Er. Sorry. I think I got off track there for a minute.

Anyway, I have daily contact with plenty of people that use Firefox add-ons to enhance their use of the browser. I'd like to point out a few of these add-ons today that my visually impaired students are using on a regular basis.

Text Size Toolbar
This add-on creates tools on your standard toolbar that gives you three quick links: to enlarge, to reduce, or to "equalize" or bring back to its default size. The tools are unobtrusive, easy to manage, and quick to use.

QuickZoom
Adds two buttons to the status bar that are the equivalent of the crtl+ and ctrl- commands. Right-clicking on either of the two buttons returns the view to its default size.

QuickZoomCM
Adds three menu items to the context menu (right-click menu) that allows you to enlarge, decrease, or return to default size.

Accessibar
Adds a complete toolbar that allows changes in font size, background and font colors, and line spacing. Also includes the ReadAloud text reader.

All of these add-ons are guaranteed to work with versions 1.5-2.x, and are also being reconfigured to work with Firefox 3.0, which is currently in beat. All of these add-ons can be located by visiting the Firefox Add-Ins Site.

Don't feel that you have to have an impairment to use these add-ons. How many times have you visited a web page where the web designer has put white text on a black background, and it hurts to look at it? The Accessibar can reverse these colors for you, easily and quickly. And what about those forum pages that you may come across that give you a tiny little window and an even tinier font to type your post into? The QuickZoom or TextSizeToolbar will increase the size in a click. And while I know that there are keyboard commands and keyboard plus mouse movements that will do some of these same things, if you're surfing, you don't want to take your hand off your mouse to complete a keyboard maneuver if you don't have to. These add-ons can make it a whole lot quicker and easier to get through what you need to get through.

I am being a bit glib here, in this case this might be one of those exceptions to the rule. When a particular product is so dominant within a market that it becomes a defacto choice, then aligning your product with that competitors name gets you into the perception of customers that might not have even looked elsewhere. In this case the iPhone is so much part of the geek zeitgeist that there have been many that have bought it without considering anything else and despite some of its flaws, like not being 3G.

This is also a less risky move by Sprint because the iPhone is not really a competitive product for them. What they are really competing against is the AT&T network. The dynamic of the market though, is that an exclusive contract for a popular product is temporarily skewing the market. Sprints aim is probably more to cause people who might not even consider alternatives before walking into the Apple store to realise that other possibilities exist. This gets them thinking about the other factors they are ignoring in choosing an iPhone locked to the AT&T network. When the network is not being considered Sprint aren't even in the game so they need the decision on the phone to be harder so they have a chance.

Given that Sprint will eventually get a future version of the iPhone any positive effect on the Apple brand is probably not a bad thing for them in the long term anyway.

While Gizmodo clearly think this idea is all bad, I can see some sense to it. The main problem I see is that it is too late. The majority of the people who will buy an iPhone regardless of what else is out there is probably mostly gone. There might be a core potential market that have been witing for a plan to run out before buying if they are lucky. They have a much better idea of the market dynamics than I do, I hope.

Today I discovered Lefora via an Article on Robert Scobles Website and went over and setup a new forum, the podcast audience has been asking for one so I decided to put it up for them. More on that on the next podcast but if you are looking for a way free forum. The folks over their are offering free forum hosting by lefora.

I will be presenting a talk on, Securing a Sponsor in the New Media Space, which will include invaluable tips on how to build your show and it’s brand even if you are not seeking a sponsor.

The podcaster meetups take place in the Blogger and Podcaster Magazine building on Podcast Island. IM Itazura Radio, Chugabug Goodnight, or Radar Masukami in-world for more information. [More Information]

Note: I will likely stream this on Ustream as well.

This will change the Internet as we know it. I shudder to think about having to deal with those types of transfer limits. For people who live in areas where Comcast is a monopoly they will really be screwed.

My family of 4 consumes a great deal more than 250gb a month. I use Amazon Unbox, I subscribe to nearly 100 podcast, I have a Apple TV and a myriad of other bandwidth using boxes.

