Finally taking this thing seriously

A few months ago I said I was going to take some time off, figure out what it is I really wanted to accomplish with blogging, podcasting, videocasting and so on. After years of messing around and tinkering I've finally got things figured out and will be bringing several new businesses and blogs online over the next few weeks. It's ok, I can talk about them now because I have already put the wheels in motion.

This blog, digitalthom.com, will refocus on digital media; podcasting, videos and music. I will move all of my personal items off this blog and over to thomallen.com which will act as my personal website.

My personal website, thomallen.com will have content about me; hobbies, interests, my family and the things they are doing. I hope to post a lot of photos and videos as we are out and about.

I will be porting all my current NASCAR entries and future entries to a new racing network I've put together. Using blogs and forums, my plan is to build a great racing community. I had been thinking about this type of site for some time. A comment made to me by a read explaining they knew nothing about NASCAR and what I was saying didn't make sense, caused me to accelerate putting the finishing touches on the site. So one of the things this new site will do is have an area dedicated to helping readers become racing fans

As most of you know I produce a Jazz music podcast. I've been doing it for nearly a year and I have enjoyed it very much. The show spotlights indie bands and their music. I wanted to find a way to get more of their music in listeners hands, and I am pretty sure I have. This is one new site I won't give too many details until its complete and online. But, if you're an indie band, of any type music, you will want to participate, send an email to indie @ digitalthom . com for more information.

A new site I have brought online is mobileCIO.com. This site has been the longest in the planning stage. I think it will have the biggest impact. There's a critical need for executive level IT direction in a lot of companies. mobileCIO fills that role by acting as a companies CIO/CTO either short or long term. Visit the site for more information.

And finally my real estate site, onehothome.com. I've been a licensed Realtor for about 15 years. My current website will undergo a face lift and add a lot of new media content such as podcasts, and videos. Adding market data, lice maps, virtual home shows, extensive searching, how-to's, interviews and a shopping area, will make this the one stop place for real estate needs.

So there, I've spilled the beans and have laid out a course of action. There are a few more business ideas to bring together including a new podcast. I'll be busy but it will be well worth it. Thanks for listening. Now back to the regularly scheduled programming.

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The Jazz Show #23

Visit the website, jazz.thepodcastnetwork.com or stream it below.

[audio:http://jazz.thepodcastnetwork.com/audio/tpn_thejazzshow_20070329_23.mp3]

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Would you be the one Gene Simmons calls?

Today I was watching a re-run of Gene Simmons Family Jewels. Nothing real interesting, except that unlike Ozzie Osborne, Gene isn't falling all over himself and speaking in tongues. But, there was a part in the show where Genes family makes him go on a vacation. The first thing Gene does is call a business partner and tells him "I want to meet the most influential people in X city; the Mayor, business leaders, the real estate guru. Make it happen."

It occurred to me after he said this, would I be the on Genes business partner called? If not, why?

If you're in business for yourself, word of mouth is probably your best marketing tool. But are you visible enough to be THE one who is called? I asked myself that question and it's an astounding NO. But why? I imagine the answer is varied based on your capacity to handle new customers or your desired growth.

Think about where you are or where you want to be and decide if you want to be the one Gene Simmons calls when he is looking for the product or service you provide.

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Utah Blogger Dinner

Just found out, yes just a minute ago, there is a geek dinner in Draper, Utah. You find out more on Robert Merrill's Utah Tech Job site. I'm going to attend, first time I've done something like this. Should be interesting.

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Twitter vs. Blogging, what’s going on?

If you are a Twitter user, then you probably understand what all the hype is about. If you're a blogger who doesn't tweet, you probably also understand.

I've been tweeting some over the past few weeks. I have a few friends, mainly people who's blogs I read, I also subscribe to their tweets.

Tweeting is kind of as you go thoughts, links, what's on your mind. Blogging isn't really designed for that. Blogging takes some thought, organization, and more time. Tweets are fast and can get a point or thought across without all the formality of blogging.

I've seen Twitter used in a couple of ways. Some just through out random thoughts or actions as they are doing them. Some pass on tinyurl.com links to cool sites or even their own blog posts. Half the time I forget to tweet about what I'm doing. Mainly because I don't think anyone who sees my twits gives a crap about what I'm doing.

So you're basically left with two types of tweets, ones that are random thoughts which most people won't care about, or ones that have something of value that someone wants to share with an audience. But isn't that what RSS is supposed to accomplish? Yes, but only for blog posts.

Here is an example of what I'm talking about. Chris Pirillo sends (used to) links through twitter to his and other vids on the net. Chris Brogan is also very good at sending links to very cool content.

I don't think this was the original intent of Twitter. However, I think making quick twits has value just like a blog post can. It's all in what you deliver.

Join me as a friend on Twitter.

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Salt Lake Tribune looking like USA Today

I read a copy of the Salt Lake Tribune today. First time I've read a newspaper in years. I get most of my news from the Internet and TV.

But today I picked up a copy of the newspaper and started looking through it. Wow, I'm impressed. The format is completely changed since the last time I looked at it. This could have taken place years ago for all I know. But it looks a lot like a USA Today paper. Bold colors for various sections. Lots of pictures, catching headlines; it looks really good.

