I recently received an email from someone asking me how I got the voice recording in my videos to sound so clear and strong. The answer to that question is much more complex than I'll deal with here, but that person asked me mostly about the microphone I used, and if that could make a big difference in getting better recordings. Here's what I replied:
I currently use an EV RE320 in a shock mount.
A few months ago, when I spoke at php[tek] in St. Louis, I had the honor of being interviewed by Cal Evans on the Voices of the elePHPant podcast! In the interview, we discussed Drupal 8, Acquia, the Raspberry Pi Dramble, and the PHP community.
Check out the interview: Interview with Jeff Geerling - Voices of the elePHPant.
There's also a video recording of the podcast, embedded below:
As Drupal VM has passed 500 stars on GitHub, and is becoming a fairly mature environment for local development environment—especially for teams of Drupal developers who want to maintain consistency and flexibility when developing many sites, I've been working to get more stable releases, better documentation, and a more focused feature set.
Also, in the past few months, as interest has surged, I've even had the opportunity to talk about all things Drupal VM on the DrupalEasy podcast! Check out DrupalEasy Podcast 172 - The Coup (Jeff Geerling - Drupal VM), which was just posted a few days ago.
And to keep the conversation flowing, I'm going to be moderating a BoF on Drupal VM at DrupalCon New Orleans, Drupal VM and local Drupal development for teams.
I've been subscribed to the Modules Unraveled podcast since somewhere around episode 40, and it's one of my favorite Drupal-oriented podcasts. I was thrilled to get an email from Brian Lewis last week asking if I'd talk about Honeypot (a popular Drupal module I maintain) on the podcast.
We discussed the module itself, ways to combat spam in general, some reasons why you would or would not want to use Honeypot for your particular site, and also the experience of porting the module to Drupal 8—a three year undertaking.
The full/raw interview is available on YouTube:
Today LeanPub published it's 25th episode of the LeanPub Podcast, and in it, Len Epp asked me about a wide range of topics, including AI, the impact of smartphones on interpersonal relationships, how I got started in computing, and how I self-published a bestseller, Ansible for DevOps, on LeanPub.
A few decent quotes from the interview:
[On how I learned technical/tutorial writing:] Go sit down, sit through all the tutorials, and then write up a guide that will help people to quickly get up to speed on it”. Because the manuals you get with the manufacturer are pretty much junk.
As a technical person I hate the idea of DRM on a book. Because it’s like, when I go to a bookstore and buy a book, I don’t have like a locking mechanism that I have to unlock to read it.
tl;dr: Offers little more than the built-in iPhone microphone, but it's a good mic for the price, and is very useful in certain situations.
Since adding my comprehensive overview of audio input and microphone options for iPhones a couple years ago, there have been many purpose-built microphones that are made particularly for smartphones. IK Multimedia's iRig Mic Cast microphone is one of these purpose-built devices.
I was honored to appear on Dustin Faber's 16-bit Catholic podcast this week. We spoke about CNMC 2012 (see my summary post) and some recent news concerning politics and bishops. Give the episode a listen here!
In a break from normal events, I talked with a Twitter friend Dustin Faber tonight about gaming. Many people who follow this blog and follow me on Facebook might know I enjoy video games, but they might not know how much I enjoy them :)
My brother and I both played a ton of arcade and early computer and console games growing up, and I currently play games in the Halo series and a little Minecraft from time to time. Not as often as I did before I met my beautiful bride, but still here and there when I need a diversion.
tl;dr: Great-sounding, reasonably-priced microphone, purpose-built for the smartphones and tablets, with few downsides.
The iRig mic was introduced in 2011, and promised to be one of the best ways to get sound from your mouth or instrument into the iPhone 4, iPod Touch or iPad/iPad 2. Since then, it has been tested to work with newer iOS devices like the iPhone 5, and many Android phones. I've updated this review (in 2013) to reflect my more extensive testing since I originally reviewed the microphone in 2011.
A week or so ago, I was in a car wash, trying to think of something productive to do. Prayer was out, because I didn't think it would be as easy to connect with God through a wall of high-pressure water. So, I did the next best thing... I whipped out my iPhone, pointed the camera at yours truly, and hit record. What resulted was Catholic Car Wash.
In each episode of the podcast, I will be talking about a small bit of the wonderful Catholic faith—whether it be a Catholic practice, a part of Holy Mass, or some other crazy thing I want to share about the faith. Check out the first two episodes: