Derek K. Miller - Penmachine words music comment - Vancouver, Canada

Almost five years ago, I wrote about my favourite keyboards. Alas, things have changed somewhat: most of the links in my original post are broken, and Apple has stopped making the old transparent black-keyed Pro Keyboard and now produces some interesting but very different super-thin models instead (in between, the company made a tolerable but ho-hum white keyboard that also acted as an excellent crumb tray).

This week, John Gruber and Dan Benjamin wax rhapsodic on their podcast about the ancient Apple Extended Keyboard II, pictured. I have three, as well as two Apple Keyboards (not the Keyboard II) that use the same keys, several miscellaneous USB keyboards, a decent basic PC PS/2 keyboard, and a treasured IBM 101. The 101 is currently hooked up to my eMac with a PS/2-USB adapter, with keys remapped with the Mac's System Preferences.

The Extended Keyboard II and the IBM 101 are the twin holy grails of keyboard nerds. Unfortunately, my EKIIs have been sitting in a cupboard for years because I never got around to buying an adapter to make their Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) connectors work with newer USB Macs. But now Gruber and Benjamin may have inspired me to track one down.

I spent many a year pounding my fingers on an Extended II, in university and as a freelance technical writer. The IBM 101 is a very different beast, also built like a tank but with a more metallic, punchy feel, and an audible note to its astoundingly loud typing sound. As yet no one has been able to replicate what's good about these devices, so if you're a serious computer typist, you'll need to track down a vintage one.

And no, you can't have mine.

Labels: apple, geekery, history, podcast

You already heard the full-length unedited version of my interview with Nora Young (pictured) of CBC Radio's "Spark." Now here's the edited version in the latest complete episode of the show, with extra bonus material including me reading some of my blog posts, and my podsafe tune "Striking Silver" as background music.

You can download the whole episode as an MP3 file, or if you're subscribed to the Spark podcast, you'll get it automatically. If you prefer to hear "Spark" on the radio, it airs Wednesday, April 30 (tomorrow) at 11:30 a.m. and Saturday, May 3 at 4:00 p.m. (a half hour later in Newfoundland, of course), on CBC's Radio One network, which is 690 AM in Vancouver. This episode also features internetfamous blogebrities such as Merlin Mann and Amber Mac.

Finally, if you have any doubt at all that "Spark" is a cool show, they just received a promo message recorded by freakin' Strong Bad! How awesome is that? (MP3 also available.)

Labels: cbc, ego, podcast, radio

As part of my slightly twisted effort to use my cancer treatment as leverage to get me the kind of exposure and fame my more modest general talents haven't done, I was interviewed on Wednesday for the show "Spark" on CBC Radio (as I've already flogged).

You can now hear the full-length talk between me and the always sultry-voiced Nora Young—a voice made even huskier by her fighting a cold at the time. Here's a direct link to the MP3 file (24 minutes, about 33 MB) too. I'll probably link that up at my podcast after the edited version goes to air next week.

I like that "Spark" doesn't have the traditional media attitude of holding on to its source material like a state secret. It's unusual enough for a radio or TV program, publicly funded or not, to post full-length versions of edited interviews online. But to do it days before the final version appears is still more innovative. I'm not sure I'd even do that.

Labels: cbc, ego, podcast, radio

While I'm on this CBC kick, I may as well mention "Ideas," which is surely one of the best radio shows in the world. It has been running in some form or another since 1965.

Every weekday on the radio, and weekly on its podcast, the program spends an hour delving deeply into its title. Its documentary producers talk to politicians, physicians, scientists, theologians, philosophers, poets, artists, writers, historians, and others about topics as diverse as China's 15th century naval fleet, the modern relevance of Don Quixote, theoretical physics, Picasso and the musical avant-garde in Paris during the 1920s, and golf.

And that's just this week. I heard bits (alas, only bits) of the Chinese navy broadcast last night while I was running errands, and was entranced. I sat in the drugstore parking lot for a few minutes because I couldn't tear myself away.

There is a separate feature page (with RealAudio streams! Who still uses that?) and podcast (with proper MP3s) for the ongoing series "How to Think About Science," which started last year. There are already 17 hours in that group of shows alone.

"Ideas" will grow your brain. I recommend you dedicate some time to it.