This would essentially mean the death of streaming audio, podcasting, Apple TV, IPTV and a number of other services. Users are going to protest wildly but this may for once and for all create some competition in the market place. [DSL Reports]

My team is also very close to introducing a premium service that will offer greater detail to existing data, along with more reports that will extend the bar even further allowing the RawVoice Podcast Statistics service to continue to be the most feature rich podcast statistics service in the industry.

We will continue to make available the free service, but the list of plus up features will be so good that are hopeful that many of you will want the premium service for a small monthly fee. RawVoice will have an announcement soon on pricing and exactly what the premium package will include.

Disclaimer: I am the CEO of RawVoice if you did not know that already!

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31 Days of the HDX Dragon Notebook Giveaway
02 May - 09 May www.absolutevista.com
03 May - 10 May www.arstechnica.com
04 May - 11 May www.osnn.net
05 May - 12 May www.jkontherun.com

Link to full Show Notes

Only one other podcast in the Top 25 was a tech show. While we never get any love from iTunes we do get a lot of love from other sites. Geek News Central Podcast continues to grow and have an amazing listnership. Top 25 Podcast for April

Rowling believed his work was infringement, so sued Vander Ark. Who can blame Vander Ark for feeling like he's been slapped in the face by someone he'd held in high regard.

As the lawsuit progresses (it is still undecided as of this writing), several authors have come forward to add their opposing literary two cents to what is going on. What makes this remarkable is that two of these authors are extremely popular, well-known icons themselves. The first was Neil Gaiman, author of a truckload of graphic novels and the two standout literary works, American Gods and The Anansi Boys. The other is Orson Scott Card, whose work Ender's Game won Hugo and Nebula awards in 2006.

Both of these authors would know something about infringement. Both take the attitude that to be emulated is flattery; to build on an idea, image, or reference is something to be proud of, not something to be squashed like vermin. In addition, Card makes a point of connecting the dots between some of the action and characters in his most famous work to that of Harry Potter. It is possible, and likely, that Rowling herself "borrowed" ideas, actions, and characters from other work that she'd read.

What both writers are pointing out, however, is that derivative works, websites by fans, and items like the Harry Potter Lexicon, do nothing but increase your visibility and brand. There is no downside to that kind of viral marketing. The fact is, the publication of Vander Ark's reference guide could only increase Rowling's popularity and the connected interest in her work. I would do a lot of things for that kind of publicity surrounding a book I'd written. The more the merrier. It all translates into increased book sales and increased interest in the author. How can that be a bad thing?

While it was good to have the time with less distraction, going cold turkey in an unplanned way doesn't do good things for the stress levels. So back home now for a Monday of catching up with work emails, personal emails, I am completely behind in the news, missed getting my football tips in, lost an ebay sale because I didn't answer a question in time.

While its good to get some time away from the world it is preferable to do so in a planned way. Hope all of your weeks went well. If you find yourselves in Sydney though, a trip north to the Hunter Valley wine country is well worth it, beautiful!

I just hope all the employees were able to dump their vested shares last week because after tomorrow the stock is going to drop like a sinking ship.

Reports are all over the place discussing stockholder lawsuits. Greed caused the Yahoo board of Directors to demand to high a price for a company that is already getting smoked in the online marketplace by Google.

I really thought Yahoo would play ball but instead they have lost in extended innings. At least Microsoft will not have to deal with the deals Yang was putting in place to make it as painful as possible. [Idiots]

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31 Days of the HDX Dragon Notebook Giveaway
02 May - 09 May www.absolutevista.com
03 May - 10 May www.arstechnica.com
04 May - 11 May www.osnn.net
05 May - 12 May www.jkontherun.com

Full Show Notes Link

Sunrgi (pronounced sun-er-gee) means to change all that. Part of the problem with producing cost-effective solar is that getting enough production from normal photo cells means having acres and acres of solar panels. If too much sun is concentrated on photo cells, they overheat and are destroyed, thus the need for having so many panels to capture small bits of solar energy at a time. Sunrg has developed a way to concentrate the photovoltaics to produce up to 100 times more energy to one solar panel, and has developed their own (proprietary) system for heat removal, which takes the burn out of the cells. Combining these two things gives us a product that can produce power at a cost of about five cents a kilowatt hour in a smaller space and without the need for large amounts of water or high-cost mainenance.

