Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► Hello and welcome back to Upgrade on Relay FM.

00:00:12 ◼   ► This is episode 9. Today's episode of Upgrade is brought to you by

00:00:17 ◼   ► Igloo, an internet you'll actually like, and The Converted by Idiom,

00:00:21 ◼   ► a unique converter for iOS. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined

00:00:26 ◼   ► by the man of this hour, Mr Jason Snow.

00:00:29 ◼   ► Hello, I'm happy to be your co-host for this one hour before we all move along with our

00:00:36 ◼   ► lives and go to other places and other podcasts.

00:00:38 ◼   ► So if this episode goes over an hour, which the listeners will know now, I don't know

00:00:43 ◼   ► what happens in the second hour.

00:00:44 ◼   ► It's going to be a short show.

00:00:46 ◼   ► I don't know who the man of the second hour is.

00:00:48 ◼   ► Now I've cursed...

00:00:49 ◼   ► Well, you will be the man of the all remaining hours of this podcast.

00:00:52 ◼   ► Okay, great.

00:00:53 ◼   ► I will cede control of being the man of the hour to you at the one hour mark.

00:00:57 ◼   ► where the wheels really come off. Yes, yeah. That's a Bonanza style insanity that happens

00:01:04 ◼   ► then. You want to keep it to around an hour if you can help it. Short show. So, hey Myke,

00:01:14 ◼   ► there's some follow-up. Oh, everybody's favorite. I know, I take too much glee in having follow-up,

00:01:20 ◼   ► but I'm just very excited that I have follow-up. First off, we talked a few weeks ago about

00:01:26 ◼   ► the fact that I am kind of unnerved by streaming services

00:01:31 ◼   ► because I wrote that article about how Battlestar Galactica

00:01:34 ◼   ► was being taken off of Netflix

00:01:36 ◼   ► and how streaming services are really convenient

00:01:39 ◼   ► but you were kind of at the whims of the catalogs

00:01:42 ◼   ► and you really see that in video streaming services

00:01:45 ◼   ► but you also can see that in audio a little bit

00:01:48 ◼   ► and I said, mostly the music stuff is just is fine.

00:01:51 ◼   ► We had the one piece of feedback from somebody who said

00:01:54 ◼   ► that the most successful German rapper, I think,

00:01:58 ◼   ► pulled all his stuff off of a streaming service

00:02:00 ◼   ► and people were upset about that.

00:02:03 ◼   ► And I just wanted to follow up

00:02:06 ◼   ► with some real world follow up,

00:02:07 ◼   ► which is Taylor Swift pulled all her albums off of Spotify.

00:02:11 ◼   ► Not only has she withheld her new album

00:02:13 ◼   ► from streaming services,

00:02:14 ◼   ► but I believe all of her albums were removed,

00:02:16 ◼   ► her whole catalog from Spotify.

00:02:19 ◼   ► And this is one of those things that I was talking about.

00:02:22 ◼   ► This may be an outlier or this may be a sign of things

00:02:25 ◼   ► to come that subscribing to a music service

00:02:28 ◼   ► is really awesome because you can do a lot of discovery

00:02:30 ◼   ► and there's just access to so much music,

00:02:32 ◼   ► but you do risk having stuff up and vanish on you.

00:02:37 ◼   ► And that's not cool.

00:02:39 ◼   ► That's not fun.

00:02:40 ◼   ► So if you enjoy Taylor Swift

00:02:42 ◼   ► and you built a Taylor Swift playlist on Spotify,

00:02:44 ◼   ► and it's now gone.

00:02:46 ◼   ► So this is the challenge

00:02:50 ◼   ► with all of these streaming services

00:02:51 ◼   ► is the intellectual property libraries

00:02:54 ◼   ► and the licensing agreements.

00:02:56 ◼   ► And if you bought her albums, you have them still.

00:03:00 ◼   ► And if you just listened on Spotify, now they're gone.

00:03:04 ◼   ► - So is she given much of a reason for why?

00:03:07 ◼   ► I've seen some headlines which kind of just say,

00:03:10 ◼   ► I'm not committing my life's work to a fad

00:03:13 ◼   ► and things like that.

00:03:15 ◼   ► Have you read anything?

00:03:16 ◼   ► - No, I-- - Suggest more?

00:03:18 ◼   ► No, I-- and it's on other services.

00:03:21 ◼   ► It's not entirely gone from all the services, I think.

00:03:26 ◼   ► But I don't know.

00:03:27 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know what her deal is with her record label,

00:03:31 ◼   ► and if there are specific things that she can, say,

00:03:35 ◼   ► take it off the streaming services,

00:03:37 ◼   ► and I don't know what their deals are.

00:03:40 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:03:41 ◼   ► I mean, I think what's really interesting

00:03:42 ◼   ► is that you've got a big star with a big hit album,

00:03:45 ◼   ► and everybody who's expected that they could just listen

00:03:47 ◼   ► to it on the streaming service the day that it came out have been sadly mistaken because

00:03:51 ◼   ► her album 1989 is not available for streaming, you need to buy it and that's interesting

00:03:56 ◼   ► and I think we're going to see more of that. I think you're going to end up seeing something

00:04:01 ◼   ► more like a video release window where you know it's in the theaters and then it's on

00:04:08 ◼   ► for purchase or for rental and eventually it ends up on TV. I think you might see that

00:04:12 ◼   ► with music services where they're more about the catalog and maybe less about new stuff,

00:04:18 ◼   ► especially from big names. So it'll be interesting to see how it goes. But the larger point was

00:04:23 ◼   ► just that this is the downside of those services. You get a lot of convenience and a lot of

00:04:26 ◼   ► value out of them. But one of the really consumer unfriendly things is this, that her albums

00:04:33 ◼   ► are just gone from Spotify. They just have vanished. And it's funny that we mentioned

00:04:37 ◼   ► and we didn't have a real high-profile example, a German rapper, I'm sorry, not quite high-profile

00:04:43 ◼   ► as Taylor Swift.

00:04:44 ◼   ► This is about as high-profile as it gets.

00:04:46 ◼   ► I have found a Rolling Stone article, and basically the gist of it is, it's kind of

00:04:54 ◼   ► summed up in this one quote from her, "I just don't agree with perpetuating the perception

00:04:59 ◼   ► that music has no value and should be free."

00:05:02 ◼   ► And the title of the article is about a superfan who wants to invest.

00:05:07 ◼   ► So she's kind of basically saying if people want to give you money, you're kind of not

00:05:12 ◼   ► allowing them to do that because the perception is all music is free on Spotify.

00:05:16 ◼   ► And that kind of like you pay a company, not the artist.

00:05:19 ◼   ► I think that's kind of her concern, which, you know, there's definitely some merit in

00:05:25 ◼   ► that, you know, the idea of being like, all music is free, it has no value.

00:05:29 ◼   ► You know, the people that made it don't deserve to be paid directly for it.

00:05:32 ◼   ► I get that, but it feels like this will only last for so long, because this is where the

00:05:44 ◼   ► kids are.

00:05:45 ◼   ► So, you know, eventually, well, she can choose, but eventually she may decide that she will

00:05:51 ◼   ► want to change that decision, who knows?

00:05:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, but it could also push the tech people who are behind these services to change too.

00:05:58 ◼   ► I mean, that's part of the argument here is,

00:06:01 ◼   ► this has been a very simple,

00:06:02 ◼   ► these services are conceived fairly simply

00:06:04 ◼   ► by people who are not in the music business.

00:06:06 ◼   ► These are mostly technical people

00:06:07 ◼   ► and then they get lawyers involved and they manage,

00:06:09 ◼   ► you know, they work with the music industry

00:06:11 ◼   ► to make deals and things like that.

00:06:13 ◼   ► And I've not heard any artists say

00:06:17 ◼   ► that streaming services are good for them.

00:06:20 ◼   ► And I get that they're good for consumers,

00:06:23 ◼   ► but there are markets where there's such an imbalance

00:06:26 ◼   ► between good for consumers but bad for the creators

00:06:29 ◼   ► or producers of the material that something has to give

00:06:32 ◼   ► because that's not something that's sustainable otherwise.

00:06:35 ◼   ► And so for an example, like a Blockbuster, like I said,

00:06:37 ◼   ► yeah, maybe it's a windowing system

00:06:40 ◼   ► where the new stuff doesn't appear.

00:06:42 ◼   ► Maybe it is a premium subscription

00:06:46 ◼   ► that gives you access to new releases for more money

00:06:49 ◼   ► or you can get the cheaper free subscription

00:06:52 ◼   ► for older stuff.

00:06:53 ◼   ► I don't know how it's gonna play out

00:06:55 ◼   ► but it's interesting that somebody who's got clout

00:06:58 ◼   ► because she's popular is using that to talk about

00:07:02 ◼   ► the issues involved and to bring attention to it.

00:07:05 ◼   ► It may have no bearing, it may not change a thing,

00:07:08 ◼   ► but I think it's an interesting approach

00:07:11 ◼   ► because I don't think that the current streaming service

00:07:15 ◼   ► system is sustainable for artists.

00:07:17 ◼   ► And yeah, the record companies are in the middle too,

00:07:20 ◼   ► and those guys probably, ideally you'd come up

00:07:23 ◼   ► with a system that eliminated the middlemen and just benefited the artists directly.

00:07:29 ◼   ► Because the music industry is legendary for how these big music record companies exploit

00:07:34 ◼   ► the artists.

00:07:36 ◼   ► But still, I think there are challenges with this, where artists don't like the existence

00:07:44 ◼   ► of these services and how much of that is just feeling like it devalues their work and

00:07:50 ◼   ► how much of it is literally it devalues their work because they don't get paid.

00:07:55 ◼   ► I think we're still too early to know what are the halo effects of streaming

00:08:02 ◼   ► streaming music. Like what does it over time drive up concert ticket sales which

00:08:08 ◼   ► is where these artists make the majority of their money. Probably not in Taylor

00:08:12 ◼   ► Swift's case because I'm sure she has a very lucrative recording contract now

00:08:17 ◼   ► because she has the ability to demand such a thing. But I just wonder if

00:08:22 ◼   ► in five years time we realized that there wasn't gonna be any more

00:08:25 ◼   ► money. Because we spoke about how... Do you remember I mentioned about the

00:08:29 ◼   ► Platinum album in America? Well, Taylor Swift's the only person now to

00:08:34 ◼   ► have done that this year, the only individual. So she is an outlier.

00:08:39 ◼   ► And it may be that music would have stopped being sold irrespective of

00:08:44 ◼   ► Spotify or something. Just because people would have moved to piracy which

00:08:47 ◼   ► they were anyway. So you know I think it's too soon to tell and we'll see if

00:08:53 ◼   ► Taylor Swift ends up like Led Zeppelin in a

00:08:57 ◼   ► couple of years time or not. But it wouldn't surprise me if these

00:09:00 ◼   ► streaming services end up being like Netflix which is not everything and

00:09:05 ◼   ► not the newest things but a nice selection if you want to dip into the

00:09:10 ◼   ► catalog but maybe not the new stuff and they do that specifically to try and

00:09:14 ◼   ► drive sales of the new stuff and you're right maybe that doesn't work maybe

00:09:17 ◼   ► people just pirated but I don't know it'll be interesting it'll be an

00:09:21 ◼   ► interesting to watch Brian Hamilton in the chat room pointed out that she wrote

00:09:25 ◼   ► an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal we'll put the link in the show notes I

00:09:29 ◼   ► in fact I already have but the the real way to read that article is to Google

00:09:34 ◼   ► for Taylor Swift the future of music is a love story and then click on the

00:09:40 ◼   ► search results because the Wall Street Journal will let you read it then and

00:09:43 ◼   ► otherwise they won't. Give it a shot. Just Google that. Anyway that was good that was good good real

00:09:52 ◼   ► world follow-up for a topic from a previous show. I wanted to mention the

00:09:56 ◼   ► true sign that that we have made it as a podcast Myke. Is there now two... I'm not

00:10:05 ◼   ► sure I'd call them parody accounts there are two Twitter accounts paying homage

00:10:10 ◼   ► to this podcast. It's true. This is a monumental day. Truly we live in

00:10:20 ◼   ► interesting times. So @ahoy_telephone is out there occasionally

00:10:26 ◼   ► barking commands to its telephone and I love this _manchego FM is now

00:10:34 ◼   ► out there for all of your Manchego cheese needs. So that's a tasty cheese.

00:10:41 ◼   ► Of which there are many.

00:10:43 ◼   ► Of which, yeah. And I think they're going to have some sort of fundraiser to get you

00:10:47 ◼   ► some Manchego.

00:10:48 ◼   ► There's been, I don't think we have any because it's kind of, we didn't need to cover it,

00:10:53 ◼   ► but we had quite a bit of Manchego cheese related follow up.

00:10:56 ◼   ► Yes. Yes. I didn't put that in the show notes. Suffice it to say, many people are trying

00:11:03 ◼   ► to get Myke some Manchego from Spain, which is just nearby. You don't have to go far at

00:11:11 ◼   ► all to get there. No, not at all. To Spain. You should probably jump on a train. Sure.

00:11:18 ◼   ► And then maybe another train. Yeah, you'd probably have to change trains at some point.

00:11:22 ◼   ► Then another train. After, yeah. But I'd get there. You could get there eventually. Take

00:11:26 ◼   ► bike, ride your bike through the countryside. I have a really nice bit of Kindle follow-up

00:11:34 ◼   ► from a listener who is, I've actually been on a podcast with this gentleman, it's Anzej

00:11:38 ◼   ► Tomic, he's from, okay he's not from Croatia, he's from Slovenia, but he vacations in Croatia

00:11:48 ◼   ► a lot and he said when the first Kindle 3G was made available they weren't in the EU and that

00:11:53 ◼   ► meant insane roaming charges. So he actually used his 3G Kindle to browse

00:11:58 ◼   ► and write email in Gmail on the experimental browser. It was slow and

00:12:03 ◼   ► awkward but nothing compared to the roaming charges. So he says it's not a

00:12:07 ◼   ► common use case but it was a way for him to get on the internet

00:12:12 ◼   ► internationally without paying an arm and a leg. And he still uses this

00:12:17 ◼   ► Croatia's in the EU so it's not so bad but in Serbia the same applies so when

00:12:23 ◼   ► he goes to Serbia he can use that until they eventually enter the EU. So I thought that

00:12:28 ◼   ► was really great from Anje who does a great podcast called Storming Mortal in English

00:12:35 ◼   ► and then he's also got a podcast I believe in Slovenian but that's a very limited audience

00:12:41 ◼   ► because there's only like four million people who speak it I think.