Labels: cbc, podcast, radio, science

CBC Radio has two programs (also available as podcasts) that confuse me a little: "Spark" and "Search Engine." I like them both, but they seem to cover a lot of the same territory of life in the digital age. Sometimes I can't remember which one had a particular segment—was it host Nora Young at "Spark" who interviewed the guy who edits Hillary Clinton's Wikipedia entry? No, it was host Jesse Brown from "Search Engine."

I suppose it doesn't matter. I'm glad there's enough of an audience for my kind of techie social nerdity that CBC has two shows about it. Yay again to Tod for helping the network get on the podcasting train after jump-starting it with the CBC Unplugged show almost three years ago.

Anyway, I'm going to call "Spark" my favourite of the two shows now, because it looks like I'm going to be on it. Nora—that's her on the bike—indirectly heard about my recent talk on life, death, and my blog, and contacted me through Facebook (appropriately enough) to see if I might like to be on "Spark."

One of my weaknesses is appearing in the media. I've always loved seeing my name in print, or being on the radio or TV. So my immediate thought was, "hell yeah!" We'll likely record something next week for the "Spark" episode airing (and podcasting) at the end of the month. More details to follow.

Incidentally, Nora's other podcast, The Sniffer (not affiliated with the CBC), has been on my subscription list for a couple of years now. I recommend it.

Labels: blog, cancer, cbc, ego, facebook, geekery, podcast, radio

I didn't really get podcasting at all until the middle of 2005, which was some months after the technology first appeared in late 2004—and right about the time iTunes started supporting it. The first person to start a real podcast in our family was my wife, who launched Lip Gloss and Laptops with her friend KA in March 2006.

Their show has now reached its 100th episode. That would be a milestone in any medium, but in podcasting it's a big one. A good percentage of podcasts podfade and stop publishing long before their 100th show. Others, like my my personal podcast and the other one I co-host, publish irregularly and so take a long time to rack up the numbers (despite starting back in 2005, Inside Home Recording hasn't even reached episode 60 yet).

But other than a few holidays over Christmas and such, Lip Gloss and Laptops has come out every Wednesday for over two years. Even if you're not into the beauty and cosmetics industry, which it covers, it's an interesting and informative listen. (As the show's audio engineer, I hear every episode.)

So congratulations to Airdrie and Kerry Anne on their 100th show. I'm sure they'll be hearing lots more cheers from their fans around the world too.

Labels: anniversary, family, lipglossandlaptops, podcast

Back in February when my podcast co-host Paul and I made our most recent trip down to the Lab With Leo studios here in Vancouver, no one knew that it would be the last shooting week ever for the show. But not long afterwards, Leo Laporte emailed to tell us it was the end of the line: after ten years of creating Call for Help and The Lab for TV in the U.S. and Canada, it had been cancelled.

It's a pity that a tech show like The Lab, which covers a wide variety of topics and doesn't talk down to its audience, couldn't survive—or even get U.S. distribution. Fortunately, Leo (who has been covering technology on radio and TV for decades, and has even won an Emmy award) isn't standing still, and plans to launch an online version of the show in the next few weeks from his studio in Petaluma, California (also, incidentally, the town where Mesa-Boogie manufactures its guitar amplifiers).

As far as Inside Home Recording goes, we've started posting tutorials over at IHR TV, which may later include some live-action explanatory episodes like our segments on The Lab. And though it's far less convenient than driving a few minutes across Vancouver, if we ever find ourselves in California wine country, we might appear on Leo's new show down there too.

Labels: geekery, insidehomerecording, labwithleo, leolaporte, paulgaray, podcast, television

Over at Inside Home Recording, we recently started IHR TV, additional short video tutorials that augment our regular longer audio podcasts. As part of that effort, we used some of the money we get from sponsors and advertisers to buy two Panasonic HDC-SD5 high-definition camcorders. (Bought online, two of them cost only very slightly more than a single one at local retail stores.)

The last camcorder my family had, which sits half-broken in our basement, was an old Samsung analogue Video 8 tape-based machine, from 1998. Given the improvements in other consumer electronics, from personal computers to digital cameras to televisions, over the past decade, I'm not sure why I'm so surprised at this little camcorder, but it's a remarkable machine.

