Five o’clock shadow 23

Five o'clock shadow 23

Originally uploaded by evo_terra.

Contemplative. Funny how that get pronounced a couple of different ways.

Time to change the look of this blog. It's cluttered and serves too many purposes right now. So I'm going for a minimalist approach. I kinda dig this color scheme, so I'm going to stick with it. Everyone say hi to Dan S., as he's volunteered to help me with it, as I'm a code hack at best.

And don't forget that tomorrow is the First of May. Might I suggest you celebrate it in a very Jonathan Coulton fashion?

EPPfD 25% complete!

As of early this morning, Tee and I have knocked out 13 chapters of the new book. We're just on schedule and hope to get ahead some over these next four weeks. I tackled some of my tougher chapters up front and am starting to get in a groove.

We've also received our first batch of feedback from our incredibly helpful editor, Kim Darosett, on the first to chapters. It's exactly what I wanted to hear from here: add a little more here, show me a picture of this, break this into steps, use this formatting. We worked with Kim on Podcasting for Dummies and I was stoked when she was picked to help us again.

So with that, I have more writing to do!

Need a Dopplr hookup

I would really like to try this new service for frequent travelers called Dopplr. So if you happen to have an invite handy, I'd love to receive one. evo (at) podiobooks (dot) com is the bestest way. Thanks in advance!

Podcamp AZ

Last night, the Brooklyn Bluesman hooked me up with Jeremy from the Second Life Podcast to let me know about PodCamp AZ happening in my back yard. I'm now signed up and am looking forward to helping make this happen.

I'm involved with so many podcasts that come out of FarPoint Media that I honestly forget that the Phoenix podcasting scened doesn't start and end with us. This should help broaden my horizons and sounds like a hella good time. Holy crap, I just said "hella".

Win a copy of Tobias Buckell’s Crystal Rain

My friends at The Dragon Page Cover to Cover (my voice has been silent there for a while, but I'll come back -- promise!) are giving away copies of Crystal Rain by Tobias Buckell.

I really enjoyed this book. Dsytopian steam-punk far future stuff. With blimps. Very cool and quite different than anything I'd experience prior. Try to win a copy. If you don't, find another by other means. You won't be disappointed.

Five O’Clock Shadow 22

Five O'Clock Shadow 22

Originally uploaded by evo_terra.

Actually this should be yesterday's post. But I was beat.

I had a great conversation with the fine folks at Lulu. (Chris, Sheila, Kelly and Ron -- thanks for taking the time to speak with me!) I consider Lulu a "non-evil" publishing company, so it was great to get some face time with them. I've been around enough authors who've been screwed by their press, so I'm keenly aware of the good guys. And I really think they are that.

And it was the first time I've ever flown from Phoenix to San Francisco to meet someone at coffee shop, then head back home¹. Bizarre. Cool, but very bizarre.

¹ The un-cool part is when United decided to hold the departure for an extra hour, ultimately causing me to have to overnight in LA. I don't pack a bag for day trips, so I'm sure I was a sight to behold on the plane ride home the next day.

The perils of print

I took this from a post Jason Calacanis made recently. He's been railing on a guy from Wired who wanted to interview Jason, but the journalist refused to conduct the interview. Jason stuck to his guns, citing the fact that it's way too easy to misquote someone in a vocal interview, but damn near impossible when conducted via email.

And while all of that is good and fine, it lead Jason to this path:

What this is really all about at the end of the day is that WIRED the print magazine--like other magazines and newspapers--are lost and adrift because they can't break stories any more. WIRED is six weeks old when you open it, hundreds of people read my blog posts minutes after they come out. It's impossible for print publications to have a "breaking news" role anymore, and they are certainly not going to be able to keep stories under wraps for six weeks when 90% of their subjects have blogs that are starved for content.

He's right on the money. While there still exists a large amount of people who want the packaging, gatekeeping and convenience of print, those hungriest for breaking news will soon discover (or have already discovered) much more effective was at gathering their information. The same will happen to other traditional media outlets, including TV and radio. The times, they are a changing.