

3- I once convinced a girl I had just been intimate with that I was missing a toe and she didn’t even notice. (I have all my toes)

4- When I was a kid, I’d get up early on daylight savings day and go through the house setting one clock forward, the next back.. Drove my dad nuts!

5- I’ve been playing music as a musician semi-regularly since the early 80’s, and been on or co-produced 8 or so albums.

6- My first radio gig was at a 30watt pirate FM station in 1991.

7- My next radio gig was at Montreal’s #1 dance music station - doing I.T. support (*sigh*).

8- My hockey dream is to see Harry Neil, Bob Cole and Don Cherry retire in the same summer (2008). (This is a recurring dream)

Here are my tag-victims: Michelle Sullivan, Laurent Lasalle, Stevie Z, John Meadows, Tom Lucier, and my “we’re kinda broken up for the summer, but we’ll be back soon” pal Mark Blevis.

Random rules (hat tip to ):
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on the blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know they have been tagged.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

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Photo by flickr user abdallahh

We’re almost at 200 registrants for Podcamp Montreal. woo!

If you’re on the fence about going, this would be a good time to make up your mind and commit to coming - there is limited space, but we’ll do our best to squeeze everyone in..

This is a great chance to meet and mingle with Montreal podcasting and Social Media people before we all hide under the 23ft of snow we’ll get between October 1st and April 10th..

Get more information and register here: www.podcampmontreal.org

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I won’t go into details, but this whole site was gone for a while today because I forgot a “/” somewhere…

Backups saved me. The proof is, you’re reading this.

Aren’t you due to do a backup of your stuff?

I thought so.

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I came across an interesting discussion recently. The content doesn’t matter, but there are a few things to think about ..

Let me summarize the issue:

• - years ago, something happened
• - Someone blogged about it
• - People linked to that post
• - that blog is now gone.

The reaction of some the people looking for the content now is that the original “blog owner” has attempted to erase history by not having the blog anymore. Now I’m not privy as to why the blog disappeared. Just thinking quickly, it could be that the costs of the domain/hosting/etc were no longer justified, could be that the platform it was hosted on is gone, it could be that it was no longer relevant to the owner, it could be that tiny little aliens showed up and zapped the database with their evil mind rays… the reasons don’t really matter (or do they?).

On the one hand, I see and understand thoughts from people like Dave Winer about maintaining a web presence long term, as in after you’re off the planet. On the other hand though, until you do kick the bucket, are you expected to maintain every web presence you’ve created so that hyperlinks will work until the end of time lest someone accuse you of hiding that you thought something sucked 20 years ago?

I don’t have an answer… but I admit to leaning on the Internet Archive’s wayback machine from time to time though..

What do you think? Does online content have an expiration date? If so, who sets it?

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Hey! I’m back online!

Did ya miss me? I thought so..

Is it the “2008 Summer of F$%^&* rain”  where you are too? GEEZ!

Anyway… let’s get the first few planning things out of the way …

There are so many events I want to attend over the next while, it’s really too bad I can’t do them all. Life happens.

I’m quite pleased about attending :

I like the idea (and people) behind bitnorth. It’s a sort of unconference (you know, it’s getting to the point where they’re all unconferences, we can all just drop the “un”), the attendees are expected to present something they call Short Bits. These are “10-minute long presentations on a topic they care about. This year’s general theme is The Other 99 Percent, and we’re looking at how technology has changed non-technologists’ lives.” Some great people from Montreal’s tech scene will be there, and I’m happy to have a chance to hook up with them.

Another great time will be :

I’m pleased to be part of the team working on this, but I have to be honest and say that with PAB and vacations, I haven’t done much - but this team is doing great things, and this event will rock!

I’m less-than-thrilled about missing :

and

Two wonderful events brought to existence by passion and energy. If you can swing either or both of these, you will make me very jealous!

Also, I’d like to think Chris means me, but he doesn’t, he means Julien. .. *sniff*..

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Oh I could post tons of interesting things right on this here blog, and I will - later.

It’s summer - unplug if you can, take your kids fishing.

I’ll be back later this summer…

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