Consider, first, that it can record at 1920x1080i "Full HD" resolution, with something like six times the detail of our old camera, using a very nice mechanically stabilized Leica lens. It stores that information not on tapes, but on the same SD cards used by the still cameras and audio recorders we have at the house. The whole camera is only about a third larger, and almost exactly the same weight, as the old Samsung battery—being smaller than my hand, it almost gets lost among its accessories in our camcorder bag.

Perhaps most remarkably, Panasonic has put real thought into simplifying how the camera works. There aren't many buttons and dials, they're clearly labeled, and everything is easy enough to figure out that the manual (which is long and detailed, but only averagely written) is only necessary for some of the more detailed settings. The SD5 even takes pretty nice still photos.

Those huge HD videos, however, require a lot of horsepower to edit: only one of the computers in our house (my Intel MacBook) will even import the massive AVCHD video files directly. And, following the trend in pocket still cameras, there is no longer a viewfinder: you have to look at the pop-out LCD screen to frame your shots. Like too many consumer electronics today, the camera also comes festooned with garish and difficult-to-remove little stickers advertising its features, the software it comes with, and so on. I removed those immediately.

It lacks a couple of pro features that would be useful: the only sound-in is from the stereo microphone, so you can't connect an external mic or line-in sound, which is something I'll work around with a separate audio recorder if needed. (Very cleverly, though, the microphones can focus in on your subject as you zoom the lens, and electronically filter out some wind noise. Nifty.) Similarly, while it comes with cables to send sound and video out to a TV or other device, you can't record video from any source other than the lens, so I can't, for instance, use it to digitize any of our old footage.

With devices like these, it's no wonder people can now smuggle broadcast-quality video out of the world's war zones and trouble spots. We'll see what I can do with this camera and my mediocre video skills for our modest little podcast.

Labels: geekery, leica, panasonic, photography, podcast, video

I spoke to the BC Branch of the Editors' Association of Canada a week and a half ago, about how I've integrated my online and offline lives since getting cancer last year. I've now posted an enhanced audio podcast of my talk, which includes my slides as part of the MPEG-4 file (24 MB, about 1 hour).

If you're subscribed to my podcast feed, you may already have the file on your computer or iPod.

Labels: cancer, meetup, podcast, writing

My Inside Home Recording podcast co-host Paul has been making instructional videos for macProVideo.com for some time now, and he's good at it. So when he proposed that we start putting out short video podcasts in addition to our regular audio show, I knew they could be useful.

Now we've posted our first episode of Inside Home Recording TV (IHR TV). This one Paul recorded entirely himself. It's about using Propellerhead's ReWire to link their Reason software to Apple's Logic Pro.

We're trying something new with this video podcast. As usual, you can subscribe to watch on your computer, Apple TV, iPod, Zune, or whatever. In addition to posting it on our own site, you can also find each episode free at the video sharing sites Revver, Vimeo, Blip.tv, and YouTube. Plus we post them to Facebook, and will note each new show (audio and video) at Twitter.

Labels: apple, insidehomerecording, paulgaray, podcast, video

• I mentioned the other Derek Miller before. Looks like he's going to get even more famous—his latest album is a collaboration with Double Trouble and Willie Nelson. So when you see "Derek Miller with Willie Nelson," it's really not me.
  
  
• I didn't know that the Milky Way, in which we live, is a barred spiral galaxy.
  
  
• User interface design, simplified.
  
  
• "That's not the same." "Yes it is."
  
  
• I love the existentialism of Garfield Minus Garfield.
  
  
• The 20 biggest record company screw-ups of all time.
  
  
• Podcasting statistics, explained.
  
  
• Check out the iPod on the Space Shuttle. (They had to put in a different battery for safety, by the way.)
  
  
• From Stuff White People Like: "[Going to graduate school] is an opportunity to join an elite group of people who have a passion for learning that is so great they are willing to forgo low five-figure publishing and media jobs to follow their dreams of academic glory."

Labels: ipod, linksofinterest, music, podcast, school

There's going to be a podcaster meetup this Wednesday, March 12, 2008. Details:

6:30 p.m.
The End Cafe
2360 Commercial Drive (just north of the SkyTrain)
Vancouver, British Columbia

Alas, I won't be there—I have yet more chemo that day, so that night I'll be in sad shape, curled up in bed watching The Food Network, or sleeping. But my co-host Paul plans to be there, and I'm hoping some of the rest of you will too—if you're not at SXSW in Austin, of course.