Can I get one on my roof? Yes, but the initial push of sales from Sunrg will be to utility companies, government bodies, and large companies with a need for renewable energy sources. Prototypes have already been produced and tested not only in the lab, but in the field. Production should begin in twelve to fifteen months.

I encourage you to visit their website, and especially their FAQ section, which answered a lot of my initial questions about how the product works. Are we finally going to get the solar-based power we've been hoping for?

We have been able to hold the event on a very small budget in the past, and I do not think this is possible this year with the NME being in Vegas the cost are considerably higher. I am open to suggestions.

One thing I thought we could do is have the awards ceremony virtually, while not as glamorous we realized last year that more people watched the awards ceremony via Ustream.tv than actually attended the event.

I will have more information shortly. But don’t fear we will have a great event regardless of the awards venue. Heck I might even consider having the awards ceremony at a Podcamp event. [PodcastAwards.com]

What this should do is encourage hackers to start creating drivers for a variety of devices for OS X. What I expect to happen next is that Apple will patch Leopard in a way that it will close the door on people from doing this. Not to mention the lawyers working overtime to stop the folks at Psystar from selling these units.

While I am not sure how many people will purchase these white label macs, it sure is surprising that it has taken so long for it to happen. [CNET]

Over the past few months, I still don’t see the fit I really don’t. Regardless this merger has a lot of hurdles to clear before we have a “MaHoft” [AlleyInsider]

This machine was essentially under attack in that bots were trying to submit comments to the site in the 100’s along with that their was a huge number of instances of TrackBack request coming in.

The IP’s were from a couple of machines so I simply added those machines to my firewall IP denial list. Within 30 seconds of doing that a new set of IP’s started hitting the machine.

So I played this game for about 30 minutes and to no relief as soon as I blocked a IP another would pop up. It looks like the comment spam and trackback spam bots are evolving and somewhat out of control.

I would normally be sleeping when this attack happened so I am going to have to go back and look at the log files to determine how long this has been happening.

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Complete Show Notes Linked Here

As a comparison, let me give you a simple example on how the RawVoice podcast advertising compensation works. Lets say we have secured a sponsor and the sponsor is paying us $20.00 everytime a specific action happens. Our compensation to the podcaster is 70% to the podcaster,  30% to RawVoice. Thus RawVoice keeps $6.00 and the Podcaster gets $14.00. 

Here is another key-point, what does RawVoice do with our share?  We Sponsor podcamps, deliver free stats, provide podcaster publishing tools, support industry events etc. We invest a large amount of money back into the podcasting space and still pay salary and have our books in the black.

 
Now the reason I asked in the title of this article on what is fair podcast compensation. Is it fair for a podcasting company to take 87% of any advertising revenue that has solely been created by those producing content. I would say in my opinion no. If I were doing the heavy lifting in preparing and recording the content and promoting the show and only earning 13% of the possible revenue I would be pissed.

I was personally shocked by what Ron Bloom of Mevio formally Podshow had to say about podcasters and podcasting. His comments are a hard slap to the face of those media creators associated with the company.

RawVoice believes in the podcasting space, podcast creators, user generated content and will continue to work hard to help shows with our tools, advertising opportunities, statistic and publishing services. RawVoice Affirmation

So, I tried to rotate the videos 90 degrees so I could post them upright. Not an easy task. I first tried it using the Kodak EasyShare software I already had. I could rotate it for viewing, but it wouldn't save it in the rotated format. So I opened the video in QuickTime and tried to rotate it there. I couldn't do it there, either, unless I wanted to pay $29.99 for the "upgrade" to QuickTime to make it the Pro version.

This just rubbed me the wrong way. As much money as I've spent on Apple products over the years, and they can't give me QuickTime Pro? Of course, I had no choice but to buy it so that I could rotate the videos, because despite intense searching, there really is no freeware or even shareware alternative to QuickTime.

In the meantime, I spent a lot of time and got pretty annoyed trying to solve what should have been a simple problem, only to eventually solve it by letting Apple charge my credit card another $30 for a simple upgrade. Way to go, Apple.

Everyone that visits the following sites during their contest period May through June and enter the respective sites contest will have a shot at winning one of the hottest computer being sold today.