00:12:44 ◼   ► So the funny thing is like we've had shows like when Bionic was on Five by Five it was

00:12:49 ◼   ► number one in Slovenia like overall because Anse spoke about it. Yeah that

00:12:55 ◼   ► was that was Anse's own yeah that's exactly it well he has that power.

00:13:00 ◼   ► He controls it. He's like the godfather of iTunes in Slovenia. Very nice very

00:13:06 ◼   ► nice fellow AtomicXX on Twitter is his user account name I think.

00:13:13 ◼   ► Atomic XX because he is he's a Tomich so he's atomic it's pretty cool anyway

00:13:20 ◼   ► thank you to him for that also some Kindle follow-up from listener Brian who

00:13:26 ◼   ► we talked about auto loading books onto all your Kindles and he pointed out a

00:13:32 ◼   ► good reason why you wouldn't want to do that which is your entire family has

00:13:36 ◼   ► Kindles and you buy a book and you don't want to force that book onto everybody's

00:13:39 ◼   ► Kindle, I suppose that is, that's fair. But he points out something that is actually,

00:13:45 ◼   ► as somebody who just got a Kindle is a gripe that I have too, which is when you upgrade

00:13:49 ◼   ► to a new Kindle, you can't just point it at the library of the old Kindle, like in the

00:13:53 ◼   ► cloud and say, just give me all of the things that were on that other, there's no migration

00:13:58 ◼   ► to a new Kindle. You have to like either copy the files off via USB and put them back or

00:14:03 ◼   ► you have to just sort of manually go through and download them again. And that he's right.

00:14:09 ◼   ► silly. In the grand scheme of things it's not the worst thing because it only

00:14:11 ◼   ► happens when you buy a new Kindle but it's dumb and Amazon should probably do

00:14:16 ◼   ► better. Have you been enjoying a new Kindle? I have been. I've been I've been

00:14:20 ◼   ► reading I finished I finished a book I started another book. You published a

00:14:24 ◼   ► review as well? I did Six Colors my review is up now it was just dating I

00:14:30 ◼   ► think I've written it last week when we talked but hadn't added some things to

00:14:33 ◼   ► it and and Scott read it after he was on the show and and he said I can't believe

00:14:39 ◼   ► you even considered sending it back and I said well I didn't strongly consider

00:14:43 ◼   ► it but I did consider it because it was not as big a change as as I as I

00:14:48 ◼   ► expected but it's nice I like it and yeah I continue to read it but as was

00:14:52 ◼   ► established last week Scott is the he's the wrong person to talk to about such

00:14:56 ◼   ► things because no they could do nothing we just changed the name

00:15:03 ◼   ► I'll buy it. Yeah, it's his, he collects Kindles. It's a hobby that he has.

00:15:10 ◼   ► Also, we were talking about different tools, like there's a tool that lets you convert

00:15:14 ◼   ► EPUBs to, it does a lot of things, but one of the things it does is it'll convert EPUBs

00:15:18 ◼   ► into Mobi files that the Kindle can read. So if you've got an EPUB, you can put it on

00:15:22 ◼   ► a Kindle, even though it doesn't read that format, you can just convert it. And this

00:15:26 ◼   ► is a tool that for years and years and years, I called Calibre because it's spelled Calibre,

00:15:31 ◼   ► c-a-l-i-b-r-e. And in the last year I keep hearing people calling it Calibre and I thought

00:15:38 ◼   ► wow that is terrible that I have been mispronouncing that name all these years. And so last week

00:15:42 ◼   ► I referred to it as Calibre and listener Jeff points out that in the in the Calibre documentation

00:15:48 ◼   ► it makes it clear that it's pronounced Caliber and not Calibre. So don't do that and listener

00:15:54 ◼   ► Jeff also says hashtag how should I pronounce this hashtag GIF is still GIF or is it hashtag

00:16:01 ◼   ► GIF is still GIF. I don't know. Anyway, it's one of those.

00:16:07 ◼   ► I did hear you say it and thought, "That's definitely caliber." But I gave it to you.

00:16:14 ◼   ► I thought other people knew better than me after all that time. It's like, "Well, they

00:16:18 ◼   ► must know that why would you ever choose to pronounce it that way if that wasn't the name?"

00:16:21 ◼   ► And it turns out, I'm not going to name names of who I heard, but some fairly knowledgeable

00:16:25 ◼   ► people about ebooks referred to it that way. And I was like, "Well, that sounds... It certainly

00:16:28 ◼   ► sounds fancier than Calibre. So let's go with Calibre. No, it's not, it's just Calibre.

00:16:34 ◼   ► It's fine. It's a cool little utility. The UI is pretty atrociously ugly, but you know,

00:16:41 ◼   ► it works really well. So for converting ebooks and stuff, I'd definitely say check it out.

00:16:47 ◼   ► There's even a plugin that'll let you take your Kindle books and convert them to other

00:16:50 ◼   ► formats which is technically illegal because it's subverting the DRM, but you can do it.

00:16:56 ◼   ► It's a pretty high Calibre product.

00:16:59 ◼   ► - It is, it is.

00:17:00 ◼   ► I've rarely seen a product if it's Calibre.

00:17:03 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:17:05 ◼   ► So two more tweets and then we're done with a follow-up.

00:17:11 ◼   ► Listener Rick wrote in just to point out

00:17:14 ◼   ► and that we had heard a few of these.

00:17:16 ◼   ► I just wanna say it again.

00:17:17 ◼   ► PowerMax is a great company.

00:17:19 ◼   ► I've been buying and trading in my Max with them for years.

00:17:24 ◼   ► I got a few people, somebody said,

00:17:25 ◼   ► I can't believe Jason has never heard of PowerMax

00:17:28 ◼   ► or doesn't know what they are.

00:17:28 ◼   ► I actually have heard of PowerMax,

00:17:30 ◼   ► but this is one of those funny things

00:17:31 ◼   ► about being on a podcast, which is,

00:17:33 ◼   ► I'm hesitant in the moment to just endorse something.

00:17:38 ◼   ► If we're talking about, what I didn't want to have happen

00:17:40 ◼   ► is that I misremembered, and the company that I thought

00:17:44 ◼   ► I was talking about was not the company,

00:17:46 ◼   ► and we ended up recommending

00:17:47 ◼   ► some shady fly-by-night company

00:17:49 ◼   ► for buying remaindered old Macs on the podcast.

00:17:53 ◼   ► And so a lot of times when information like that comes up,

00:17:56 ◼   ► and I'm not 100% on it while we're recording a podcast,

00:17:59 ◼   ► I will kind of demur.

00:18:01 ◼   ► I will back up a little bit and be like, oh, maybe,

00:18:05 ◼   ► I don't know, rather than just agreeing.

00:18:08 ◼   ► Because there is a risk that if you say it

00:18:10 ◼   ► and you're totally wrong that bad things could happen.

00:18:13 ◼   ► So sometimes that happens.

00:18:15 ◼   ► And that's just the thing about podcasts

00:18:16 ◼   ► being kind of a first draft of your thoughts

00:18:20 ◼   ► and different than when you're writing something down

00:18:22 ◼   ► you spend time checking, you know, we're just talking and recording this and then

00:18:25 ◼   ► we'll post it and people will listen to it. So I actually, when I looked at the

00:18:29 ◼   ► site a little bit more I was like, oh yeah, I remember these guys, but at the

00:18:32 ◼   ► time it was happening fast enough that I didn't want to give an endorsement and

00:18:36 ◼   ► then have it be totally wrong for something that involved like buying

00:18:39 ◼   ► buying hardware because, you know, I'd like to have some idea of who the people

00:18:44 ◼   ► are before I say yes, give them thousands of dollars. So I may not need PowerMax

00:18:50 ◼   ► anymore. Ah yeah, let's take this as a this. Now we're in the mic's computer

00:18:55 ◼   ► vertical of the show, so tell me what's going on with you. So our good

00:19:01 ◼   ► friend, our mutual friend Mr. Marco Arment has recently been testing various

00:19:05 ◼   ► different microphones and USB interfaces and he's gonna he's gonna write it up

00:19:13 ◼   ► for his site, I believe, so I'm not gonna spoil it but we've been

00:19:17 ◼   ► talking because I have a vested interest in these things as well and he has

00:19:23 ◼   ► suggested to me to get a different interface than the one I currently have

00:19:27 ◼   ► which is a USB interface because he has tried it out with my microphone and the

00:19:33 ◼   ► microphone he uses and he suggests it and therefore I may be changing to a USB

00:19:41 ◼   ► interface which means I will no longer be restricted by the audio in audio out

00:19:46 ◼   ► because I won't have the option but the USB interface looks like it would do a

00:19:50 ◼   ► much better job at like a mere fraction of the size of the one that I currently

00:19:56 ◼   ► have so I may I may change to to that or I'm at least going to get one to try it

00:20:02 ◼   ► out because it's not that expensive really and then I may I may completely

00:20:07 ◼   ► I may go in a completely different direction I may even go with Retina

00:20:10 ◼   ► iMac who knows but I it will open up a little bit more to what I'll be able to

00:20:17 ◼   ► buy and I won't be restricted to just getting a now old Mac Mini. You could use

00:20:22 ◼   ► your your retina MacBook Pro. Yeah I still don't want to do that but yeah I could do

00:20:28 ◼   ► that if I wanted to I could do in a pinch I could but I'd still I'd still

00:20:31 ◼   ► want a separate machine I like the idea of having a separate machine. All right I

00:20:36 ◼   ► I thought you were gonna say that Marco's Mac Pro

00:20:38 ◼   ► is on the market.

00:20:40 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, I think it is, but I don't know if I want that.

00:20:45 ◼   ► I thought about it 'cause I'd seen him,

00:20:48 ◼   ► I'm sure I'd seen him somewhere say about

00:20:49 ◼   ► how much he was selling it for,

00:20:50 ◼   ► and it looked like an okay enough deal,

00:20:52 ◼   ► but then I'd have to get it here,

00:20:54 ◼   ► and that's where I would lose all of the money,

00:20:57 ◼   ► and then could just buy a new one if I really wanted it.

00:21:00 ◼   ► So yeah, basically I'm not gonna buy anything yet

00:21:04 ◼   ► because I don't know what decisions I'll be making soon.

00:21:08 ◼   ► - Okay, so we'll come back to this.

00:21:10 ◼   ► What you're saying is that you should stay tuned

00:21:11 ◼   ► for the next episode of what Myke's computer choice is,

00:21:15 ◼   ► vertical, inside, upgrade. - Yeah, it's the

00:21:16 ◼   ► computer choice vertical.

00:21:18 ◼   ► - Okay, good, all right, we'll keep an eye.

00:21:22 ◼   ► I used, at Macworld, we had a FireWire mixer

00:21:26 ◼   ► for a long time, and then we went to a USB mixer.

00:21:29 ◼   ► That was fine, that was fine.

00:21:33 ◼   ► The audio stuff is like a hole that you can go down

00:21:36 ◼   ► and never get back out.

00:21:37 ◼   ► You could literally go down in that hole forever

00:21:40 ◼   ► about like different processors and different microphones

00:21:43 ◼   ► and different interfaces.

00:21:45 ◼   ► And I'm sure there are, I mean, musicians do that,

00:21:48 ◼   ► but I'm sure the podcasters,

00:21:50 ◼   ► there are some podcasters down in that hole too.

00:21:53 ◼   ► So I see that I'm, you know, I actually had this,

00:21:57 ◼   ► this is not follow-up, but I had this happen.

00:22:00 ◼   ► I've been trying for a long time now

00:22:01 ◼   ► to figure out the best workflow to make sound effects

00:22:05 ◼   ► in a podcast that's happening on Skype.

00:22:06 ◼   ► Now you have a podcast that has sound effects, don't you?

00:22:10 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:22:11 ◼   ► - So how do you do that?

00:22:13 ◼   ► Are you doing that analog?

00:22:14 ◼   ► Are you mixing that in?

00:22:15 ◼   ► - I am, I am.

00:22:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I figured it out

00:22:19 ◼   ► and it involves a piece of unreleased software.

00:22:22 ◼   ► I think it's announced, but not yet released.

00:22:24 ◼   ► So I don't know if I should even talk about,

00:22:29 ◼   ► well, anyway, so there's a piece of unannounced software

00:22:31 ◼   ► or unreleased already announced software

00:22:34 ◼   ► and a piece of software called SoundSiphon.

00:22:37 ◼   ► And if I use those together with the Soundboard app,

00:22:40 ◼   ► I can get it to work.

00:22:41 ◼   ► So I'm excited about that,

00:22:42 ◼   ► that I can actually do an all software sound effects

00:22:46 ◼   ► over Skype thing.

00:22:48 ◼   ► So I'll mention that some more, I think,

00:22:51 ◼   ► when that product is finally released.

00:22:53 ◼   ► It's been sort of touted for about a year now as coming out

00:22:56 ◼   ► and it is going to come out at some point,

00:22:58 ◼   ► but it's not out yet.

00:23:00 ◼   ► So I should probably wait and not get into the details.

00:23:03 ◼   ► But I did figure that out and that was exciting.

00:23:05 ◼   ► So, you know, that was my big step up

00:23:07 ◼   ► is doing it all in software

00:23:09 ◼   ► because the Mac's software sound stuff is not great.

00:23:14 ◼   ► - I'm very interested in that

00:23:15 ◼   ► because the setup that I have would not work

00:23:19 ◼   ► if I changed interface.

