Jesus Geek

This is my 250th podcast. I talk about my trip to Texas and share a little news as well as play some music from my brother.

Windows 7 Beta was leaked on the Internet and is available on BitTorrent sites. There are great reviews of it on Paul Thurrott’s Windows Super Site.

Feel free to leave comments or send feedback to geek{at}jesusgeek{dot}info. Don’t forget that the comment line is back! Call 518-290-0228 to leave a comment. This podcast is released under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Jesus Geek is a weekly Christian technology podcast with news, how-tos and a little bit of spiritual know-how hosted by John Wilkerson. Jesus Geek is a member of the My Life Ministries Network: a community of ministries that views the everyday Christian life as a ministry and seeks to encourage Christians in their daily walk with Christ.

Jesus Geek is a member of the Tech Podcast Network; if it’s tech, it’s here.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (11.2MB)

Many of you have probably already heard the news that Podango will likely close it’s virtual doors on January 1, 2009. This also includes their free podcast assembly tool Podango Show Builder Lite (PSBL).

Doug Kaye of The Conversations Network has already been asked if GigVox would be able to resume the operations of the tool:

Some people have asked the question, “Can’t GigaVox run the service again?” That’s highly unlikely. First, the service belongs to Podango at this time. Second, after a reshuffling of companies, I am no longer associated with GigaVox. I’m committed full-time to running The Conversations Network. That doesn’t mean that someone else couldn’t acquire Show Builder Lite from Podango, but that’s what would have to happen.

In the email from Podango regarding PSBL, Douglas G. Smith, President – Podango, noted:

We know of no other assembly service like PSBL or we would provide you
a reference. We may be able to keep this service running if you the
existing customers are willing to pay a monthly service fee for it
use.

I’ve been thinking how much I would pay for such a service. Podango hosts the source files, levels and assembles them then distributes them to my FTP server. It does this for me automatically. So how much is a service like this worth to me? I haven’t been taking advantage of all of the options (advertising campaigns, etc) so I’d say to me it’s worth about $5/month. If I were using all the features, I’d say I would pay $10/month. When I was putting out a daily podcast this saved me a lot of time and effort. Now that I’m only releasing a show weekly, it doesn’t save me as much time and it’s value isn’t as great to me.

Additionally, I started using PSBL as a beta tester when my mixing skills weren’t as good. I think now that I’ve become more proficient at mixing audio this isn’t as big a concern for me.

I do want to share this with you: the status of Podango or Podango Show Builder Lite WILL NOT affect the availabilty of this podcast. I have every source file and final output file and I will be updating my links to reflect a direct link to those files rather than redirecting through Podango’s servers.

For those of you who took advantage of my tutorial when PSBL changed hands from GigaVox, I’ll be posting another tutorial to show how to run a search and replace to update your links. Look for this tutorial on January 1, 2009.

Well, I managed to croak out some Christmas carols this year. My wife accompanied me on the piano on all of these songs as well as sang with me on all of them. My daughters joined me on We Three Kings, Mary Did You Know?, The Peace Carol, and Away in A Manger.

There were a number of requests that I just could not meet for various reason including, my voice wouldn’t hold out and you can only keep a 1 year old quiet for so long. In fact, you will hear him a number of times through out the songs joining in.

I hope you enjoy these songs. Merry Christmas and may the joy of Christ’s birth fill your heart.

The songs we sung:

• O Come, O Come Emmanuel
• Silent Night
• We Three Kings
• Mary Did You Know?
• The Peace Carol
• Away in a Manger

Feel free to leave comments or send feedback to geek{at}jesusgeek{dot}info. Call 518-290-0228 to leave your voice mail! If you’d like to record an mp3 audio comment, send it to geek{at}jesusgeek{dot}info.

Want to keep up with the latest in my whacky world? Follow me on Twitter, follow the podcast on Twitter and become a fan of the podcast on Facebook.

Jesus Geek is a weekly Christian technology podcast with news, how-tos and a little bit of spiritual know-how hosted by John Wilkerson. Jesus Geek is a member of the My Life Ministries Network: a community of ministries that views the everyday Christian life as a ministry and seeks to encourage Christians in their daily walk with Christ.

Jesus Geek is a member of the Tech Podcast Network, Christian New Media Group and CleanCasts.com. It is released under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 12:57 — 9.0MB)

Not too much to talk about this week because I’m a little sick and tired (thus the title). I think you can hear it come through the podcast this week. Remember to get your request in for Christmas carols by December 12th. I’m going to try and record this weekend. We’ll see how it goes.

Don’t forget that the comment line is back! Call 518-290-0228 to leave a comment. I tacked on some comments I received last week at the end of the podcast.

I play a rendition of O Come, O Come Emmanuel by Paeter Frandzen. I like the machine guns and explosions in the background.

The quick zoom feature in Windows and OS X work differently, but they’re both great for reading small text in your browser or Outlook.

If you want to get an inventory of the software and hardware installed on your Windows machine, check out WinAudit. [via How-To Geek]

If the chimes that go off when you start up your MacBook or iMac bother you, you’ll want to download and install StartupSound.prefPane from Arcana Research.

The iPhone may be heading to Wal-mart. Some sources say it won’t be there until after Christmas, some say before and others say that there will be a $99 4GB sold.

Google’s Chrome is coming out of beta soon, maybe.

Read today’s My Utmost for His Highest.

Feel free to leave comments or send feedback to geek{at}jesusgeek{dot}info. This podcast is released under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Jesus Geek is a weekly Christian technology podcast with news, how-tos and a little bit of spiritual know-how hosted by John Wilkerson. Jesus Geek is a member of the My Life Ministries Network: a community of ministries that views the everyday Christian life as a ministry and seeks to encourage Christians in their daily walk with Christ.

Jesus Geek is a member of the Tech Podcast Network; if it’s tech, it’s here.

Sponsor: Try GoToMeeting free for 30 days at http://gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (12.1MB)

Amazon is giving away free Christmas *ahem* holiday music for the 25 days leading up to Christmas. Don’t worry if you’ve missed the first 4 days, you can get what you’ve missed!

I hope there’s some Harry Connick, Jr. in the mix.

Go get some holiday cheer!

[via Dale @ TTfF]

Footnote (12/08-2008): The past 2 day’s downloads have required the Amazon Downloader software. Boo! Let us get them without the downloader!

A lot of things are covered this week. I’m all over the map in the episode.

I provide a tutorial on how to install portable apps on a USB stick for both OS X and Windows.

The voice mail line is back! Call 518-290-0228 to leave comments!

Ning and Youtube are cracking down on porn (yay!).

I’ve started writing reviews for Tech Talk for Families. No reviews up yet but there will be one in a few weeks.

Check out Advent Conspiracy and Living Water International and give the gift of water this year for Christmas. Starting in January I will be raising funds to drill a well. Ideally, I would like to raise $15,000 to drill a large well in Africa. I would like to encourage other podcasters to join with me in doing this. I think we could know this one out of the park. Stay tuned for more news about this project starting in January.

Feel free to leave comments or send feedback to geek{at}jesusgeek{dot}info. This podcast is released under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Jesus Geek is a weekly Christian technology podcast with news, how-tos and a little bit of spiritual know-how hosted by John Wilkerson. Jesus Geek is a member of the My Life Ministries Network: a community of ministries that views the everyday Christian life as a ministry and seeks to encourage Christians in their daily walk with Christ.

Jesus Geek is a member of the Tech Podcast Network; if it’s tech, it’s here.

Sponsor: Try GoToMeeting free for 30 days at http://gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (16.2MB)