As I posted in my last post the machine has a retail value of $4500.00 I will be talking about how you can win on the Geek News Central Podcast. One of the sites on the campaign is Andy McCaskey from Slashdotreview.com he and I will be giving away some extra prizes to go along with this promotion.

Below is a list of sites that have been chosen by HP and the folks at Buzz Corps to give away these great machines

Disclosure: This contest is being sponsored by HP and managed by Buzz Corps

There will be a wide assortment of eval software also shipped with the systems

Disclosure: This is a prize giveaway sponsored by the fine folks at HP!

Hardware

HP HDX Dragon - $4,500 retail value

HDX System Specs

I see no point in deconstructing their argument however, there is data out there that gives a powerful inferred relationship between video games and real world violence. What annoys me greatly about every argument I see about video games causing violence is that they NEVER directly address broad based violence directly in their study. They either look at links between games and specific acts, or (as in the study mentioned above) they look at violent games link to some factor that they then conject means there is a link to actual violence. So why do none of these studies look at or even mention the statistical impact on real world violence of the violent video game age? Anyone care to make a guess?

I wrote an article on businessgeek about these statistics recently, in that article I was discussing how statistical results can be manipulated to give false information but they are very relevant to this topic as well. The actual trend from the US department of justice is that over the 10 years from 1995 to 2005 actual violence has measurably declined in the US from around 50 violent crimes per 1000 citizens to around 20. This is a significant decline and occurs over the exact same period that the violent video games increased in number, use and explicitness.

Considering that prior to Doom's release in 1994 the violent crime rate had been flat or climbing since the begining of the dataset in 1973, the only causal relationship that can be made between violent games and actual violence is an inverse one.

While this may seem counter-intuitive to some there is a reasonable hypothesis that could explain this trend. All humans have violent tendencies to some extent. Violent video games allow people to vent these in a safe way. It is possible there are pathologies where the in game actions can cause people to be more violent in real life, but the very distinct trend shows that the majority effect (if any) is towards lower violence from game playing. The other statistic I show in the businessgeek article also shows that children that play violent video games are LESS likely to be involved in actual violent incidents.

So let me summarise, on one side we have conjecture and speculative links between findings and links to violence. On the other side we have a 60% decline in real world violence over the period of time when violent video games have been around, which is a change in the trend prior to 1994. Coupled with this a study that shows that children that play violent games are less likely to get involved in physical fights. Easy decision.

Let me be clear that this is not proof but the only logical conclusion from the evidence available. If you see an argument that games cause violence it needs to be at least as compelling as a 60% decline in violence with one direct link to video games (timescale) to give it any credence. What I would like to see is demographic segmentation of the violence statistics compared to those demographics consumption of violent video games. This would give evidence of the extent of the correlation between games and violence.

-Opening Remarks were nice introductions were made, ground rules set and off we go

-Roxanne Darling from Beach Walks with Rox is out here in NYC as well, nice to see two of us all the way from Hawaii

-I am in the widget session and they are talking about various widgets that people are using on their sites.

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Full Show Notes to the Hottest Tech News In the Podcast Space

Police in the UK are now using a simple, but high-resolution, camera headset for surveillance and other needs. I first read about this on Gizmowatch, and went out looking to see if I could find more information. The device is tiny, wrapping around the back of the head and having a wide-angle view similar to your own eyesight. That alone could make this device about the most fun thing to film with that you'll ever find. It also includes a microphone to capture all the audio within range.

The only place I could find to buy them is the Maplin gadget site in the UK. But I imagine these will hit a bigger market in pretty short order. Can you imagine the videos that would end up on YouTube after this thing becomes widely available?

The unit prices out at about $499US. I imagine that cost will be about half that within the year.

(And as an aside, yes, I know Gizmowatch's tag line is "Because boys need better toys to play," and I'm hounding them mercilessly to find a less gender-specific tag-line. Girls need better toys too.)

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Full Bodied Show Notes to this Award Winning Podcast

My distaste for these bulbs is fairly well-known. But manufacturers of CFLs have been listening to the complaints of users like me, and have been making changes. I am glad to see that they are listening to us, rather than taking the stand that we will all have to use them at some point and the users rights didn't matter.