00:23:21 ◼   ► 'Cause I kind of have this really weird way

00:23:24 ◼   ► of like taking the audio.

00:23:25 ◼   ► This is one of the reasons I want audio in, audio out.

00:23:27 ◼   ► I take the audio from the Mac, pass it into the mixer,

00:23:32 ◼   ► and then back in again.

00:23:33 ◼   ► - That's what we did in Macworld.

00:23:35 ◼   ► We had the microphone or the headphone jack

00:23:38 ◼   ► going into the board.

00:23:40 ◼   ► - Yep, that's what I have.

00:23:41 ◼   ► That's how I do it.

00:23:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, so you're just capturing your system audio.

00:23:45 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:23:45 ◼   ► - And yeah, yeah, that's what we did too.

00:23:48 ◼   ► But it can be done.

00:23:49 ◼   ► So we'll follow up on that one in a future show too,

00:23:51 ◼   ► 'cause I would like to talk about some podcasting stuff.

00:23:55 ◼   ► But I wanna wait for that app that isn't out yet to be out

00:24:00 ◼   ► so that I can recommend it and endorse it and all of that.

00:24:04 ◼   ► - Is it definitely coming out?

00:24:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'll just say,

00:24:08 ◼   ► there's a new version of Audio Hijack coming out

00:24:10 ◼   ► and Rogue Amoeba has talked about it

00:24:11 ◼   ► and they've shown some glimpses of the interface

00:24:13 ◼   ► and I've been using it for a while and it's fantastic

00:24:16 ◼   ► and I can't wait for them to ship it.

00:24:18 ◼   ► And when that happens,

00:24:19 ◼   ► we'll talk about other ways of using it

00:24:22 ◼   ► 'cause it's great.

00:24:24 ◼   ► but it's not out yet.

00:24:25 ◼   ► So there's no point other than me going in

00:24:29 ◼   ► and I've got the new audio hijack.

00:24:31 ◼   ► It doesn't do any good for anybody,

00:24:32 ◼   ► but they're working on it.

00:24:33 ◼   ► It looks great.

00:24:34 ◼   ► It's gonna come out

00:24:35 ◼   ► and then we can talk about it some more.

00:24:37 ◼   ► Really quick follow up from listener Brad,

00:24:42 ◼   ► which is just,

00:24:42 ◼   ► we were talking about TestFlight the other week.

00:24:45 ◼   ► And he asked if we could talk a little bit

00:24:47 ◼   ► about having a beta app from TestFlight

00:24:49 ◼   ► and how it interacts with the released version.

00:24:51 ◼   ► My understanding is that it just overwrites it.

00:24:54 ◼   ► It knows the app ID.

00:24:57 ◼   ► And unless the developer is running the beta

00:24:59 ◼   ► on like a different ID,

00:25:00 ◼   ► I think it just overwrites it.

00:25:03 ◼   ► And so like when I upgraded my Twitter-ific

00:25:06 ◼   ► to the beta in TestFlight,

00:25:09 ◼   ► it was still in my doc where I leave it.

00:25:12 ◼   ► It's still there with the little circle,

00:25:14 ◼   ► the little orange or whatever it is,

00:25:15 ◼   ► circle next to it that says it's a beta.

00:25:17 ◼   ► So it just does it, boom.

00:25:21 ◼   ► it just pops it right in there.

00:25:22 ◼   ► It knows it's the same app, even though it's a beta.

00:25:25 ◼   ► - There is an interesting thing I've noticed

00:25:27 ◼   ► that there's like a ticking clock on all of them.

00:25:30 ◼   ► You know, it has like 30 days.

00:25:31 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, 30 days.

00:25:32 ◼   ► You can't just have an endless beta,

00:25:33 ◼   ► which is probably good.

00:25:34 ◼   ► I've run betas accidentally for a long time after.

00:25:38 ◼   ► That's not good.

00:25:39 ◼   ► So I think that's kind of cool,

00:25:42 ◼   ► that you can either be on the beta train

00:25:44 ◼   ► and getting the new betas or the beta will expire

00:25:46 ◼   ► and you need to go back to the App Store version.

00:25:49 ◼   ► And then there was just one last piece of follow-up,

00:25:53 ◼   ► which is an interesting one, because this is from S Williams, Scott Williams,

00:25:58 ◼   ► and he mentioned about how it took 24 hours from uploading a build

00:26:03 ◼   ► to passing it for review for a test flight beta,

00:26:05 ◼   ► but in his opinion, that's too long.

00:26:07 ◼   ► And that's interesting, because I hadn't thought of it that way.

00:26:09 ◼   ► We've been previously saying, "Oh, how great, you know,

00:26:11 ◼   ► 24 hours is perfectly fine," but maybe you just want to get it out immediately,

00:26:18 ◼   ► which is what you're used to. So 24 hours is 24 hours longer than 10 seconds.

00:26:23 ◼   ► You know? Right. And I just thought it was a really interesting way of looking at it. Like, yes,

00:26:29 ◼   ► yes it is only 24 hours. However, 24 hours is, you know, that's a day longer than you would have had

00:26:36 ◼   ► to wait before. You get all of the extra features of that. And, you know, hockey app is still out

00:26:43 ◼   ► there, so people can still use hockey if they want the completely third-party approach there.

00:26:46 ◼   ► The idea of Apple's test light is that it's got all these other advantages going for it,

00:26:53 ◼   ► including the linking it to an ID instead of a device ID.

00:26:57 ◼   ► But yeah, it'll be interesting to see how it goes and if it settles down over time and

00:27:01 ◼   ► if the stories we heard about it, the first approval taking a few hours or a day and then

00:27:07 ◼   ► future approvals being almost instantaneous.

00:27:10 ◼   ► Anyway.

00:27:11 ◼   ► I do think though my experience remains like that it is superior I think in some ways.

00:27:18 ◼   ► It's just easier, it's so much easier and I feel like the apps that I'm currently testing on,

00:27:24 ◼   ► they're issuing new builds as quick as, as frequently as when I've been on hockey or on the previous test flight.

00:27:32 ◼   ► And there are a lot of simple things that I quite like.

00:27:37 ◼   ► Alright, so that's half an hour of follow-up, half of my hour of being the man of the hour

00:27:42 ◼   ► is now gone, but I think, in order to, before we move on to a topic, I, Myke, I would like

00:27:48 ◼   ► to hear from a friend. I need to hear from a friend right now.

00:27:52 ◼   ► The actual people behind this app are a friend. Me and Jason had eaten breakfast at Ool with

00:27:59 ◼   ► Hans, who is from Idion. Now, Idion are the makers of an app called The Converted, which

00:28:05 ◼   ► is a fantastic name for an application.

00:28:08 ◼   ► And this episode of Upgrade is brought to you by the app.

00:28:10 ◼   ► The converted is a unique unit converter for iOS.

00:28:15 ◼   ► This app is the best way to convert numbers

00:28:17 ◼   ► since the measuring cup, as it's based on that very thing.

00:28:21 ◼   ► The measuring cup in your cupboard,

00:28:23 ◼   ► with markings for ounces, liters, tablespoons, et cetera,

00:28:27 ◼   ► or the thermometer on your wall,

00:28:29 ◼   ► both represent information in a scale, right?

00:28:31 ◼   ► So they have this scale that you can look up

00:28:33 ◼   ► and you convert the unit conversions

00:28:35 ◼   ► by looking at the scale.

00:28:36 ◼   ► They give a very clear and highly visual representation

00:28:39 ◼   ► of how units relate, and developer Idion realized

00:28:43 ◼   ► that this might work for other types of units too,

00:28:45 ◼   ► so they made the converted.

00:28:48 ◼   ► The converted is perfect for getting a quick conversion

00:28:50 ◼   ► of units when you're abroad, working with people overseas,

00:28:53 ◼   ► or you just want some sort of quick unit conversion.

00:28:56 ◼   ► You get a real easy sense of how currency can be related

00:29:01 ◼   ► between US dollars and Euros for example,

00:29:04 ◼   ► but also for things in the metric or imperial system too.

00:29:07 ◼   ► There's a total of 481 units that you can use,

00:29:10 ◼   ► including all currencies and hundreds of others

00:29:13 ◼   ► across 21 different categories like power,

00:29:16 ◼   ► energy, fuel consumption, and more.

00:29:19 ◼   ► This is all done without the need of a keypad.

00:29:21 ◼   ► It's a real great interface,

00:29:22 ◼   ► which is clearly designed for iOS

00:29:24 ◼   ► that features swiping and zooming

00:29:26 ◼   ► and loads of pinch navigation gestures.

00:29:28 ◼   ► You basically open the app

00:29:30 ◼   ► and you can set the category you want,

00:29:32 ◼   ► like you can pinch apart to select the categories,

00:29:35 ◼   ► and then you're shown, I'll use the easy ones,

00:29:38 ◼   ► so US dollars to Great British pounds.

00:29:41 ◼   ► So if US dollars on one side,

00:29:42 ◼   ► Great British pounds on the other side.

00:29:43 ◼   ► And you see on like a scale how they relate to each other.

00:29:47 ◼   ► So like 400 US dollars is 200 pounds, for example.

00:29:52 ◼   ► You kind of see them next to each other,

00:29:55 ◼   ► and you can zoom in, and as you zoom in,

00:29:57 ◼   ► like the gaps between the numbers get smaller and smaller,

00:29:59 ◼   ► instead of it being like gaps of hundreds, it's gaps of tens, all the way to one.

00:30:03 ◼   ► And you just scroll up and down and you can very easily and visually just see how the two things compare.

00:30:08 ◼   ► You don't need to enter in a keyboard or anything like that.

00:30:10 ◼   ► It's really a great way to just jump in and get a quick sort of comparison between two different units.

00:30:16 ◼   ► It also cleverly uses location awareness and this helps you find the currency you're looking for when you're abroad.

00:30:21 ◼   ► When you're in Spain finding some Manchego cheese, you can very easily find out what the Euro is to the dollar.

00:30:27 ◼   ► So you can buy your main Chico Cheese at a good price.

00:30:30 ◼   ► And the converted has recently been updated to the TodayView extension.

00:30:33 ◼   ► It shows the most current conversion that's in the app.

00:30:36 ◼   ► So it's just a quick way of getting that and then you're right there in your TodayView

00:30:39 ◼   ► and you can jump right into the app by just a tap.

00:30:42 ◼   ► The converted is available in the App Store right now as a universal app.

00:30:46 ◼   ► And you should go check it out by going to theconverted.co.

00:30:50 ◼   ► Thank you so much to the converted by Idion for supporting this show and RelayFM.

00:30:54 ◼   ► fan. So there we go. Thank you so much. They are a friend. They're a new friend.

00:30:59 ◼   ► Yes, they are. A new upgrade friend. Mm-hmm.

00:31:04 ◼   ► Okay, well, Myke, how would you like to spend the next half hour?

00:31:10 ◼   ► However you want, sir. I thought we would talk, so okay. I got my

00:31:17 ◼   ► my retina iMac last week while I was in Arizona and it sat in a box in my office for four

00:31:25 ◼   ► days. And I told people this and they didn't realize that I wasn't at home and they're

00:31:30 ◼   ► like, "I'm amazed by your self-restraint that you haven't taken out of the box already."

00:31:34 ◼   ► It's like, "No, no, no, you don't understand. I'm hundreds of miles away from it." And sure

00:31:37 ◼   ► enough when I got home within five minutes that box was open.

00:31:41 ◼   ► It's not self-restraint, it's location restraint.

00:31:44 ◼   ► That's right. This is one of the great ways to practice self-restraint is drive yourself

00:31:47 ◼   ► or fly yourself somewhere far away and then you've got the restraint.

00:31:51 ◼   ► It's like not buying stuff that's bad for you at the store.

00:31:55 ◼   ► Like you know, if it's in, and this is true for me, if it's in the house, if it's in the

00:31:58 ◼   ► cupboards, the refrigerator, I'm in deep, deep trouble.

00:32:03 ◼   ► But I have no problem just not buying it at the store.

00:32:05 ◼   ► I have good supermarket willpower, but bad refrigerator willpower.

00:32:10 ◼   ► So this is a little bit like that with me and electronics.

00:32:13 ◼   ► Like if there's a gadget in the house, in a box, I just have to open it.

00:32:17 ◼   ► I can't, I have to open it right then.

00:32:20 ◼   ► So I did when I got back on Thursday and set it up.

00:32:23 ◼   ► And I, you know, I'm now speaking to you,

00:32:25 ◼   ► I'm sitting at my desk and I've got this,

00:32:27 ◼   ► I've got the iMac sitting here and it's all hooked up

00:32:30 ◼   ► and going great.

00:32:31 ◼   ► So I took a picture because what's interesting about it is

00:32:34 ◼   ► after using the review unit from Apple,

00:32:36 ◼   ► which was just a standard stock configuration iMac,

00:32:40 ◼   ► I went back, I put that,

00:32:42 ◼   ► I moved that to the table behind me

00:32:44 ◼   ► and put my laptop setup back up,

00:32:46 ◼   ► which is a 24 inch Dell monitor on an ARM

00:32:49 ◼   ► and my MacBook Air in a 12 South Bookarc.

00:32:54 ◼   ► And I hooked it all back up.

00:32:57 ◼   ► And I had that moment of, "Oh, this isn't retina."

00:33:00 ◼   ► But also I had that moment of, "Hey, my desk is back."

00:33:03 ◼   ► Because the iMac with its foot sitting on the desk

00:33:06 ◼   ► and you usually have it fairly close

00:33:08 ◼   ► to the front of your desk, or at least I do.

00:33:11 ◼   ► I have this whole nice desk behind it

00:33:13 ◼   ► that is completely invisible when I'm sitting at my desk

00:33:16 ◼   ► because the iMac is just dominating and it's like a wall

00:33:19 ◼   ► and there's a little bit of space underneath,

00:33:20 ◼   ► but you can't really see it.