You don't need to be a podcaster or blogger or whatever. If meeting other webby types is up your alley, head on down. Doing a little RSVP at upcoming.org or Facebook would help with planning, I guess, but you should also just be able to show up.

Have a drink or two for me, will you?

Labels: blog, chemotherapy, geekery, meetup, paulgaray, podcast, vancouver

Back in late 2004 and early 2005, following the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, I wrote a series of blog posts that turned into a popular online article about tsunamis.

Now a two-minute video based on it, created by three local film school students, is available in iPod-compatible format for iTunes or QuickTime—as well as on my podcast.

Click the preview below to play it, or the direct link to see it bigger (that big one is a 25 MB MPEG file, so it may take awhile to load):

My friend Sebastien, who is Head of Digital Design at Vancouver Film School, referred me to the three students (Jamie Peterson, Erica Edwards, and Shalinder Matharu), who needed a topic for an infographic project. My contribution was limited to a couple of basic scripts; they did the rest, adapting the article into the instructional video graphic using Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and After Effects (no, those are not real paper cutouts—I asked).

Obviously, they had to cut down the concepts a huge amount to fit into the short time available, but I think the result is effective. It's difficult to keep scientific accuracy in such an abbreviated format, but I believe any quibbles a real wave researcher might have (such as with the shape of the wave) are pretty minor. Nice job, Jamie, Erica, and Shal.

Labels: animation, blog, podcast, school, science, video

Despite the crap of the past week, I managed to get some of my hobby stuff done anyway, including a new episode of the Inside Home Recording podcast (in which you can hear me play electronic drums) and a couple of appearances on Leo Laporte's Lab With Leo TV show.

Unfortunately, it will be a few weeks before The Lab episodes go to air, and more time after that before they're available online. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks to the Holloways for loaning me the use of the swanky electronic drums on both shows, by the way.

Labels: insidehomerecording, labwithleo, music, podcast, television

My podcast co-host Paul and I will once again appear on tech TV show The Lab With Leo tomorrow, as we've done regularly since last spring.

The show records here in Vancouver, and the episode won't appear for a couple of months on air (on Canada's G4 Tech TV, Australia's How To Channel, and also on City TV weekdays at 11:00 a.m. here in Vancouver). We'll be taping two show segments this time, one on MIDI drums and one on headphones.

I'll let you know when the shows are available online as well.

Labels: insidehomerecording, labwithleo, music, paulgaray, podcast, television

Here's the last batch of my photos from the Northern Voice conference:

Labels: blog, conferences, geekery, meetup, northernvoice, podcast, web

Here are my latest photos from MooseCamp, which was the first day of Northern Voice. I've also posted some wacky night pictures from the way home.

At MooseCamp I had a chance to try out a Nikon D3 camera belonging to Matt Mullenweg. It's extremely impressive, probably the most solidly built camera I've ever held. But it is freaking huge—more massive than some medium-format cameras, I think. In contrast, John Biehler's new MacBook Air is shockingly light. Hold one and you'll understand what the fuss is about.

Labels: blog, conferences, geekery, macbook, meetup, nikon, northernvoice, photography, podcast, web

It wasn't really called TikiCamp, but the Northern Voice opening tiki dinner at the Waldorf Hotel in Vancouver was a ton of fun. Here are my pictures:

More from the main event tomorrow and Saturday.

Labels: blog, conferences, food, geekery, meetup, northernvoice, photography, podcast, web

Sometimes I forget how sick I am. Not often, but on a day like today when the sun is shining and I have a week off from chemotherapy, when I can take the car in for service, then buy some groceries and take the bus home, make dinner, clean up, help get the kids to bed, and record a podcast, there are times when I forget the cancer.

At times like this, I have to remember what I've learned in the past year, which is to say no.

When I was healthier, I'd often get roped into (or rope myself into) projects that might be fun, or might benefit me or other people, or might even make me some money—but that turned out to be way more work than I expected. Or I'd end up saying yes to many little things that, individually, wouldn't take much effort, but collectively sucked up way too much of my time.