One of my complaints is the inaccurate color of CFLs. They are orange, green, blue, anything but the warm light of an incandescent. The other problem is that CFLs don't always fit into places I need them, like lamps in the living room or ceiling fixtures in the kitchen, because they are slightly larger than standard incandescents. And then there is the issue of how slowly the CFLs turn on and brighten up. Sylvania is addressing all three of these issues with their new micro-mini Twist bulb. They are standard incandescent length and width, turn on instantly, and burn at a lower temperature, eliminating the "blue" light of most CFLs. As a bonus, these new bulbs contain only 1.5 milligrams of mercury, instead of the usual 3 to 5 milligrams. Of course with all the "new features" of this bulb come some disadvantages; the price of the micro-mini sells for $10 a bulb, about three times the price of a standard CFL.

I also worry about what to do about fixtures that have a "bare bulb." The CFLs are not attractive, and for vanity fixtures, they will be pretty ugly. GE Consumer and Industrial will be releasing a CFL that looks exactly like a standard incandescent bulb, right down to the size. GE also boasts that the light output of this incandescent look-alike will match current incandescents, which should provide the kind of light we are expecting from a bulb. The price on these bulbs is about $5, only a dollar or so more than the CFLs we are buying now.

Philips Lighting doesn't want to be left out of the green movement, either. They have developed a three-way CFL that turns on instantly and gives three distinct bands of light. According to Philips, the bulbs will not deteriorate into a single color over time, like current three-way CFLs tend to do. Prices for these new bulbs is about $10, not too much higher than existing bulbs on the market.

With these changes, I am more inclined to try CFLs in more places in my house. We are transitioning, but slowly, as some applications of CFL just are not appropriate, like the clear-bulb vanity light bar in our bathroom. That one will probably have to morph over to halogen bulbs when the time comes.

What are your experiences with CFLs? What are your concerns?

This is not new news, at least in my academic world. Some professors, for a long time, have lamented the addition of wireless connections in the classroom that allow students to surf while they are in class. And in computerized classrooms, where a computer sits on every desk, it is an ongoing issue with many instructors.

Of course, there are some instructor-controlled solutions out there for computerized classrooms. There are several products from Altiris to help an instructor control access in the classroom. We use a program from Netsupport that allows an instructor to give or take away internet access on student PC's, as well as sharing slide presentations, websites, etc. It also includes a function to turn on or off the equipment, which is a pretty impressive tool to watch in action. Then there's an even more mundane solution: classroom furniture that raises and lowers computer monitors/keyboards at the instructor's discretion.

All of these are tools that work, and are being used, in classrooms all over the country. But I have to wonder, as Techdirt does, why the underlying problem is not being addressed and solved. The underlying problem is not access to the internet. The underlying problem lies in the instructional methodologies professors use, and how those methodologies aren't capturing the attention of their audiences.

I don't know about anyone else, but in school, when my professors were boring, I amused myself by doodling, writing letters, or editing one of my novels. I took random notes, tried to look like I was paying attention, and managed to get through most of these "boring" classes with A's and B's anyway. If there'd been internet, I might have been using that tool to keep me entertained, as well.

I think instructors who worry that freely-offered internet access in the classroom will disrupt their instruction should perhaps change their instructional methodology. And let us not forget that the student is ultimately responsible for how they learn or not learn what is being taught in the classroom, as well. These are adults, after all, and they are free to make their choices, whatever they are.

The Internet, wireless access, computers in the classroom, etc., are just tools. How students use them in the classroom is up to them, and they will ultimately pay the consequences for the choices they make. Don't blame the technology. The Internet didn't kill the class; the complacency of the Professors and apathy of the students did.

Ignoring some of the more interactive product placements where scripts have been change, show like The Apprentice existed solely as a marketing vehicle. A whole class of reality television shows and home improvement, or other lifestyle shows that exist because they are good vehicles for advertising, better than generic ads because people actually watch. None of these are fictional programming, however do you know how "soap operas" got their name?

Starting on radio back in the 30's advertisers used to sponsor serials that ran daily during the day when housewives were likely to be home and listening. These shows were based on some dramatic pretense, the same as soaps of today, and would also show the sponsors product being used and contain sponsorship announcements. These radio plays (and later television shows) were written for companies like Proctor and Gamble, Lever and Colgate (Palmolive) who were very involved in the manufacture of various types of soap. The radio plays advertising soap became known as soap operas and the rest is history.