00:33:22 ◼   ► And I had that moment where I realized,

00:33:25 ◼   ► I'm really liking having my monitor on an arm,

00:33:28 ◼   ► which I've had since I set up this desk,

00:33:30 ◼   ► I've had this 24 inch Dell monitor floating on an arm.

00:33:34 ◼   ► And I really liked that.

00:33:36 ◼   ► So I bought the iMac with the VESA mount on the back

00:33:40 ◼   ► instead of the foot.

00:33:42 ◼   ► And my thought process there was pretty simple

00:33:44 ◼   ► is we talked about the idea of,

00:33:46 ◼   ► could you convert an iMac into a Visa mountable thing?

00:33:49 ◼   ► And there are adapters for that,

00:33:50 ◼   ► but the foot just kind of floats in the air.

00:33:54 ◼   ► 'Cause it doesn't, you can't take it off.

00:33:55 ◼   ► It just kind of is floating there.

00:33:57 ◼   ► And I thought that was kind of dumb.

00:33:58 ◼   ► And I realized that if at the end of the day,

00:34:01 ◼   ► this iMac goes somewhere and needs to have a stand

00:34:06 ◼   ► and sit on a stand, they make Visa mountable stands.

00:34:10 ◼   ► You just put on, you know,

00:34:11 ◼   ► it's a stand that attaches to the Visa mounts

00:34:13 ◼   ► and then you've got to stand for the computer.

00:34:15 ◼   ► So that probably is its fate one day.

00:34:18 ◼   ► But for now I've got it on this arm,

00:34:20 ◼   ► the same arm that I got when I got the desk

00:34:22 ◼   ► and attached the Dell monitor to,

00:34:23 ◼   ► took four screws, screwed, you know,

00:34:25 ◼   ► unscrewed the one monitor and screwed on the iMac

00:34:28 ◼   ► and I had to increase the tension on the arm a little bit

00:34:31 ◼   ► 'cause the iMac is definitely heavier

00:34:33 ◼   ► than the Dell monitor was.

00:34:35 ◼   ► So after that and talking about putting the iMac

00:34:39 ◼   ► on an arm versus not, I thought I would take a picture.

00:34:41 ◼   ► So I took a picture and put it on Twitter and just said,

00:34:44 ◼   ► I'm acting on an arm and proceeded into something

00:34:49 ◼   ► that only Twitter can do,

00:34:50 ◼   ► which is the like Zapruder film like analysis

00:34:54 ◼   ► of every object.

00:34:56 ◼   ► I knew it was gonna happen,

00:34:57 ◼   ► but of every single object that is in that picture.

00:35:01 ◼   ► - Well, I'm gonna do that to you now.

00:35:02 ◼   ► So people can get the audio version of such a thing.

00:35:07 ◼   ► I had a couple of questions.

00:35:11 ◼   ► The main question I had is,

00:35:13 ◼   ► is the iMac not too close to your face?

00:35:18 ◼   ► - Well, when I took that picture,

00:35:21 ◼   ► it was not in a real working setup.

00:35:24 ◼   ► Like my old laptop is still there because I'm attached.

00:35:28 ◼   ► You can actually see the white thunderbolt cable

00:35:31 ◼   ► coming out of the laptop and going into the iMac

00:35:34 ◼   ► 'cause I was doing my migration.

00:35:35 ◼   ► And I literally had nothing else to do

00:35:37 ◼   ► because I was migrating and my old system

00:35:40 ◼   ► of my new system were both inaccessible,

00:35:41 ◼   ► so I tweeted pictures instead.

00:35:43 ◼   ► So normally I think it would be,

00:35:46 ◼   ► I'm still trying to work out exactly

00:35:48 ◼   ► what the right position is, but yeah,

00:35:49 ◼   ► it's partly I think that picture is not accurate

00:35:53 ◼   ► about the geometry there, and partly I think

00:35:56 ◼   ► that it's a little too close.

00:35:59 ◼   ► That was not an actual workspace.

00:36:02 ◼   ► At some point I should probably take a picture

00:36:03 ◼   ► when I get this all settled of my actual workspace

00:36:06 ◼   ► as I use it every day,

00:36:09 ◼   ► but that wasn't what this was meant to reflect.

00:36:11 ◼   ► So yeah, I think it's probably a little bit too close.

00:36:15 ◼   ► It's much further away from me right now

00:36:16 ◼   ► as I record this than it is in that picture.

00:36:20 ◼   ► - And so now you're using the Retina iMac, right?

00:36:25 ◼   ► So you've been using it for a few days,

00:36:27 ◼   ► so you maybe don't have a sense for this yet,

00:36:30 ◼   ► but obviously when you were using the MacBook Air plugged in

00:36:35 ◼   ► the MacBook Air was driving everything,

00:36:36 ◼   ► so that's where everything was.

00:36:38 ◼   ► So when you now are away from the desk and you're working,

00:36:44 ◼   ► so maybe you're on holiday or something like that,

00:36:47 ◼   ► are you not concerned that those two machines

00:36:51 ◼   ► will now be kind of out of sync of each other?

00:36:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, I have not really used the MacBook Air

00:36:57 ◼   ► since I migrated, and so I think that's the question.

00:37:01 ◼   ► My plan is that it's for travel,

00:37:02 ◼   ► And also like, if I wanna do something,

00:37:05 ◼   ► I'm hoping that this will let me do a little bit more

00:37:08 ◼   ► of the I'm closing the door, I'm not in the office.

00:37:11 ◼   ► And then if I wanna do something on laptop,

00:37:13 ◼   ► be like write a, work on my novel or something like that,

00:37:17 ◼   ► that I could do that on the air and also travel with it.

00:37:19 ◼   ► So I haven't worked through all the changes,

00:37:21 ◼   ► but I'm gonna use Dropbox

00:37:23 ◼   ► because that's mostly what I use anyway.

00:37:24 ◼   ► And I'll put key files in Dropbox.

00:37:26 ◼   ► And it is essentially an out of date clone of my iMac now,

00:37:31 ◼   ► because that's where it migrated from.

00:37:34 ◼   ► So it's got all the stuff.

00:37:36 ◼   ► And yeah, that'll drift a little bit over time.

00:37:38 ◼   ► And I'll probably delete some stuff over

00:37:39 ◼   ► on the MacBook Air because there's no point

00:37:42 ◼   ► in having it there.

00:37:43 ◼   ► But I already use Dropbox for a lot of stuff

00:37:45 ◼   ► and put most of my key stuff in Dropbox.

00:37:47 ◼   ► So like most of the stories I write,

00:37:48 ◼   ► I save them into Dropbox while I'm working on them.

00:37:51 ◼   ► So if I went and opened up that laptop,

00:37:54 ◼   ► Dropbox would sync and I would have that story on Dropbox too.

00:37:57 ◼   ► And actually my BP edit application support folder

00:38:00 ◼   ► is in Dropbox, because that's supported by BB Edit.

00:38:03 ◼   ► So even the BB Edit preferences and clippings

00:38:06 ◼   ► and things like that stay in sync across the machines.

00:38:09 ◼   ► I used to do that.

00:38:10 ◼   ► I used to have an iMac at work.

00:38:12 ◼   ► And I had my MacBook at home.

00:38:15 ◼   ► And so I used to be in a scenario like this,

00:38:18 ◼   ► where I used Dropbox a lot for things like stories

00:38:23 ◼   ► I was working on and stuff like that.

00:38:25 ◼   ► - Is that an Apple remote on the desk?

00:38:28 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:38:30 ◼   ► Somebody who was, I think Dave Zatz, Zatz not funny,

00:38:33 ◼   ► noticed that, yeah.

00:38:36 ◼   ► Yeah, that's the white Apple.

00:38:37 ◼   ► I do have some of the silver Apple remotes,

00:38:38 ◼   ► but this is just,

00:38:39 ◼   ► I have like 10 of these little white Apple remotes.

00:38:41 ◼   ► So that's what that is.

00:38:42 ◼   ► And there's a reason that's there, Myke.

00:38:44 ◼   ► If you look sort of in the far corner of the desk,

00:38:46 ◼   ► you may see an interesting object.

00:38:48 ◼   ► - An iPod Hi-Fi.

00:38:50 ◼   ► - It is an iPod Hi-Fi. - I just thought it was

00:38:51 ◼   ► a box. (laughs)

00:38:52 ◼   ► - No, that's an iPod Hi-Fi.

00:38:54 ◼   ► As I think I mentioned on the show before.

00:38:56 ◼   ► - You did, I remember.

00:38:58 ◼   ► I have an iPod Hi-Fi with the AUX,

00:39:00 ◼   ► it has an AUX in plug on the back.

00:39:02 ◼   ► So even though the dock connector

00:39:04 ◼   ► uses the old FireWire charging method,

00:39:07 ◼   ► and so even if you've got a thing with a dock connector,

00:39:09 ◼   ► it won't actually charge it unless you use another adapter,

00:39:13 ◼   ► which is not, I mean, just forget it,

00:39:14 ◼   ► but there's an AUX port on the back.

00:39:16 ◼   ► So I just have a plug plugged into the iPod Hi-Fi.

00:39:21 ◼   ► And then I actually, for the MacBook Air,

00:39:23 ◼   ► I had this Belkin Thunderbolt dock,

00:39:26 ◼   ► And I'm still using it because I bought it

00:39:29 ◼   ► for the MacBook Air because it gave me gigabit ethernet

00:39:33 ◼   ► and video, like video out and USB ports

00:39:38 ◼   ► and just, and audio out and all this stuff

00:39:41 ◼   ► where I could just plug all of the cables

00:39:43 ◼   ► into the Thunderbolt dock.

00:39:45 ◼   ► And only, I only had to plug one thing.

00:39:48 ◼   ► I plugged power and the Thunderbolt cable

00:39:51 ◼   ► into my MacBook Air.

00:39:52 ◼   ► And then that was it.

00:39:53 ◼   ► the monitor turned on, all the USB lit up,

00:39:56 ◼   ► the audio out was set, it was great.

00:40:00 ◼   ► And it's plugged in, the audio out on the Thunderbolt dock

00:40:04 ◼   ► is plugged into the iPod Hi-Fi.

00:40:06 ◼   ► So that's what I use to play music and stuff while I work.

00:40:10 ◼   ► And sometimes when I'm editing podcasts too,

00:40:12 ◼   ► rather than putting on headphones,

00:40:14 ◼   ► I'll just have the audio going and do that.

00:40:17 ◼   ► And I'm actually still using that with the iMac,

00:40:20 ◼   ► mostly out of clutter.

00:40:22 ◼   ► I'm gonna try to reduce my cable clutter,

00:40:24 ◼   ► which is another thing people noticed in this picture.

00:40:28 ◼   ► And then the cool thing since I have the Thunderbolt dock

00:40:30 ◼   ► is it's the same thing.

00:40:31 ◼   ► I have one black Thunderbolt cable running to the iMac

00:40:35 ◼   ► instead of multiple USBs and an audio plug

00:40:40 ◼   ► and an ethernet plug.

00:40:42 ◼   ► And I'm actually thinking I'm gonna tuck that Thunderbolt

00:40:45 ◼   ► dock like under the desk, like attach it,

00:40:47 ◼   ► like stick it under the desk or something

00:40:49 ◼   ► so that I don't even see it.

00:40:51 ◼   ► and it's just, yeah, it's just velcroed underneath.

00:40:54 ◼   ► I would never recommend that somebody buy

00:40:57 ◼   ► a $200 Thunderbolt dock or whatever it is

00:40:59 ◼   ► as a cord control mechanism,

00:41:03 ◼   ► but since I have it, I may stick with it, we'll see.

00:41:07 ◼   ► - If people wanna see these images, by the way,

00:41:10 ◼   ► they're in our show notes, which are relay.fm/upgrade/nine.

00:41:15 ◼   ► I really like that there is both a brain and a drill

00:41:17 ◼   ► next to each other in the corner.

00:41:19 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, that's a screwdriver.

00:41:21 ◼   ► It's a cordless screwdriver.

00:41:22 ◼   ► It's not a drill.

00:41:23 ◼   ► It's not that powerful.

00:41:24 ◼   ► It's just a screwdriver.

00:41:25 ◼   ► It's what I use to mount the iMac on the VISA screws.

00:41:29 ◼   ► And then next to it, yes, as mentioned in previous podcasts,

00:41:32 ◼   ► the Nerf brain ball, one of my collection

00:41:35 ◼   ► of Nerf brain balls is on the desk.

00:41:37 ◼   ► It's in my hands right now.

00:41:38 ◼   ► Several upgrade listeners noticed that.

00:41:41 ◼   ► I'm not lying.

00:41:42 ◼   ► Although this gives it scale,

00:41:43 ◼   ► 'cause you can see it compared to the MacBook Air

00:41:45 ◼   ► and realize that this is not a small, like, foam brain ball.

00:41:50 ◼   ► This is a large one.

00:41:52 ◼   ► I can, yeah, it's big.

00:41:54 ◼   ► It's like the size of a human brain, or even bigger.

00:41:58 ◼   ► - I'd first imagined like a stress toy type size,

00:42:03 ◼   ► you know, like a one-handed,

00:42:04 ◼   ► and then you sent me pictures of the big brain,

00:42:07 ◼   ► and I was like, wow, okay, that wasn't what I expected.

00:42:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, I had a foam little stress toy brain,

00:42:12 ◼   ► but that's like a quarter of the size of the brain ball.

00:42:15 ◼   ► Brain ball, literally, it's basically the size of my hand.

00:42:19 ◼   ► If I put my palm out flat, the brain ball is the size of the,

00:42:23 ◼   ► and this is the, we're in the brain ball vertical now, Myke.

00:42:27 ◼   ► - And I must say that your keyboard

00:42:30 ◼   ► doesn't look very clacky.

00:42:32 ◼   ► - No, so a bunch of people asked about my keyboard,

00:42:36 ◼   ► a lot of comments about the fact that it had black keys.

00:42:39 ◼   ► It's the Logitech Bluetooth Easy Switch keyboard

00:42:44 ◼   ► and I like it. It's a nice keyboard. It has the same feel as the Apple keyboards.