I can't do that now, and it has been a good lesson. During the rollercoaster of surgeries and radiation and chemo and weight loss and weight regain and wild swings in blood glucose and mood and physical ability since the beginning of 2007, I've simply dropped quite a number of things, sometimes with no warning. The world kept spinning, and the people who had to pick up the pieces did a good job, or made do without my contributions.

Seeing that, I've made myself a rule. When I get offered some freelance work or come across a volunteer project or a hobby activity that I might want to do—the kind of thing I'd have reflexively said yes to previously—I ask myself a question: if I'm well enough to do this kind of work, shouldn't I be ready to go back to my day job? If not (and so far, my answer has always been no, I'm nowhere near healthy enough), then I shouldn't take on anything big and new either. I shouldn't, and can't, juggle what I used to.

It's refreshing. I do smaller things here and there, and have managed to keep doing some activities I really enjoy, such as podcasting, playing with my band on occasion, and writing this blog. I do some chores around the house, hack around with computers, watch a bit of Discovery Channel, hang out with my kids and make sure they get to school in the morning, and spend time with my wife so I can look into her amazing blue eyes.

For now, in between all my medical appointments and such, that's plenty. And that's what I say yes to.

Labels: cancer, chemotherapy, family, fatigue, love, navarik, podcast

As someone who's been a Vancouver blogger for more than seven years, and podcasting here for almost three, I often hear the question in the title of this post. But that's not what the questioners usually mean. What they want to ask is: Can you make a living from blogging and podcasting?

The short answer is yes, but don't go and quit your day job just yet. I didn't say that just anyone should try to pay for your food, lodging, and transportation needs (plus those for your spouse and kids) from blogs and podcasts, or that you could make a huge living from them. It's possible, but I don't do it, and haven't even tried. You should be aware that, just like anything else, making a living online would be a job, not some sort of free-money fantasy life.

My wife, who's also a blogger and podcaster, and I were talking about it this morning before she went to work (she's had the same stable, rewarding, good-paying professional day job for more than 15 years, and isn't planning on quitting that anytime soon). For us, our online activities are hobbies. They bring in a little money from ads and sponsorships, usually enough to cover their costs and maybe buy the occasional dinner.

Blogging for money

The people I know who work as bloggers, like Arieanna, work hard. She writes at least five different work blogs (plus others) all day, every day, sometimes until late at night. (If I had to scour the news for links about Mischa Barton all day, I'd probably go batty. And that's just one blog.)

If you look at blogs that are popular enough to pay people's salaries—like Arieanna's and the others at b5media, or the Weblogs Inc. network that includes Engadget and its siblings, or successful independent blogs like Daring Fireball—they tend to be very focused and updated many times a day.

They often attract lots of comments, which require moderation and feedback, and their posts tend to be well sourced or individually researched, and also well written and concise. In many cases, the words are carefully crafted to attract search engine traffic, and the blogger may spend quite a bit of time writing about things he or she isn't all that interested in, or at least (as in any job) may have days where the job is just a slog, rather than a joy. Money-generating blogs take a lot of effort, skill, and time to maintain. They're work.

In other words, don't expect to dash off a paragraph every couple of days about what your kids ate for breakfast and have the ad revenue pour in.

Now, if you can find a day job where you spend a significant part of your time blogging, that's another matter. If I weren't on medical leave right now, I'd be doing that over here (notice that the "Daily Blog" isn't very daily while I'm absent). But that blog—and private internal blogs and wikis the company runs behind a firewall—is just a slice of my day job, not the whole thing, so I don't think it counts either.

Podcasting for money

Podcasting, as an even newer medium than blogging, has an even less-established income stream. Search engine optimization and contextual advertising don't work as well for podcasts, audio or video. Like most bloggers (and like me), the vast majority of podcasters do what they do as a hobby. They (like me) might bring in a bit of cash from sponsors and podcast network advertising and so on. But podcast production is even more labour-intensive than blogging, and unless you put out shows quite frequently and build a significant audience on an appropriate topic (or topics, if you can manage several shows), it will be pretty hard to pay a mortgage.

Even Leo Laporte, whose This Week in Tech (TWiT) network attracts some of the biggest audiences in podcasting (numbering the hundreds of thousands each week), and who runs an extremely efficient podcasting operation largely by himself, still