So this 'new' idea from NBC actually harks back to the earliest days of both serial drama and advertising.

While there are the obvious problems with defending a patent that will likely have many prior art problems, the idea itself could be a really good one if handled properly. I like the idea of virtual world style technologies making their way into the mainstream as a replacement for some types of web interactions.

The issue with some of the current offerings like secondlife is that the experience is contained within an application. I don't mean to deride SL with this analogy, but it is a little like being on AOL when there is an Internet out there. Opening a store in SL is good if your main audience is there, but getting the casual user to install a heavy app and go through the learning curve of understanding how to use the program and find what you are after is not a good model for success.

There is power in virtual worlds as an interface option though, it is a different and more natural way to interact with data, provided that the representation of that data is logical. This is another way in which the SL destination world can fall down a little. By being ubiquitous it can do multiple things ok, but does not necessareily do everything perfectly. For example the building mechanism makes it able to represent almost anything, but makes it hard to make rendering quick. It is also very stuck in the "like person size" representation while it may be better for some data to be more flexible with the 3 dimensions.

The whole virtual store thing is firmly in the rumour stage at this time, but it will be interesting to see how it develops.

I cannot talk about the details yet, but you are going to start hearing some things from some other sites as well in a few days. I am still working through how people are gonna qualify to win but it is definitely going to be tied to the podcast.

So if your not subscribed to the show, you will want to subscribe and start listening, for your chance to win! This will be the biggest prize we have ever given away, as many of you know we typically give away two to three thousand dollars worth of stuff on the show each year. But this will be way different.

More details as soon as I have the official info from the giveaway sponsor.

Subscribe Now Via iTunes, Zune, ZenCast, RSS or simply Listen Online

One of the tenants I have lived by is that if a person wants to earn money for their writing or media creation then they should explore all avenues to do so.

While I realize that a site that is not well followed will likely not make a lot of money, many bloggers are happy to have enough money to buy a few new gadgets or have take the wife out for dinner.

My advice to Bloggers want to earn some money, be realistic on what you can earn and then go out and work your tail off to get a sponsor that matches your content. [Louis Gray]

RawVoice is also sponsoring the Friday night Podcamp Party in Brooklyn. I am so looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones. Hope to see you at Podcamp NYC.

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Link to full show notes from this Podcast

Except. I wonder how they got her name and address in the first place. My children do not attend traditional school, as we are homeschoolers and have been for five years. So a school could not have sold their mailing address to anyone. My daughter doesn't have bills or bank accounts in her name, is not old enough to register to vote or get a driving permit or anything else that might have her name and address. The only thing I can trace it back to is that she does have a state-issued ID for traveling, and she has her own library card. Which one of these two entities is likely selling information to marketers? I just don't see either one doing that, but maybe I'm misguided.

It also occurs to me that my 18 year old son, now a college student, has been receiving recruiting materials from the armed forces for about three years now. He was also homeschooled for the last five years, so I'm having trouble figuring out where that mail is coming from. He has a state-issued ID, a library card, and a savings account at a local bank. He is also employed. So I have several other ideas about how he got on someone's mailing list.

Getting junk mail at this age does concern me. Junk snail mail for kids is really pretty inappropriate, in my book. The marketing never stops, virtually from birth on. It is on television, radio, peer pressure from their friends, magazines, books, you name it. Even our kids aren't safe from the pervasive attitude of buy buy buy. It's a strange thing.

It makes me wonder when my six year old will see her first piece of junk mail.

Of course they have to know which sites you are registered for, but they can make a few educated guesses like trying the major bank sites or the more popular internet commerce sites like ebay, paypal, etc. Now I freely admit that I used to do this myself as remembering different passwords for each site is a pain in the neck. The only concession I made to the insecurity of this message was that I had a few different passwords that I would use in different situations, the password I used on my banking site was not the same one that I would use on a forum account.

I did try using a password vault application at one stage, the obvious limitation to this though was that if I wasn't on a system that had the application then I couldn't access my passwords. Some of the smart phones I have seen have these sort of applications on them now. The Blackberry I use has one but I have not tried it in anger yet.