00:42:49 ◼   ► It's got three different Bluetooth modes so I can switch it around to use

00:42:54 ◼   ► multiple

00:42:55 ◼   ► to be a

00:42:57 ◼   ► device attached to multiple

00:42:59 ◼   ► devices so I move into another room and press another button and then it's my

00:43:03 ◼   ► iPad keyboard

00:43:05 ◼   ► if I wanted to so I could take it with me and do it that way.

00:43:08 ◼   ► I'm just used to writing on the - I'm not a clacky keyboard guy, I'm used to writing

00:43:11 ◼   ► on a laptop keyboard, and so having some continuity with a laptop keyboard is valuable to me.

00:43:18 ◼   ► And I like it better, I think, than the Apple keyboards.

00:43:20 ◼   ► I do have the Apple Bluetooth keyboard, but I think I like this one better.

00:43:25 ◼   ► So do you actually use that feature much?

00:43:27 ◼   ► The switch between?

00:43:30 ◼   ► I think I use it - I think I do it more accidentally than not, but I have a Mac Mini attached to

00:43:35 ◼   ► the TV in my living room and it's nice to be able to just walk in there and press the

00:43:39 ◼   ► button and have it work instead of having to pair it or, you know, or find a USB keyboard

00:43:46 ◼   ► and attach it or anything like that. So that part is nice but it's not really necessary.

00:43:51 ◼   ► I mostly have it because it's rechargeable and the keys are pretty nice. I mean that's

00:43:58 ◼   ► really it. I do have, I have had clacky keyboards in the past. I actually have an Apple Extended

00:44:03 ◼   ► keyboard and a USB/ADB converter here somewhere but I'm mostly used to typing.

00:44:10 ◼   ► I can type like 110 words per minute on this thing so I'm okay.

00:44:13 ◼   ► Is there anything?

00:44:14 ◼   ► And a trackpad, Magic Trackpad too.

00:44:17 ◼   ► Yeah, why do you use the Magic Trackpad on a mouse?

00:44:19 ◼   ► I know this is like a...

00:44:20 ◼   ► I know there's a whole show there isn't there?

00:44:24 ◼   ► I really, well part of it is continuity.

00:44:28 ◼   ► As somebody who has used a laptop a lot and throughout my house, that MacBook Air has

00:44:35 ◼   ► been my main system.

00:44:36 ◼   ► I mean, I've had a MacBook Air as my main system for three or four years now.

00:44:41 ◼   ► So I do all my editing.

00:44:44 ◼   ► All of my muscle memory is trackpad and laptop keyboard based.

00:44:50 ◼   ► And so I was always like a trackball guy, not a mouse guy anyway.

00:44:54 ◼   ► And so the movements are similar.

00:44:56 ◼   ► And really it's that continuity that when I sit down at my desk, I'm using the same

00:45:01 ◼   ► kind of muscle memory that I would use if I was editing a podcast on a plane.

00:45:06 ◼   ► If I'm editing a podcast on a plane or editing it at this desk, I'm still doing all of the

00:45:11 ◼   ► -- and it's great for stuff like that because the pinch and zoom for moving around in and

00:45:17 ◼   ► out on a timeline in Logic or something like that is actually pretty great.

00:45:21 ◼   ► So I've gotten used to it.

00:45:22 ◼   ► I think that's really the bottom line is I know that's what Apple says, but I think it's

00:45:26 ◼   ► true that I've gotten so used to using a trackpad now that I might as well just use it all the

00:45:31 ◼   ► time.

00:45:34 ◼   ► So do you have anything else that you would like to note and/or defend about your setup?

00:45:41 ◼   ► Let's see, what else did people notice?

00:45:43 ◼   ► I want to defend about people who are complaining about the cable clutter, and there are a lot

00:45:48 ◼   ► of cords here.

00:45:49 ◼   ► This is a migration scenario, so one is there's more cords there than normal because I had

00:45:55 ◼   ► to pull a bunch of things out and plug a bunch of new things in.

00:45:59 ◼   ► And also part of that is whenever you get a new computer, the last thing you do is tie

00:46:05 ◼   ► all the cables down right away because you don't know how you're going to use it.

00:46:10 ◼   ► You know, I was just migrating.

00:46:11 ◼   ► It was literally the beginning of the process.

00:46:13 ◼   ► So I have hopes to make the cable clutter reduce somewhat and we'll get there.

00:46:19 ◼   ► I've never been a totally like crazy, like John Syracuse sees my workspaces and just

00:46:25 ◼   ► shakes his head sadly and walks on because it's just, it's a, you know, he's a very,

00:46:29 ◼   ► a very diligent kind of guy and I've never been that diligent.

00:46:33 ◼   ► That that all said, I would like to, to reduce the clutter in my office as much as I can

00:46:41 ◼   ► And I'd really been waiting for the iMac to come and get it set up and then do some new

00:46:47 ◼   ► work to reduce the number of cables that are floating around.

00:46:49 ◼   ► I mean, it is still an unfinished garage in some ways, and so I've got like concrete and

00:46:54 ◼   ► other things that are not ideal.

00:46:56 ◼   ► But in a lot of ways, it's pretty close to being just a solid regular old office now.

00:47:01 ◼   ► So it's time for me to get some little Velcro ties and maybe some double-sided Velcro tape

00:47:08 ◼   ► and other things and some other cord control stuff to reduce that. Also it's a sit-stand

00:47:14 ◼   ► desk so all of the cord stuff that I have, I have to have enough slack in the cords that

00:47:21 ◼   ► it works when the desk is up. So you need to have enough length in the cords for when

00:47:26 ◼   ► it's in the high position and then when it's down in the low position there is extra cable

00:47:30 ◼   ► just kind of floating around and that's just how it is. So that's life. So yes it will

00:47:35 ◼   ► be less awful than it looks here but I can't guarantee that it will be super

00:47:39 ◼   ► pristine Johnny Ive approved desk material. There's a coaster on the desk

00:47:44 ◼   ► that's very exciting. There's a thermometer on the desk so I can see how

00:47:48 ◼   ► cold it is and turn on my little space heater when I need to. And then...

00:47:53 ◼   ► I think you're using a Uni-ball Sino 207.

00:47:59 ◼   ► I don't know what you're even talking about now. Is that a pen? Did you just

00:48:02 ◼   ► call out my pen?

00:48:04 ◼   ► uh-huh it's not a call out I just think that's what you're using

00:48:08 ◼   ► it okay Myke first off here's the pen

00:48:11 ◼   ► yeah it's in that photo does that excite you to hear pens? Sure

00:48:16 ◼   ► am I right? Are you the pen addict or is somebody else the pen addict?

00:48:19 ◼   ► I'm not the pen addict Brad is the pen addict. Brad is the pen addict

00:48:22 ◼   ► the title character in the podcast of the same name

00:48:26 ◼   ► okay it's a pilot G2. Oh terrible

00:48:30 ◼   ► terrible no I'm not the pen addict no no I'm terrible

00:48:33 ◼   ► Oh, okay. You're identifying them.

00:48:35 ◼   ► I named it incorrectly but knew what one it was because that was the pen that I used to

00:48:39 ◼   ► use. I like it.

00:48:41 ◼   ► I love the G2. The G2 is a great pen. I hope you use a 0.7.

00:48:46 ◼   ► Pen vertical. This is the...

00:48:49 ◼   ► Pen Addict Vertical of the upgrade.

00:48:51 ◼   ► 05? I don't know. It's uh, yeah, I like those gel pens. They're fine. I'm not a pen nerd

00:48:56 ◼   ► either. I'm not a pen nerd but when I saw all the pen nerds talking about gel pens,

00:49:00 ◼   ► I got some gel pens and I thought, oh yeah, okay.

00:49:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, you made the right choice.

00:49:04 ◼   ► - 'Cause I used to have those pens that were,

00:49:07 ◼   ► they had the reservoir that you could actually see,

00:49:11 ◼   ► the ink reservoir, and then they had the little metal tip

00:49:15 ◼   ► at the front and they weren't clicky, they had a cap.

00:49:17 ◼   ► I forget, they were very popular for a long time.

00:49:19 ◼   ► I still have some around.

00:49:20 ◼   ► And I used those and I liked those,

00:49:23 ◼   ► but they also smeared, the ink smeared

00:49:25 ◼   ► when you started writing and all that,

00:49:26 ◼   ► and the gel pens are pretty awesome.

00:49:28 ◼   ► So that's my pen addict vertical right there.

00:49:33 ◼   ► - Brad's gonna be so upset at me when he hears this.

00:49:35 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:49:37 ◼   ► - So you noticed the pen, that's good.

00:49:39 ◼   ► You're being well-trained.

00:49:40 ◼   ► I often have Dungeons and Dragons dice on there

00:49:43 ◼   ► from when we play D&D on the Total Party Kill podcast,

00:49:45 ◼   ► but they weren't on there for this.

00:49:47 ◼   ► I got a couple of San Francisco Giants pens

00:49:48 ◼   ► in the background, including the one I got

00:49:50 ◼   ► when I was like seven years old,

00:49:51 ◼   ► which shows an actual giant swinging a bat

00:49:54 ◼   ► at Candlefoot Park. - Oh, I see him.

00:49:55 ◼   ► I see him, there he is.

00:49:56 ◼   ► He's a giant.

00:49:58 ◼   ► People say they don't have a really tall guy

00:50:01 ◼   ► as their mascot, but in this pennant,

00:50:02 ◼   ► they've got a giant guy.

00:50:03 ◼   ► - If they were almost that big, it'd be really unfair.

00:50:07 ◼   ► - I've got my Heil PL2T boom with a blue Yeti microphone

00:50:12 ◼   ► that I'm speaking into right now and a little pop filter

00:50:16 ◼   ► on it, you can see it over there on the left.

00:50:18 ◼   ► And then that's about it.

00:50:20 ◼   ► On the walls, there's a corner of a movie poster

00:50:22 ◼   ► that's the real genius movie poster.

00:50:25 ◼   ► And on the right, people asked about this,

00:50:27 ◼   ► that's a framed copy of the first cover of Macworld

00:50:30 ◼   ► and the 20th anniversary cover of Macworld

00:50:34 ◼   ► that the company that owns Brown printing,

00:50:36 ◼   ► it's Brown printing, the printing press for Macworld

00:50:38 ◼   ► for that entire time and for its entire print run,

00:50:41 ◼   ► sent that to the president of the company

00:50:44 ◼   ► for 20 years of working with Macworld.

00:50:46 ◼   ► And I thought that was nice.

00:50:49 ◼   ► The president of the company gave it to me

00:50:51 ◼   ► and I took it with me when I left.

00:50:53 ◼   ► So it's on my wall.

00:50:55 ◼   ► And that is the Zapruder-like analysis

00:50:58 ◼   ► of a picture of my desk.

00:51:00 ◼   ► - Well, we can do it to mine.

00:51:01 ◼   ► 'Cause I've put a picture in the shot of my desk.

00:51:06 ◼   ► - All right, so let's talk.

00:51:07 ◼   ► So the premise here is not just to do

00:51:08 ◼   ► the Zapruder-esque analysis of images,

00:51:11 ◼   ► but to, for people who don't know,

00:51:13 ◼   ► the Zapruder film is that film of the Kennedy assassination

00:51:15 ◼   ► that everybody looks at frame by frame.

00:51:17 ◼   ► That's where that comes from.

00:51:18 ◼   ► It's that I am now,

00:51:20 ◼   ► this is now my new workspace that I'm building.

00:51:22 ◼   ► and you now have, are not in a workspace at your office

00:51:27 ◼   ► because you have left your employment

00:51:29 ◼   ► and we are both gentlemen of leisure now.

00:51:31 ◼   ► - I like to call it fun employment.

00:51:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, sure, that's right, that's right.

00:51:36 ◼   ► And so I think it's interesting how we now no longer

00:51:41 ◼   ► have the warm embrace of an employer to tell us

00:51:44 ◼   ► where to sit and what to use and all of that

00:51:46 ◼   ► and we have to set our own workspaces up.

00:51:48 ◼   ► So I thought this would be,

00:51:49 ◼   ► I know this is a little Mac Power Users and a little, I don't know what, a little Merlin

00:51:55 ◼   ► Man, we should have had Merlin Man on to consult about this, but I've got your picture open

00:52:00 ◼   ► now, so I'm analyzing it.

00:52:03 ◼   ► There's a beverage.

00:52:04 ◼   ► There is, I'm going to give you some time to analyze it.

00:52:06 ◼   ► Okay.

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00:52:17 ◼   ► apps like shared calendars, Twitter like micro blogs, they incorporate file sharing, task

00:52:22 ◼   ► management and so much more. Igloo make it easy to work with your co-workers and they

00:52:28 ◼   ► make it even easier to work even better with them. You can share documents together, so

00:52:33 ◼   ► you can co-author documents, you can share status updates about what's going on in the

00:52:37 ◼   ► break room today. Maybe you want to say this is my lunch, don't touch my lunch, where you

00:52:42 ◼   ► do all that in igloo with the microblog stuff that you have.

00:52:47 ◼   ► And you can also manage your projects all in one place so you can actually get some

00:52:50 ◼   ► work done as well, not just talk about what's happening in the conference room or the break

00:52:53 ◼   ► room.

00:52:54 ◼   ► When somebody changes an item, so they change a document in igloo, notifications are sent

00:52:58 ◼   ► or maybe they update a task and notifications are sent out.

00:53:02 ◼   ► And this is all done in the way that you choose.

00:53:04 ◼   ► So you can say I want to be notified here and here, I don't want to be notified about

00:53:07 ◼   ► this.

00:53:08 ◼   ► You have granular access to make sure you can go in and just get the notifications that

00:53:12 ◼   ► want. And when people are making changes to a document, a complete version history is

00:53:16 ◼   ► maintained. This keeps everyone in sync and makes sure that Crazy Bob doesn't accidentally

00:53:20 ◼   ► delete that GIF from the presentation you've been working on, because you can go in and

00:53:24 ◼   ► restore it, because Bob doesn't like GIFs because he likes them to be called GIFs, but

00:53:28 ◼   ► this way you can make sure that Bob won't win.

