Matthew Wayne Selznick

(Yeah, I know, I rarely post any more. I’ll talk about that in another post. Hardy har har!)

I just had another brief flirtation with Ubuntu, on both my laptop and desktop. It’s still not quite a keeper for me, but I did discover that very nearly every cool, free, and often Open Source application available for Linux is also available for Windows.

So, even though I’ve gone back to XP for the stability and convenience and familiarity… everything but the OS is free, free, free. Both machines have identical software. Here’s the rundown:

Internet Stuff:

• Browser: Firefox, naturally, with Del.icio.us Bookmarks, Google Gears, Google Toolbar, Skype Extension for Firefox, and Remember The Milk for Gmail.
• FTP: Filezilla.
• Messaging:
  • Pidgin for AIM, Yahoo!, and IRC.
  • Skype for VOIP and chat (my preferred IM platform.)
• Online Media:
  • myPodder for podcast subscriptions.
  • Miro for video podcasts (but I rarely use it — video takes too much time and attention.)
  • Last.fm for socially networked listening.
• File Distribution Protocols:
  • Bittorrent.
  • Frostwire (rarely utilized.)
• Web Server: WOS Portable (for local development, personal wiki, etc.)

Writing Stuff:

• Office Suite: Open Office. Awwww yeah.
• Outlining and Notes: Keynote.
• Plotting and Script Writing: yWriter and Celtx.
• Full-Screen Word Processor / Text Editor: Q10 (includes real typewriter sounds sampled from “Amelie!” Hee hee!)

Graphics Tools:

• Bitmap Graphics Editor: The Gimp.
• Vector Graphics Editor: Inkscape.
• Desktop Publishing: Scribus.
• 3D Rendering: Blender, OpenFX and Google SketchUp. Granted, I haven’t played with these much, but I’m looking forward to dabbling… eventually.
• Image Viewer: Irfanview.
• Online Comics Viewer: Comicrack. (Heh — comic rack… or comi-crack, eh?)

Audio and Video Players:

• iTunes. Yeah, I know. But it’s free, it does a great job as a player, you can network your library, and if you stay away from the iTunes Music Store, you’re not dirtied by DRM. When Songbird is ready for prime time, I’ll switch.
• VLC. Plays nearly everything.
• Real Alternative. For the handful of RealAudio formats VLC doesn’t seem to handle.
• aTube Catcher, which saves local copies of streaming Flash videos for time-shifted viewing.

Audio Recording:

• Audacity, with the LAME MP3 encoder and assorted plug-ins. I’m on a podcasting hiatus right now, but I’ll be using this for all personal podcasting production when I get back on the horse.
• Skype Call Recording: Powergramo. Okay, this one, I paid for. Fifteen bucks, and it does high-quality stereo-separated flawless recording with no cables or mixers, virtual or otherwise, to hijack your process.

Games:

• First Person Multiplayer Shooters: Open Arena and Nexiuz. Yay blowing things up and killing people!
• MMORPGs: Planeshift and the very impressive Minions of Mirth. (Yes, Mirth has an upgrade for $29.00… but that’s one fee, flat… no monthly subscription. I haven’t paid it… yet. Beware of time-sucking!)

Other Stuff:

• Maps and Research: Google Earth.
• Media and Book Collection Cataloging: Libra.
• Web Site Editing: Amaya.
• Multiple Desktops: Virtual Desktop Powertoy.
• ISO / CD / DVD Utility: CDBurner XP.
• Virtual Private Networking: Hamachi
• Anti-virus: AVG Free Edition.

I hope this list can get others to try no-cost / low-cost / open source alternatives to commercial software… and if you like some of these applications, please monetarily support the developers when you can!

I’m interested in comments and feedback, too — do you use different stuff? How’s your experience with the software I’ve listed?

Whew.

I’m back in the coffeehouse where I write in the morning before going to work. It’s in a town right next to Ontario, California, where the Podcast and New Media Expo was held. Ontario might be down the road, but the PNME, the Residence Inn, the Doubletree, the Marriott, Spires, Marie Callendar’s, and Stater Brothers seemed like they were five hundred miles from everything I know.

