Podcasting

Picture: "podcast set up" by the tartanpodcast.

Sometimes, technology constantly surprises me. I've just added a video feed for my blog. Thought I do a weekly video update, then this podcasting came about.

My video updates are done by myself using a simple webcam that I have on my netbook. The location is my home office. I have to talk clearly and no mumbling. And I have to be still, no sudden movement. It can't capture fast movement. Something to do with the "frames per second" (fps). I have not looked into it seriously yet, just simply trying it out. Anyway, it worked, because of YouTube.

I've heard about podcast and I know that you have to read the article, save it on your webhost and linked it. Now my blog is on a free hosted domain by Blogger. The only thing that I can store are pictures in Picasa. Probably there are services that can host audio files. The thing is, I have to search for it, another round of settings and configurations. Time, that I don't have. Right now I got 3 major projects.

Now comes along this company Odiogo that gives high quality text-to-speech solutions and automatic podcast generation using the RSS feed. Decided to give it a spin and my wife was impressed. Its not perfect, it reads the caption of the pictures as part of a sentence. Then again its close to 95%. Punctuation is very critical, without it, it just reads without pauses.

She always told me that I can be long winded in writing, and now she just simply can hear it. You can download it as an MP3. It can even be played on an iPod with the text displayed. iPod have this lyrics function.

Now I don't have an iPod, so if anyone wants to try, I like to know the feedback. Thanks.

I hope you guys love the new layout. I find the previous layout with 4 column too crowded. Now its a dynamically adjusted 3 columns layout. The left column for my post, 2nd column, advertisement, and 3rd for fans.

There is Google search function on top. Just key in your search, and it will search for it. Press the little "x" to clear the result. The top menus are linked to my LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts. You can connect to me on one or all. Its ok. Chronicles are about my current month posts and "Free Ebook" is still there. You can also subscribe to me via email or RSS as well.

I've also set up a social enterprise network. Fan page is called "Hometree Social Network". Initially my partners and me decided upon the name of "Singapore Social Network". Then we realized we can't register names like "Singapore", "Temasek" and a couple of other names. Its just that - regulations.

Photo: "I'm all grown up now" by ubiquity_zh.

We are launching at 50+ Active Ageing Carnival 2010 to be held this Saturday and Sunday, 3rd and 4th April 2010 at Suntec Singapore. We are giving away gifts and there is a photography contest. 

So on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I'll be busy setting up our booth.

Looking forward to see you guys there. and have a great weekend, everyone!