00:53:32 ◼   ► Also recently, Gartner released their famed Magic Quadrant for Social Software in the

00:53:37 ◼   ► the workplace report, and igloo appears on this report for the sixth consecutive year

00:53:41 ◼   ► alongside Microsoft, IBM, Google, and SAP. This is an excerpt from Gartner's profile.

00:53:48 ◼   ► Feedback from igloo's reference customers was consistently positive. They praised the

00:53:51 ◼   ► product's quick deployment, configuration, and customisation flexibility with self-service

00:53:56 ◼   ► options for non-technical users, control over branding and information organisation, and

00:54:01 ◼   ► ease of use. They also praised the responsiveness of igloo as an organisation. If hearing that

00:54:07 ◼   ► excites you then you should be trying out igloo because if you hear that and

00:54:11 ◼   ► you're like "oh I need that" then you should be trying it out. If it doesn't

00:54:14 ◼   ► excite you let me tell you about some other things. So all of igloo is built

00:54:18 ◼   ► with responsive web design in mind so anything that you can do on any machine

00:54:21 ◼   ► you can do on all machines. So if you've ever used some sort of internet software

00:54:27 ◼   ► or maybe you've been using SharePoint for a while you know how amazing this is

00:54:30 ◼   ► that you'll actually be able to get some real work done and access your full

00:54:33 ◼   ► corporate internet from your phone. And I say corporate internet, you can put anything

00:54:37 ◼   ► in there and people do. I've seen examples of different igloos that the guys at igloo

00:54:41 ◼   ► have shown me where people are able to share just what they're up to on a daily basis as

00:54:47 ◼   ► well as actually get their work done. You can create little communities within your

00:54:50 ◼   ► igloo and have certain functionalities, that's in these ones and certain functionalities

00:54:54 ◼   ► in other ones depending on what's needed. You have full control over it. It's really

00:54:58 ◼   ► awesome and you should be trying it out and you should definitely be trying it out because

00:55:02 ◼   ► it's for free for up to 10 people and you can sign up right now at igloosoftware.com/upgrade

00:55:08 ◼   ► so it's free for up to 10 people. Thank you so much to igloo for their support of upgrade

00:55:13 ◼   ► and all of Real AFM and thank you for being such a good friend. On the Clockwise podcast last week,

00:55:19 ◼   ► I think it was last week, we had igloo as a sponsor and my sponsor read got away from me a little bit

00:55:26 ◼   ► and I started talking about how it was magic and I had to explain that it wasn't black magic,

00:55:29 ◼   ► It was more like good Harry Potter kind of magic.

00:55:31 ◼   ► It was very confusing.

00:55:33 ◼   ► And then Marco from Igloo saw our show notes,

00:55:37 ◼   ► which just said, "Brought to you by Igloo,"

00:55:40 ◼   ► you know, and the normal thing.

00:55:41 ◼   ► And then it said, "It's like magic, but not the bad kind."

00:55:42 ◼   ► And he said, "Oh, that's really funny."

00:55:44 ◼   ► I said, "Have you listened to the spot yet?"

00:55:45 ◼   ► He said, "No."

00:55:46 ◼   ► - Let's see if you change your mind.

00:55:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think he thought it was funny,

00:55:51 ◼   ► but that was a funny moment of me.

00:55:55 ◼   ► Like, yeah, you're doing an ad read and you're like,

00:55:57 ◼   ► like, "Well, what is happening to this?" as you're talking.

00:56:01 ◼   ► So anyway.

00:56:02 ◼   ► Ickly like it when you get a little bit crazy.

00:56:04 ◼   ► I think the podcast ads are more fun when everybody's having fun with it.

00:56:11 ◼   ► And I said it was good magic.

00:56:12 ◼   ► I didn't say it was black magic.

00:56:13 ◼   ► If they get very angry and they're like, "No, no, we're evil magic," then they should let

00:56:16 ◼   ► us know.

00:56:17 ◼   ► Yeah, I haven't received that feedback yet, but if I do, I'll let you know.

00:56:21 ◼   ► Then they can become an enemy sponsor instead.

00:56:23 ◼   ► Enemy of the podcast.

00:56:25 ◼   ► We are looking for an enemy sponsor, by the way.

00:56:28 ◼   ► It's available.

00:56:29 ◼   ► Somebody offered to pay $20 if we said a nice thing about Windows Vista.

00:56:32 ◼   ► A few people were trying to club together today to buy a sponsorship and be an enemy,

00:56:37 ◼   ► but I don't think it panned out.

00:56:39 ◼   ► That's another failed attempt to take over the world by the villains.

00:56:44 ◼   ► They didn't make it.

00:56:46 ◼   ► Only our friends made it.

00:56:47 ◼   ► Keep trying, enemies.

00:56:49 ◼   ► One day you'll make it.

00:56:50 ◼   ► We are actually about three minutes away from where I become the man of the hour, so it's

00:56:55 ◼   ► probably about the right time to talk about my workspace. I think it is. So here it is.

00:57:01 ◼   ► So I give a brief overview of what you can see here. So I have a Retina MacBook Pro there,

00:57:08 ◼   ► as you notice, that is open. And below it is a Microsoft keyboard. Yeah, it's one of

00:57:15 ◼   ► the ergonomic keyboards. The Microsoft... Natural keyboard, I think it's called. That's

00:57:20 ◼   ► - That's what Microsoft Natural Keyboard,

00:57:22 ◼   ► I don't know if keyboards naturally grow like that,

00:57:25 ◼   ► and that's why they call it the Natural Keyboard.

00:57:28 ◼   ► - It's not organic, it was raised with some additives,

00:57:32 ◼   ► but the organic keyboards are a little bit more expensive,

00:57:36 ◼   ► but they're totally only raised on organic.

00:57:38 ◼   ► - Oh, no, that is the Sculpt, not the Natural.

00:57:42 ◼   ► The Sculpt is the one that has the hole in the middle,

00:57:45 ◼   ► which is what mine has.

00:57:46 ◼   ► - Oh, I see, I see.

00:57:47 ◼   ► - Well, you know what Michelangelo said

00:57:50 ◼   ► is that every great keyboard starts as a block of granite,

00:57:53 ◼   ► but the great artist sees the keyboard within it.

00:57:56 ◼   ► - I'm sure he did say that.

00:57:58 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:58:00 ◼   ► - The sculpt, I tried.

00:58:01 ◼   ► Anyway, yeah, so you've got multiple keyboards.

00:58:03 ◼   ► You've got a little Apple wireless keyboard,

00:58:08 ◼   ► and you've got a Microsoft keyboard,

00:58:09 ◼   ► and then you've got your laptop on a stand with a keyboard.

00:58:12 ◼   ► - Yep, so I don't really,

00:58:14 ◼   ► I try to not use the one on the stand.

00:58:16 ◼   ► And I have all of this.

00:58:19 ◼   ► So I also have my MacBook on a little stand.

00:58:24 ◼   ► I can't remember the stand, I just found it on Amazon.

00:58:26 ◼   ► I just grabbed any stand that looked sturdy enough.

00:58:28 ◼   ► And I have a Magic Mouse there as well,

00:58:32 ◼   ► because I started to get some wrist pain.

00:58:34 ◼   ► And I spoke again to Marco Armin.

00:58:39 ◼   ► He's like the advisor of this week's episode.

00:58:41 ◼   ► 'Cause I know he used this crazy keyboard,

00:58:45 ◼   ► and I asked him if he had had some wrist pain

00:58:48 ◼   ► and he said that he was moving towards that

00:58:50 ◼   ► and then completely changed everything.

00:58:52 ◼   ► So that's when I elevated the MacBook

00:58:55 ◼   ► and got all this stuff.

00:58:56 ◼   ► And it has been a lot better actually

00:58:57 ◼   ► since I started using this stuff.

00:58:59 ◼   ► But yeah, I have another keyboard.

00:59:02 ◼   ► That other keyboard is for the Mac Mini

00:59:04 ◼   ► which you can kind of see underneath

00:59:06 ◼   ► two different external hard drives.

00:59:09 ◼   ► - Oh yeah.

00:59:10 ◼   ► - So that Mac Mini there.

00:59:11 ◼   ► And then I have the Logitech mouse and a Magic Trackpad.

00:59:16 ◼   ► Now when I edit, I use both.

00:59:19 ◼   ► Ooh!

00:59:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:59:21 ◼   ► It blew my mind.

00:59:23 ◼   ► So when I'm in Logic, I am two-handed editing in Logic now.

00:59:29 ◼   ► That's crazy.

00:59:32 ◼   ► Because the mouse provides me with finer grain control to click and select things.

00:59:37 ◼   ► Plus it's also better, again, for the wrist.

00:59:40 ◼   ► But then I used the pinch and zoom gestures on the Magic Trackpad.

00:59:46 ◼   ► I don't even...

00:59:47 ◼   ► Wow.

00:59:48 ◼   ► That is, I've heard people say that they use the Magic Trackpad just for pinch and zoom

00:59:55 ◼   ► and then they use a mouse for everything else.

00:59:56 ◼   ► I guess you're people.

00:59:57 ◼   ► I wouldn't be using it if there was a way to get the pinch and zoom gesture into the

01:00:02 ◼   ► mouse there is not.

01:00:04 ◼   ► Like you can do it by like holding down some key commands and then using the wheel.

01:00:07 ◼   ► Yeah, like a control wheel or something?

01:00:08 ◼   ► Yeah, but it doesn't work very well. It's not as well tuned as the...

01:00:14 ◼   ► And also the gestures, you know, like the trackpad gestures.

01:00:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:00:18 ◼   ► You can't get them as easy with the mice. Even with the Magic Mouse, you can't get all of them.

01:00:23 ◼   ► Apple sent, when they had the review unit they sent me of the Retina iMac, it came with a Magic Mouse.

01:00:29 ◼   ► I thought, "Oh, I'll try this out." And within like five minutes, I was like, "I hate this thing."

01:00:32 ◼   ► I hate trying to access Mission Control because you have to double tap on the mouse,

01:00:38 ◼   ► but I never seem to do it in the right place.

01:00:40 ◼   ► And it never, it just,

01:00:41 ◼   ► it takes me multiple times to get it to work.

01:00:44 ◼   ► - So you've got, I mean,

01:00:46 ◼   ► I'm really witnessing this system that you've got,

01:00:47 ◼   ► where you've got your laptop that you use as a laptop,

01:00:50 ◼   ► just for, even though it's got an external keyboard,

01:00:53 ◼   ► it's for your notes and the web and things like that.

01:00:55 ◼   ► And then you've got the Mac mini with a monitor

01:00:58 ◼   ► and a keyboard and a mouse and a track pad

01:01:00 ◼   ► and below it a mixer.

01:01:02 ◼   ► And that's your podcasting setup.

01:01:05 ◼   ► And then you've got your microphone

01:01:07 ◼   ► on the boom arm with the pop filter.

01:01:09 ◼   ► So it's two computers on one desk.

01:01:14 ◼   ► What's in the cup?

01:01:16 ◼   ► What's that beverage?

01:01:17 ◼   ► - That is Dr. Pepper Zero.

01:01:18 ◼   ► - Okay, and there are field notes behind it too.

01:01:22 ◼   ► - Yeah. - People who are not looking

01:01:23 ◼   ► at the show notes are really missing out.

01:01:26 ◼   ► - There are field notes everywhere.

01:01:28 ◼   ► There's a pile of field notes

01:01:30 ◼   ► and then there's one tucked underneath the computer.

01:01:32 ◼   ► And then that big one is a big field notes.

01:01:34 ◼   ► That big field notes is what I actually use

01:01:36 ◼   ► to take notes as we record.

01:01:38 ◼   ► So I take timestamps, for example,

01:01:40 ◼   ► at minutes 12 and 14 and 39 and 23 seconds respectively,

01:01:45 ◼   ► there were some fireworks in the background here.

01:01:48 ◼   ► So I need to go into the file to cut them out.

01:01:50 ◼   ► - Oh, interesting.

01:01:52 ◼   ► - So there's a couple of other things.

01:01:53 ◼   ► So that monitor is actually a television.

01:01:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was gonna say it looks like a TV.

01:01:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, so the Mac Mini goes into there.

01:02:00 ◼   ► It's not the best, but I don't really use it for too much,

01:02:03 ◼   ► so I can live with it.

01:02:05 ◼   ► But also I have underneath a HDMI switcher,

01:02:08 ◼   ► that's what a little blue light is on that box.

01:02:11 ◼   ► And into that HDMI switcher going the Mac mini,

01:02:15 ◼   ► an Xbox and a PlayStation.

01:02:17 ◼   ► So they will go into there and then they go into the TV.

01:02:20 ◼   ► Right, so I use it for gaming too.

01:02:22 ◼   ► What else do I have here?

01:02:24 ◼   ► - So you use the TV on your desk to play games?

01:02:27 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:02:28 ◼   ► - Interesting.

01:02:35 ◼   ► I mean that makes perfect sense.

01:02:36 ◼   ► I'm just thinking of it as a workspace

01:02:39 ◼   ► and then having it also be a game space.

01:02:40 ◼   ► Just it's kind of funny that you got all your business there

01:02:43 ◼   ► and then when it's time for Myke to play some games

01:02:47 ◼   ► and leave the business world behind,

01:02:48 ◼   ► he doesn't really go anywhere.

01:02:50 ◼   ► - Just turns, I turn slightly.

01:02:52 ◼   ► - Turns the angle, you move from a business angle

01:02:55 ◼   ► to a gaming angle.

01:02:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, let's see how that plans out in the long run.

01:02:58 ◼   ► - All right.

01:02:59 ◼   ► - Because previously it hasn't really been

01:03:00 ◼   ► too much of a problem, but maybe it will become a problem.

01:03:04 ◼   ► - Now that this is your business?