Some time ago I found a great tip on creating varied and still easy to remember passwords from Steve Gibson of Gibson Reaserch. Start with one or more standard passwords, I personally have more than one and all of them are secure passwords to start with. That is they are not regular words or names and contain capitals, numbers and special characters. Each of these base phrases is assigned to a specific segment of sites you might visit. This could be split by use or even just alphabetically A-E, F-M, etc. Whatever the decision criteria you use, once you know which base you will be using you then use an algorithm to change that base phrase depending on some category of the site or site name.

This algorithm can be complex but will be better if it is one you can quickly do in your head but is not too obvious. For example, if the site name has more than 5 vowels increase all the numbers in the base phrase by 1. Or another example, the 3rd, 4th and 8th character in the address are added to specific positions of the base phrase. Both of these are very simple examples, but even at this level of simplicity someone would need to see multiple different passwords to be able to decode the algorithm, and as long as the base phrase is a fairly secure one it will be very hard to determine which characters are base phrase and which are algorithm with ease.

This study confirms many of the things we have been seeing at RawVoice and once again validates many of the things I have been telling media buyers for the past three years.

The linked report should give media buyers some fire power to take back to the companies they work with, and hopefully bring them into the podcast advertising space.

Here are a few key points from the press release:

“The study showed embedded advertising in online shows and podcasts to be highly effective for increasing brand awareness, usage intent and positively impacting brand perceptions across four diverse product categories: television programming, automobiles, financial service, and digital imaging. Results included:

• Average unaided ad recall of 68%

• Average aided ad recall of 89%

• 73% average increase in likelihood to use/buy vs control group”

You can see Podtrac’s full report here!

The ADM has setup discussion pages where comments can be made on the guidelines, during a public commenting period. The full announcement can be looked at on the ADM Website.

Over the past couple of months Angelo has lead the Measurement committee at the Association for Downloadable Media. The committee as a whole has come up with a measurements standards document that is being announced and revealed to ADM members and the general public today.

In talking with Angelo today we both understand that this is a first step in laying lasting groundwork that will help media buyers understand that their are standards they should be looking for when working with podcast and new media companies.

RawVoice has been in the new media measurement space Since 2005 and developed media measurement standards that our media buyers trust. A majority of the standards that we and other companies in the space follow made it into this first measurement document.

A public commenting period will begin for all of the ADM documents released today. My team is looking forward to reviewing all of the other committee reports and commenting on them as well, as most of the documents being released today are being seen by many ADM members for the first time as well.

Unfortunately, the technology really isn’t there yet, despite the best efforts of software developers over the last fifteen years.

The best tool for turning audio into text right now is Dragon Naturally Speaking version 9. This software, once installed on a computer, allows the user to talk into a standard free-standing or headset-style microphone connected to the computer and watch words appear on the screen in a word processor. As of version 9, Dragon works better out of the box than any previous version. That being said, it is not fool-proof, and it still requires that the user “train” it to understand how they pronounce words. This takes several hours, in general, and the program continues to “learn” as you use it over time. Additionally, it must be used in a quiet environment with limited background noise to achieve the best results.

Another product that is readily available is Via Voice, originally from IBM. This comes free on Windows XP Professional and Vista operating systems. In this case, you do get what you pay for, and Via Voice is a very poor substitute for the $99 Dragon system.

Despite what companies like Sony would like you to believe, there is no way you can take a recorded tape/digital recording of a lecture, presentation, or meeting discussion and turn it into text format with just a software program. Even Dragon, as good as it is, is unable to complete this Herculean feat. Audio recordings are full of “noise,” whether it be the person sitting near the recorder shuffling papers, audience members coughing, the air conditioner running in the corner, etc. Even a relatively careful recording has enough noise in it to confuse the text converter.

We are still a long way from the end of typing on a keyboard.

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The comments section of the article provides some guidance as to the reasoning behind some of the ads, like #6 which makes more sense when you know Takashi is a boys name, and what a frog and chicken have to do with toilet seats in #8. While my favorites were the toilet seat and Arnie's energy drink ad, I wonder how many more copies of Windows would be sold if they used their Japanese ads everywhere. It would probably be good for Apple.

On a side note the Japanese also have the best game shows bar none!

Human tetris

Treadmill hurdles
And brilliant obstacle course games