Steve Holden's Blog

  • Podcast #16 – Overview of Upcoming Conferences

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    The 16th Tech Rag Tear Outs podcast has been posted to: TechRagTearOuts_016_050125.mp3 (2346.4K).

    The outline (OPML file/link TBD) of the show in HTML is:

    • (00:00-00:40): Introduction – 16th Edition of the Tech Rag Tear Outs Podcast
    • (00:41-01:30): Sample music from Billy Watson (billywatson.com)
    • (01:31-01:57): Show Overview
    • (01:58-05:27): Some conferences of potential interest:
      • Call Center Demo & Conference (ccdemo.com) will be Jan. 31  – Feb. 2, 2005 in Dallas, TX
      • META Group's "METAmorphosis 2005 – IT   Innovation" (metagroup.com/mm2005) will be Mar. 1-3, 2005 in San Francisco, CA & May 4-6 in   Chicago, IL [plus also Barcelona, Spain in Apr05; And in May05 on different   dates in the following cities Dubai in United Arab Emirates; Sydney in   Australia; & Johannesburg in South Africa)
      • SANS 2005 "Sysadmin, Audit, Network   & Security Conference" (sans.org/register4sans) will   be Apr. 5-12, 2005 in San Diego, CA
      • The Future of Convergence   "Business Continuity, Emergency Management, and Security" will be May 25-26, 2005 in Las Vegas NV.
      • Learning Tree (learningtree.com) has three new   hands-on courses: Security Wireless Networks, Power Excel: Reporting &   Decision Making, and Assertiveness Skills
    • (05:28-06:14): Closing Comments – Official Beer of the Show: Guinness Stout (guinness.com)
    • (06:15-06:40): Sample music from Amber DJ (iamthedj.com).

    Thanks for subscribing and listening.

    [UPDATE: Some new updated tips on Disaster Recovery can be found here: https://digital.com/blog/disaster-proof/]

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  • Aeron Chairs – Not The Best IMHO

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    Everyone seems to rave about the Aeron chairs.  Even Chris Pirillo recently mentioned them in his Blog Business Summit review.  But if you to talk to people who know chairs, they aren’t that good for sitting in for long period of times. 

    My work got me one.  I sat in it for about three weeks and then I started having major lower back pains.  It turns out after talking to a friend in the erognonimics business that I needed a lower back support like this one from his company — Keri Cush Seat Cushion (#19134).  Since adding it I’ve had no more problems.

    By The Way (BTW) – Be careful how you use your acronyms like IMHO (In My Humble Opinion) … they could be mis-understood and used to name help desk centers like: Integrated Management Helpdesk Operations (IMHO).

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  • Podcast Audio Levels

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    I did a recent sample of some podcasts in my car with my Samsung Yepp plugged into a tape adapter that goes into my car stereo. 

    Here are the audio levels of some of the shows sampled that I had to adjust on the car stereo (keeping the Yepp output at "20 out of 30"):

    Note I am not trying to pick on anyone … I didn’t listen to my own to figure out where should be.  But as "we" (big podcast community) moves forward we have to figure out a good way to get the levels right because "normal" people are not going to like making these adjustments all the time.

    Maybe a future MP3 could handle this or maybe a "podcast service provider/distributor" could do this pre-delivery to the end user.

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  • Podcast On Vulnerability Alerting Services

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    Hurray! Less work for me!!!

    I "tore" out of one my favorite tech rags – Network World Fusion – an article entitled "Vulnerability alerting services free up expensive IT security staff" (01-24-05), and had planned to mention it in a future Tech Rag Tear Outs podcast.

    But … now I don’t have to … NWFusion did their most recent podcast on this article that talks about: DeepSight Alerting Service (4.88), Alert Manager (4.5), Security Manager (3.5), ThreatFocus Diligence (3.38), Security Tracker (3.38), Security Mob (2.75), and E-Secure-It (2.5)

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  • Public To Do List Service TaDaList Falls Short

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    TaDaList is a great potential tool but it looks like it is just a "marketing" teaser for Basecamp (nothing wrong with the approach … pretty good idea in general).

    But my 10 second spin has two big problems:

    • Manually have to share every list and not a hierarchy of lists.
    • Lists do not have a hierarchy structure (lists of lists of lists etc.)

    The lack of these two features make it non-starters for me to use this seriously. I freely admit that I am picky. 

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  • Podcast Catching Tool for Windows ($30)

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    Christopher Carfi has a great write-up on how to turn a $25 USB Flash / MP3 Player into a podcatching system for Windows.

    The reason why I wrote $30 up in the title is that I think folks using Doppler (or any other podcatching client for that matter) should go over to their PayPal donation link and drop $5 in the virtual jar.

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  • Best of Podcasting

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    Podcat’s Best of Podcasting did a "kids" focused summary.  My kids start off the podcast with the meows.  Carson’s meow is more of a "cat scream" but it works …

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  • Bad Day For Amber

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    The excellent techno music for my podcast comes from Amber DJ (www.aimthedj.com).

    Apparently someone broke into her car recently and stole a bag that had some of her material and a lot of memories.  Bummer … total lost is around $500.

    I suggest making her day brighter by buying her new CD – Live With Friends and Family.

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  • Latest Wine Bottle Openers Are Neat Gadgets

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    We recently picked up something similar to one of these offered here at Costco online.  It is an amazing wine opener.

    BTW … I called into graperadio.com’s phone line with a question and I got this back in email:

    Steve,

    Your Pinot Noir (pee-no no-are) from Steel Creek Wine should be pretty tasty and ‘easy drinking’.

    Meaning it tends to have less tannin and red wine pucker effect.  It will typically have bing cherry flavors going on, along with a bit more sense of ‘soil’ than you’d have with say a cab or merlot. 

    It is a software wine for generally non beef foods.  Anyway, put this wine with food – on the fish side = salmon; on the meat side put it with lamb, chicken, duck, or turkey.  It actually is said to go with filet – tenderloin if not char grilled – making it in the oven/broiler though I usually put this food with cab.

    Talk to you soon!

    Leigh

    Nice service! 🙂

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  • Technology Reviews by Bloggers

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    I have been reading 43 Folders since early Dec04, and it is pretty good site for getting new ideas on how-to-do David Allen’s Getting Things Done (Getting).

    The author has listed some "decisions" on how a vendor might get their tool or product evaluated via his blog.  His write-up is pretty comprehensive.

    Todd Cochrane at GeekNewsCentral     also talks about this topic of bloggers doing reviews in this post.

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