01:03:07 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:03:08 ◼   ► - So do you edit on the Mac Mini or just record?

01:03:11 ◼   ► - No, I edit on the Mac Mini.

01:03:13 ◼   ► - So you're editing podcasts on a TV?

01:03:15 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:03:16 ◼   ► - Huh.

01:03:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's on my ever growing list of things

01:03:21 ◼   ► to get a proper monitor,

01:03:22 ◼   ► but it's nearly been a financial constraint

01:03:26 ◼   ► and the constraints of the screen resolution

01:03:30 ◼   ► are not high enough for the financial constraint to be okay.

01:03:35 ◼   ► - I just don't understand why,

01:03:37 ◼   ► you're gonna have to explain this to me again,

01:03:38 ◼   ► I don't understand why you wouldn't use your powerful

01:03:41 ◼   ► and beautiful screen Retina MacBook Pro

01:03:43 ◼   ► to edit your podcast.

01:03:46 ◼   ► - 'Cause then I have to transfer the files onto it.

01:03:49 ◼   ► And I know that sounds like such a silly thing,

01:03:51 ◼   ► but it's all just there,

01:03:53 ◼   ► and then I have ethernet plugged into there

01:03:55 ◼   ► so the upload speeds are quicker,

01:03:56 ◼   ► because I have a horrible internet, remember.

01:03:59 ◼   ► So basically the difference in speed between what my MacBook can achieve and what the Mac

01:04:07 ◼   ► Mini can achieve is like double in some instances, so like the upload speeds are a lot quicker.

01:04:13 ◼   ► So Ethernet hub?

01:04:15 ◼   ► Yeah, but then I need to have another cable into the...

01:04:19 ◼   ► Yeah, I know.

01:04:20 ◼   ► I know that there are things.

01:04:21 ◼   ► There are many things.

01:04:22 ◼   ► Because you've got this very powerful computer with a very beautiful monitor, and you're

01:04:27 ◼   ► editing on a TV.

01:04:29 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:04:30 ◼   ► - By choice.

01:04:31 ◼   ► - By choice.

01:04:32 ◼   ► - 'Cause you could use the other one.

01:04:33 ◼   ► So I guess everything on TV is not as inconvenient

01:04:36 ◼   ► as transferring a file a couple of times.

01:04:38 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:04:41 ◼   ► - I guess.

01:04:41 ◼   ► - I guess, I've never really--

01:04:43 ◼   ► - I'm not judging you, Myke.

01:04:44 ◼   ► I just, I'm fascinated by that.

01:04:46 ◼   ► I am judging you a little bit,

01:04:47 ◼   ► but I'm fascinated by that decision

01:04:48 ◼   ► that obviously the convenience of it means more to you

01:04:52 ◼   ► than the, you know, having the probably what,

01:04:57 ◼   ► slower and worse display of the thing that's sitting six inches away.

01:05:03 ◼   ► Well you see the thing is Jason, I'd never considered it and now I'm horrified

01:05:07 ◼   ► uh because now I'll never forget it so I may have to change the way that things work here because

01:05:14 ◼   ► now I will remember how much easier it will be to just edit on this machine.

01:05:18 ◼   ► Well if you got a if you got a uh you could get a dock or something and uh and I don't know and

01:05:25 ◼   ► and then plug in and use that.

01:05:27 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:05:28 ◼   ► You should think about it.

01:05:29 ◼   ► As you're thinking about your audio workflow,

01:05:31 ◼   ► perhaps that changes your device workflow too.

01:05:34 ◼   ► I like, I get, I totally get,

01:05:36 ◼   ► especially with Apple audio issues in the OS,

01:05:40 ◼   ► I think having a second system for recording

01:05:43 ◼   ► is pretty smart.

01:05:46 ◼   ► Also, it allows you to have all your Skype business

01:05:48 ◼   ► and all that up on the TV.

01:05:50 ◼   ► And then your laptop is fully dedicated

01:05:53 ◼   ► to everything else, whereas I've got Windows tiled

01:05:57 ◼   ► and Skype hiding behind things and all of that.

01:06:00 ◼   ► So I see the appeal of it, I do.

01:06:04 ◼   ► I just, it's just the, it's interesting given

01:06:07 ◼   ► how powerful the laptop is.

01:06:10 ◼   ► And if you're changing so you may not need

01:06:12 ◼   ► the audio in anymore, maybe that's the thing

01:06:13 ◼   ► that makes you reevaluate the whole thing, I don't know.

01:06:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think part of it is I've been doing this

01:06:18 ◼   ► for longer than I've had a more powerful laptop.

01:06:21 ◼   ► So it's just like the power of the laptop has not really been in question before, because

01:06:27 ◼   ► it's like, "Okay, so, oh yeah, you know, this would be easier."

01:06:31 ◼   ► But I've never really considered it, you know, because it's just kind of just been like I

01:06:34 ◼   ► have always done it this way.

01:06:36 ◼   ► Right, and it's not -- you're using your old -- you brought this new piece of hardware

01:06:40 ◼   ► into this old -- in this system that works just fine, so why would you change it?

01:06:43 ◼   ► Because there is still a feeling to me of keeping it all in one place that I quite like.

01:06:49 ◼   ► These are decisions that IT departments make too. So Myke, you're basically acting as your

01:06:53 ◼   ► own IT department here. Saying look, this works, this is a perfectly solid setup and

01:06:58 ◼   ► you know, is it using current operating system or is that also sort of slow to update?

01:07:04 ◼   ► The Mac Mini. The Mac Mini, yeah.

01:07:06 ◼   ► Yeah, it's currently running, what is it, we looked at this before and I keep forgetting.

01:07:12 ◼   ► It's running 10.8 which is Lion? That's Mountain Lion.

01:07:19 ◼   ► Mountain Lion, Mountain Lion, yep.

01:07:21 ◼   ► - So you are, you really are your own IT department here

01:07:23 ◼   ► where you've got Myke's own personal, fancy, fun,

01:07:27 ◼   ► MacBook Pro, Retina, and then you've got

01:07:29 ◼   ► the IT department's audio setup,

01:07:31 ◼   ► which is two versions of OS X behind

01:07:34 ◼   ► and running off of a TV set,

01:07:37 ◼   ► but it's like, it works, it's rock solid, don't change it.

01:07:39 ◼   ► There's something to be said for that.

01:07:41 ◼   ► I mean, we make fun of IT people a lot.

01:07:43 ◼   ► I was complaining the other week

01:07:45 ◼   ► about trying to buy an audio plugin,

01:07:47 ◼   ► and they said, well, no, no, no, you can't use Yosemite.

01:07:51 ◼   ► No, no, we'll support Yosemite later,

01:07:54 ◼   ► maybe months later because it's scary, it's new

01:07:57 ◼   ► and we gotta qualify everything.

01:07:59 ◼   ► But that's, you know, you've got a tool that works

01:08:02 ◼   ► and it's this Mac mini setup,

01:08:04 ◼   ► even though it could be upgraded and changed,

01:08:06 ◼   ► ooh, upgraded, somebody should call a podcast upgrade.

01:08:09 ◼   ► I just, it's interesting.

01:08:12 ◼   ► It'll be interesting to see how it changes,

01:08:13 ◼   ► especially if your workflow needs change

01:08:15 ◼   ► in terms of the audio stuff.

01:08:16 ◼   ► if you go to a USB interface.

01:08:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, that is-- - But this is the challenge.

01:08:20 ◼   ► We're all our own IT people now.

01:08:21 ◼   ► We're our, right, you and I.

01:08:22 ◼   ► We make these decisions ourselves with budget constraints

01:08:25 ◼   ► and prioritizing what needs are most important to be met,

01:08:29 ◼   ► all of that.

01:08:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, the IT department analogy,

01:08:33 ◼   ► whilst humorous, is an interesting one

01:08:35 ◼   ► because it is very much, like, I can sympathize with it

01:08:38 ◼   ► because it's simply the case of,

01:08:45 ◼   ► If this breaks, it's a lot to fix.

01:08:49 ◼   ► Like if anything on this Mac Mini breaks,

01:08:51 ◼   ► that is a problem.

01:08:53 ◼   ► And that's time and money that needs to go into

01:08:56 ◼   ► to making it better.

01:08:58 ◼   ► So that's why I try not to mess with it too much.

01:09:00 ◼   ► Like, you know, the operating system upgrades and stuff.

01:09:03 ◼   ► But yeah, I hadn't considered transferring the files

01:09:08 ◼   ► between the machines before.

01:09:09 ◼   ► 'Cause I could just simply do that by a Thunderbolt cable.

01:09:14 ◼   ► - Sure.

01:09:15 ◼   ► if they're not too big, but they're audio files,

01:09:17 ◼   ► so they probably are.

01:09:18 ◼   ► You could probably use AirDrop,

01:09:19 ◼   ► but of course your system,

01:09:20 ◼   ► that Mac Mini doesn't run an OS that has AirDrop.

01:09:24 ◼   ► Anyway, yeah, Thunderbolt cable would work.

01:09:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, I mean, the Core recorder files that I use

01:09:31 ◼   ► or the AFF files that I swap them into,

01:09:34 ◼   ► they can be multiple gigabytes.

01:09:35 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:09:36 ◼   ► It's true, but it could be done.

01:09:39 ◼   ► It could be done.

01:09:40 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:09:41 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:09:42 ◼   ► I don't want to ruin your perfect workflow

01:09:42 ◼   ► because it's gotten you where you are today, but--

01:09:44 ◼   ► Aside from making me call into question everything that I do, do you have any other questions

01:09:50 ◼   ► about what you see in and around my desk?

01:09:52 ◼   ► Well, Dr. Pepper0, no, I have no further questions.

01:09:56 ◼   ► I think it looks lovely.

01:09:58 ◼   ► What's the microphone that you use?

01:09:59 ◼   ► We should ask a question to ask.

01:10:02 ◼   ► It's a Heil PR40.

01:10:04 ◼   ► Very popular.

01:10:05 ◼   ► Yeah, I do not recommend it as your first microphone if you are looking at such things.

01:10:12 ◼   ► It's finicky?

01:10:14 ◼   ► so much just because it's XLR or anything like that or it needs additional equipment.

01:10:18 ◼   ► It requires a, you know, not fancy mic technique, but it requires a just a different way because

01:10:25 ◼   ► like for example if I just talk just slightly away from the microphone.

01:10:28 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

01:10:29 ◼   ► So you have to, you have to,

01:10:31 ◼   ► Where'd he go?

01:10:32 ◼   ► Yeah exactly. Where's he gone? Like my, I have to talk directly into it.

01:10:36 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:10:37 ◼   ► So you kind of have to get used to that and like with the Yeti that you have, um, which

01:10:43 ◼   ► I used, that was my microphone before this one, you can set it so you could be on the

01:10:48 ◼   ► other side of the room and it will do a decent job of picking you up.

01:10:54 ◼   ► I think for like 90% of people I would still recommend the Yeti as a USB microphone.

01:10:59 ◼   ► I know that many people go with the Rode podcaster.

01:11:04 ◼   ► I actually do think sometimes in some instances in audio quality it's a step up, however the

01:11:09 ◼   ► Yeti has a lot more flexibility, including a hardwired mute switch.

01:11:14 ◼   ► Yeah, the Rode Podcaster is not bad, although I wonder if they have some variability in

01:11:21 ◼   ► batching, you know, in building them, or if they had at one time, because some people

01:11:27 ◼   ► I talk to really love them, and other people say that they're very quiet, it's hard to

01:11:31 ◼   ► really drive a game, and that was my experience, is that I didn't think it sounded that great.

01:11:36 ◼   ► I think if you set the settings right, the Yeti sounds great.

01:11:40 ◼   ► And that's my stock.

01:11:41 ◼   ► Like if you want to do podcasting,

01:11:44 ◼   ► you can get a snowball for like $50 oftentimes.

01:11:48 ◼   ► - But don't.

01:11:49 ◼   ► - It's fine.

01:11:50 ◼   ► But if you can afford 100 to 110, whatever it is,

01:11:54 ◼   ► you can usually find a Yeti somewhere for about that.

01:11:57 ◼   ► It's a better microphone

01:11:58 ◼   ► because it's got the hardware mute switch.

01:12:00 ◼   ► It's got the headphone jack and it sounds really good.

01:12:03 ◼   ► Plus it's got the different mic modes.

01:12:06 ◼   ► So like Philip Michaels and Lisa Schmeiser,

01:12:09 ◼   ► who often will podcast with me on the incomparable,

01:12:13 ◼   ► they're married.

01:12:14 ◼   ► So they live in the same house

01:12:17 ◼   ► and they sometimes wanna be on the podcast together.

01:12:19 ◼   ► So they got the Yeti, which has the two across mode

01:12:22 ◼   ► where it's directional on the front and back

01:12:25 ◼   ► of the microphone.

01:12:26 ◼   ► So they can actually sit across from each other

01:12:29 ◼   ► with the microphone and do a podcast together that way.

01:12:31 ◼   ► And that works pretty well too.

01:12:32 ◼   ► So I think that's my go-to choice for like simple

01:12:36 ◼   ► And yes, and then there's that pit that all the audio pros

01:12:39 ◼   ► and podcasters are down in, that hole that you can go down

01:12:43 ◼   ► and get some stuff that sounds better,

01:12:46 ◼   ► but the money starts increasing.

01:12:50 ◼   ► And I could argue that beyond a certain point,

01:12:54 ◼   ► most listeners are never gonna tell the difference,

01:12:56 ◼   ► but podcasters will.

01:12:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, the Yeti is great.

01:13:02 ◼   ► It really is great.

01:13:04 ◼   ► And I agree with the road.

01:13:05 ◼   ► I've had some issues of gain on that thing

01:13:10 ◼   ► and I can't really work out where they're coming from.

01:13:13 ◼   ► Because I've had some people have issues

01:13:15 ◼   ► some weeks and not others.

01:13:17 ◼   ► - We're in the podcasting vertical now.