I’m experiencing some kind of rifting. I did not want the weekend to end. Every time I’m with my Tribe, particular members of my Tribe, the impact of separation is proportional to the depth of the connection made. My chest hurts, but there’s a soft edge of warmth on the cracks.

Ow.

Listening to Ryan Adams, Belle & Sebastian, and other earnest, heartfelt, melancholy music right now. Probably not making this any less maudlin. Suck it, it makes me feel good to feel this… bad? Nah. Full.

So. The Expo.

Smaller this year. Does that mean Podcasting is slowing down? Is podcasting “dead?”

Not at all. I think it means a whole lot of podcasters are not interested in what the Expo presents: an emphasis on monetization, metrics, and tech. Advertising networks, trade associations, hosting networks… and rivalries and posturing between same right on the Expo floor. However, there are still people who approach podcasting as an art form, a means of expression, or as just another way to distribute their open media / new media / multimedia content.

Also… I’m no pundit — look to others for that. I’ll just say that activists and lobbyists will one day be necessary to represent new media to lawmakers and legislators. The people who will represent new media are being chosen now. Choose wisely.

Now comes the time on Sprockets when we name drop and and provide little snapshots of special moments at the Expo.

• I started the weekend Thursday with a nice lunch with Steve Eley and Tee Morris, where we Old Boys of podcasting ate sandwiches (I think Steve had an actual dinner of some sort) and just yakked about stuff and things.
• My speaker badge and that of Matthew Snodgrass were merged together like a fly and Jeff Goldblum. I managed to get a fresh badge printed up, but I met Matt later Thursday night and he wore the “Matthew Wayne Snodgrass, MWS Media” badge. We laughed about it and I apologized for never getting him a paycheck for all the fine work he’s done for my company.
• Met Chris Moody, which was nice to finally do, since he lives about twenty minutes or so from where I work.
• Tee: offer I made during the Speakers Reception still stands, as needed.
• I spent the greater and best part of my weekend as an intern for Lulu.tv / Gnack.com and started it off picking up Mur Lafferty, Jason Adams, and Carol Housel at the airport.
• Nice to see Colette Vogele, if only for a little bit.
• I believe Eric Rice was the first person to tell me in person that he listened to any of my podcasts, during the first Podcast Expo in 2005. Since he’s always fifteen miles ahead of the rest of us, that obviously makes me an innovator and revolutionary. Or it could have been that there were only, like, eight podcasts back then. Either way, it was good fun spending some quality time with him this time around, riffing on this crazy fuzzy-boundaries multimedia world we live in.
• It’s a very small world, at that. Considering the overlapping spheres we float in, I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Sean Percival walk into the super-secret “studio” we had set up to interview Eric. Sean and I know each other through his contract work with Mahalo.com, and it was cool to see him in a different setting. We’ll be trading brain cells in the near future, no doubt.
• Many of the usual suspects were there… a very special pleasure seeing you all again, and as usual, it’s never long enough or in deep enough depth. The Tribe knows its own; ’nuff said.
• I’ve become quite taken with spending the last night of these conventions / expos / conferences in a more quiet, intimate setting — someone’s hotel room, with a handful of friends. Sunday, Mur and Jason lodged with me, and our afternoon, evening, and early morning was in turns intimate, irreverent, revealing, hilarious, risque, revelatory, and above all, full of joy and joyness. Some of it was documented — look to a future Geek Fu Morning Show, and a new podcast from Jason.
• Finally… after this Expo, how you feel about Charlie The Unicorn will, for me, be a good barometer of the kind of person you are.

Next year… Las Vegas.

Brave Men Run, originally uploaded by Eric Rice.

Years from now, in the bleak night-lit streets of Saijo City, the blockbuster sensation that was “Brave Men Run” is all but forgotten — like a tattered, dirty poster, a remnant of a brighter time.

Thanks to Eric Rice!

Update: here’s another shot, with more posters.

Uber-blogger Robert Scoble has some interesting things to say about Mahalo, where I work, and how Mahalo fits into social search. In other words, he gets it. Very interesting fifteen minute video here.