01:13:18 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:13:19 ◼   ► - Hi everybody.

01:13:22 ◼   ► - Hi.

01:13:23 ◼   ► So I think that's probably it for our workstations.

01:13:26 ◼   ► Now there are some other things in this document.

01:13:30 ◼   ► Would you like to talk about them?

01:13:32 ◼   ► I mean we could at least talk about the podcasting.

01:13:34 ◼   ► the man of the hour, you tell me. Well, because we've just spoken about podcasting. Yeah,

01:13:39 ◼   ► we should finish on that. Let's just talk. I mean, we've been going for more than an

01:13:42 ◼   ► hour now, but we should talk a little bit about this just because we were talking about

01:13:46 ◼   ► podcasting anyway. I've been listening like everybody else to the Serial Podcast, which

01:13:52 ◼   ► is this podcast from a reporter at NPR. It's the people who do This American Life, and

01:13:58 ◼   ► it's a weekly podcast telling the story about a murder from 1999 as the reporter investigates

01:14:03 ◼   ► it and talks to everybody involved and it's really a great example of storytelling.

01:14:08 ◼   ► It's one of the best podcasts that I've ever heard. It is simply incredible just because

01:14:14 ◼   ► of for nothing more, it's the idea and the execution. I think sometimes some of the choices

01:14:22 ◼   ► that they make with audio leave a little bit to be desired, but the idea and the way that

01:14:30 ◼   ► the story is told, it's like nothing I've ever heard before.

01:14:33 ◼   ► I mean it's, it's, I've heard things like this in radio documentaries and things,

01:14:37 ◼   ► but to do it in a podcast and to have it be... the reason I wanted to bring it up, I

01:14:42 ◼   ► mean yeah it's good, Serial Podcast, S-E-R-I-A-L, podcast.org, it's not about like

01:14:47 ◼   ► breakfast cereal, it's, you should listen to it, it's interesting. What it does is

01:14:52 ◼   ► it gets me excited about this medium, about podcasting, that, that the, you start

01:14:59 ◼   ► with people like this show talking to each other because that is something

01:15:04 ◼   ► that's fairly easy to do. You get a couple people with microphones, they talk

01:15:07 ◼   ► to each other for a while, you produce it and you're done. Something like serial is

01:15:11 ◼   ► much more edited like a movie or like a documentary. There's a huge

01:15:16 ◼   ► amount of effort that goes into it but I do believe fundamentally that this

01:15:21 ◼   ► is a medium that has a lot of different things that it can produce and right now

01:15:27 ◼   ► we're not necessarily tapping into all of those things that things that radio does and also things

01:15:32 ◼   ► that just sort of never got a chance to be on radio because you know radio is corporate and

01:15:38 ◼   ► and has to be broadcast and and reach a very broad audience so I just I listened to serial and I

01:15:45 ◼   ► started to think wow you know what could I do not that was just serial I think we'll we'll probably

01:15:51 ◼   ► get a lot of things that are knockoffs of serial. But like what could I do a podcast that breaks

01:15:57 ◼   ► format somehow and is different, a very different kind of podcast? What would that be like? What are

01:16:03 ◼   ► the kind of options there? And you're as somebody who's embarking on a podcasting career yourself,

01:16:09 ◼   ► I'm sure that you've been thinking about this too. And yes, I most definitely have.

01:16:12 ◼   ► These tried and true podcast formats like this one, if podcasts can have a classic format

01:16:19 ◼   ► being such a young medium, I think this is it. And this is good. But generally, not this

01:16:26 ◼   ► one necessarily, but generally this is good. But there's more, right? There's more to be

01:16:31 ◼   ► done and that's, I, Serial, not only is it a good podcast, but it got me thinking of

01:16:38 ◼   ► that of like, don't just accept that the kind of podcasts we listen to now are all there

01:16:44 ◼   ► can be because it's not true and always sort of keep thinking about what are other things

01:16:51 ◼   ► we could do to take advantage of this medium because at the end of the day this medium

01:16:54 ◼   ► is just audio files being delivered and those audio files could contain anything.

01:17:00 ◼   ► Yep. And StartUp is another great example. These two both kind of came around at the

01:17:07 ◼   ► same time and I read a statistic, somebody sent it to me via Twitter, I can't remember

01:17:13 ◼   ► it came from now but I've seen it in a couple different places that the month

01:17:17 ◼   ► of October was the largest amount of single podcast downloads in history and

01:17:25 ◼   ► it's probably because of these two shows but that is that's fantastic I mean you

01:17:34 ◼   ► know of course relay FM of course of course of course we've helped we're

01:17:38 ◼   ► helping. But I think that it's incredible to see that, especially when I've just decided

01:17:47 ◼   ► to make this my living. It's good to see that statistic popping up.

01:17:53 ◼   ► Yeah, there was the New York Magazine article. The two things about this, the media coverage

01:18:01 ◼   ► of this is funny because I think a lot of it is people in the media who know people

01:18:06 ◼   ► at NPR or other media outlets and then they do a podcast and suddenly it's legitimate

01:18:11 ◼   ► because somebody from major a major media outlet has doing a podcast now it's real which

01:18:17 ◼   ► is stupid but it does suggest that trend and I can't remember what whether it was on this

01:18:26 ◼   ► podcast or another podcast but I remember talking to somebody about the fact that there

01:18:30 ◼   ► was some study that said like what less than 3% of people listen to podcasts it's like

01:18:34 ◼   ► That's a sign of growth potential.

01:18:38 ◼   ► I do believe that there will be lots of growth in this medium, but part of that will also

01:18:44 ◼   ► be interesting kinds of programs that drive people forward.

01:18:53 ◼   ► You will have a breakout hit at some point, and maybe it's not Night Vale quite, and maybe

01:18:58 ◼   ► it's not Serial even quite, but at some point, something is going to be such a breakout hit

01:19:03 ◼   ► that it's going to bring millions of new people into the medium because they've heard people

01:19:07 ◼   ► talking about that. Maybe serial is it, but if not, there will be one at some point, I

01:19:11 ◼   ► really believe. I had a lunch when I was in Arizona with Aileen who does the Less Than

01:19:18 ◼   ► or Equal podcast and her husband and Aileen, I think I over pronounced it. Anyway, and

01:19:25 ◼   ► we talked about podcasting for a moment. That was like an unrecorded podcast about podcasting

01:19:29 ◼   ► and it was a lot of fun, but we were all enthusiastic for those same reasons. It's going to be,

01:19:35 ◼   ► we believe, and I know you and I believe, I think it's going to be big, but it's just

01:19:40 ◼   ► not quite over the threshold yet. So it's going to get there and having NPR people and

01:19:46 ◼   ► other people like that embrace it so that the media notices and says it's a thing, in

01:19:50 ◼   ► the end it's good for the medium, even if those of us who've been doing it for a while

01:19:54 ◼   ► kind of roll our eyes. It's like, oh yes, well once somebody from the New York Times

01:19:57 ◼   ► as a podcast, then it's a real medium. It doesn't bother me, you know. I know it

01:20:04 ◼   ► bothers many people and they're like, "Oh, and they didn't mention 5x5 or Twit or, you

01:20:10 ◼   ► know, etc, etc." But it doesn't bother me because it's not relevant to the audience.

01:20:20 ◼   ► The New York Magazine, it's just irrelevant to mention Twinton 5x5 in this context.

01:20:28 ◼   ► But the other thing is, all of this stuff, all of this press coverage, it's just good

01:20:33 ◼   ► for the industry and what's good for the industry is good for us.

01:20:36 ◼   ► It's the rising tide lifting all the boats.

01:20:39 ◼   ► And all of the people that care that Twinton 5x5 was mentioned in this article are already

01:20:43 ◼   ► listening.

01:20:44 ◼   ► So it's totally fine.

01:20:46 ◼   ► And at the end of the day, I completely agree.

01:20:50 ◼   ► at NPR is doing it, so people at NPR are doing the pieces on it, but what it's doing is exactly

01:20:55 ◼   ► what we need and it's putting this stuff in front of the mass market because I'm not saying

01:21:01 ◼   ► that the millions and millions of people out there are going to listen to upgrade, but

01:21:07 ◼   ► what it will do is of those millions and millions, the one, two, three percent of those people

01:21:12 ◼   ► that are interested in technology may then come across this show and then they're going

01:21:16 ◼   ► and download it. And that's really good. And that's kind of all I care about. I don't care

01:21:22 ◼   ► if we get mentioned or don't get mentioned in a New York magazine article. It doesn't

01:21:27 ◼   ► bother me. What does bother me is that it's in the New York magazine at all. That's what

01:21:32 ◼   ► I'm excited about.

01:21:33 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's -- so you can roll your eyes a little if you want about,

01:21:38 ◼   ► like, oh, well, you know, this has been happening for a while and they've only now discussed

01:21:41 ◼   ► But bottom line is, for people who love this medium and believe in it, it's good that people

01:21:47 ◼   ► are noticing it again.

01:21:48 ◼   ► And I do feel like in some ways it's validation of what's been happening the last few years

01:21:53 ◼   ► where it had its moment to thrive and it didn't thrive in 2005 or whenever that was.

01:22:00 ◼   ► When you were syncing things from iTunes and Apple embraced it and gave it, "We're putting

01:22:04 ◼   ► it in GarageBand and we're putting it in iTunes," and then it just kind of fizzled because it

01:22:09 ◼   ► was too fiddly and it was too geeky and it just wasn't time. It's since grown naturally

01:22:15 ◼   ► and been better and better over time. And sometimes you don't get a second chance. Sometimes

01:22:21 ◼   ► people would just say, "Oh, podcasting, that was a thing that was a fad in the mid-2000s

01:22:26 ◼   ► and now nobody cares." And so I like the fact that people are talking about, in the terms

01:22:32 ◼   ► of the New York Magazine article, podcast renaissance, they have to cast it that way.

01:22:36 ◼   ► It's like, "I know we told you about podcasting and nobody listened, but now they're listening.

01:22:39 ◼   ► it's a real thing because that's the redemption of that concept and we all believe in it,

01:22:45 ◼   ► but to talk to a broader audience and say, "No, this is really a thing now. You can get

01:22:49 ◼   ► it on your phone with an app and just listen to it anywhere." That is great for the medium.

01:22:56 ◼   ► So in the end, I think it's a good thing. And having podcasts that push the boundaries

01:23:01 ◼   ► is a great thing, like like Serial. And I know that I've got a lot of projects that

01:23:09 ◼   ► are podcasts like this and then a few that are different. It certainly emboldens me for

01:23:13 ◼   ► things like the incomparable radio theater of the air, which we want to do a new season

01:23:17 ◼   ► of probably early next year. That's a totally different thing. That's radio, old time radio,

01:23:23 ◼   ► drama, comedy, whatever. And it excites me to listen to something like Serial, even though

01:23:29 ◼   ► they're seemingly completely different because what they do is say

01:23:33 ◼   ► this is a medium that can hold all of these different things and it's not all

01:23:36 ◼   ► just you know a roundtable discussion for an hour and a half about computers

01:23:41 ◼   ► which is what this is.

01:23:42 ◼   ► Yeah one of my things that I'm gonna start thinking about now is

01:23:46 ◼   ► what is the what is that kind of show that I can make or a show that we

01:23:53 ◼   ► can make on relay FM that and I'm not interested in like a technology show for

01:23:58 ◼   ► the masses. Like that's not what I want to do. I want to make something that's

01:24:02 ◼   ► maybe a little bit more general interest that fits with what we're

01:24:05 ◼   ► trying to do but I don't know what it's about. I know nothing more

01:24:09 ◼   ► about it than that. But that's kind of something I'm just starting to think

01:24:12 ◼   ► about is what is a more general interest show with an interesting

01:24:16 ◼   ► format that lends itself to the sort of stuff that we do? What does that look

01:24:21 ◼   ► like? And that's as far as I have on that. But I'm pleased that there's

01:24:25 ◼   ► something out there that even is just getting my creative juices flowing again over something

01:24:31 ◼   ► completely new which excites me.

01:24:33 ◼   ► It's a good time for your creative juices to be flowing now that you are full time doing

01:24:37 ◼   ► this.

01:24:38 ◼   ► It's a perfect time.

01:24:39 ◼   ► Perfect time.

01:24:40 ◼   ► Perfect time.

01:24:41 ◼   ► I agree.

01:24:42 ◼   ► Right, so that's about it.

01:24:43 ◼   ► I think for this week's episode of Upgrade, I hope that you have enjoyed it as much as

01:24:46 ◼   ► we have enjoyed making it for you.

01:24:49 ◼   ► If you'd like to find the links to today's episode, go to relay.fm/upgrade/nine.

01:24:56 ◼   ► If you'd like to check out our sponsors, we'd like them very much and we are very, very

01:25:00 ◼   ► happy to be sponsored by our friends at The Converted App and also Igloo today.

01:25:06 ◼   ► They are our friends.

01:25:07 ◼   ► They are our friends and they use only good magic, not black magic.

01:25:10 ◼   ► Our friends using good magic.

01:25:12 ◼   ► If you'd like to follow your friend, Mr. Jason Snell, he is @jsnell on Twitter, J-S-N-E-L-L,

01:25:19 ◼   ► he writes over at SixColors.com and I am at IMIKE and I am now a

01:25:24 ◼   ► professional podcaster. Finally, finally you're a professional. No longer amateurish.

01:25:31 ◼   ► I'm no longer pro-am, I am now professional and I create shows at Relay.fm.

01:25:38 ◼   ► We'll be back next week for episode number 10 of Upgrade and we will be

01:25:45 ◼   ► recording live at a new time. If you are a live listener we will now be recording

01:25:50 ◼   ► from next week at 11 a.m. Pacific time at relay.fm/live. You can

01:25:56 ◼   ► check the schedule at relay.fm/schedule if you'd like to see when all of our

01:26:00 ◼   ► shows record live. We have that there. Until next time, it's goodbye from me.

01:26:06 ◼   ► And it's goodbye from me too.

01:26:10 ◼   ► [ Music ]