I also noticed this morning on KUTV Channel Two in Salt Lake City that a reporter from the news paper appears in a short segment telling viewers about hot stories in the days paper. At first I wasn't sure what value that gave viewers. But basically TV news can't cover every news story, not even a fraction. The newspaper does a pretty good job of that.

While I'm still going to get a majority of my news online, I will check out a Sunday edition to see what other cool things I find.

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The Jazz Show #22

Visit the website, jazz.thepodcastnetwork.com or stream it below.

[audio:http://jazz.thepodcastnetwork.com/audio/tpn_thejazzshow_20070317_22.mp3]

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The Podcast Network gets a new face

The guys at The Podcast Network have been hard at work to bring you TPN 3.0. Please take some time to visit the new site. It's not perfect yet but I like all the new features that users will have. Great job Cam and team.

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I’ve found Wal-Mart’s weakness

Wal-Mart, the monster of all stores. It's one of the few places I can get a gallon of milk, a head lamp for my car, a new DVD and a pair of shoes, at the same time.

But this morning I think I stumped them. I was near a store when the need for a photo copy arose. It was something like 7AM when most other stores are closed. So I thought, Wal-Mart will have a pay-per-copy machine and I just needed one copy. I walked in very triumphant. I knew Wal-Mart wouldn't let me down.

The very nice customer service person asked me if she could help, I said yes, I need to make a copy, where is the stores copy machine? She looked at me kind of funny and said "we don't have a copy machine" and went on her way. I was dumbfounded. The worlds largest super store didn't have a copy machine for customer use? I was willing to pay just about any amount for that copy. But I walked out empty handed and waited outside the local OfficeMax until 8AM when they opened.

So it turns out Wal-Mart doesn't have everything. They can provide you with prescriptions, taxes, glasses, food and clothing needs, but not your copy needs. I am finding another store.

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Help Find Brittany in Salt Lake City, Utah

Apparently Brittany has been found. I have no other information to pass on at this time. My original post has been removed as requested by the family.

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I bought a Mac, yea, I did

It's been a long time in the making, but I finally bought a Mac as my primary computer. An iMac to be exact. One of the deciding factors was the availability of an outstanding piece of software called Parallels. As much as I want to be a Mac only user, some of my work requires windows only applications. So I needed some way to use these application but still use a Mac.

It was quite easy to set it up. After I downloaded BootCamp from the Apple site, I created a new partition to install Windows XP on. Caveat; you must have a licensed version of Windows XP with Service Pack 2. I do, so I moved on. the 32GB partition should be plenty for what I need to do.

Once I went through the 4 hour Windows XP install (it sure seemed that long), I downloaded Parallels. The version I looked at was Parallels Desktop for Mac, and downloaded the trial version. I know I'll purchase once I've gotten everything to work. The process was so easy it almost hurt. It recognized my BootCamp partition and created a virtual desktop running Windows XP accessible right from my Apple desktop. Later my brother showed me how I could basically run windows applications in little virtual windows, using Coherence, that looked like they were running native to the Mac OS. Very cool. That alone made the $80 price tag easy to swallow.

Now, I've got everything running, loaded my windows applications, gave the Parallels process 1GB of memory, 1GB to the Mac and we are off. Things are running pretty well. So, if you have a daily need to run Windows applications, then I suggest Parallels. It is well worth the money. If you don't need to run Windows applications, then all the better.

One interesting side note. Once you install BootCamp and go through installing the new OS, for some odd reason the Mac defaults the boot order to the new partition. I wasn't given an option to pick, it just set it for me. You would think that an Apple product would keep the default boot partition to the Mac OS, but it didn't. I had to go into the system preferences and change the boot order. It was pretty easy, but at first I thought I had installed windows over my Mac OS.

Oh, and one other little caveat; when Windows is installing and wants to know what partition to install on, I was presented with 5 partitions. I'm not sure what they were all for. I had a C:, D:, E:, F: and a G:. Most were small but two were about the same size as what I had requested. The logical choice for me was C: since I figured thats what Windows would be looking for. I guess my choice was right.

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Twitter archive #1

Thank you LauraMoncur for giving me the idea to archive my twit entries. It would be nice to have a setting that just sent them as a post to your blog each day. How freaking cool would that be?

• If u are going to blog a 'how-to', give us some meat not 10 lines of crap


• Stupid train is blocking the intersection


• Victor Wooten @ the Depot in Salt Lake City April 28


• watching a guy aerate my lawn, don't get in his way, ouch


• Day light savings really sucks


• trying to get a replacement for my dead Tmobile MDA


• my resume doesn't tell the whole story, let me say it in person


• is it wrong to twit at church?


• @ewanspence too much PSP


• It's freaking raining in Salt Lake City... arrgh.


• My T-Mobile MDA just died. How will I ever know whats going on? Quick, off to a T-Mobile store.


• saw the movie 300 a few hours ago, awesome.


• I'm mind mapping new websites. this ought to be fun.


• @lauramoncur: don't forget to tip the driver... hehe


• NASCAR, Las Vegas, warm weather... should be an awesome weekend


• SVN totally rocks!


• @lauramoncur: There should be plenty of places for hot Mexican. Be sure to stop by the Great British Booze-up and meet ewanspence


• iPod crash, reset... No


• Windows on a MAC is like jelly on peanut butter


• I need a great video camera for vidcasts, anyone have a suggestion?


• I did it, I'm now a full fledged MAC owner. Let the fun begin.


• Ewan I'm jealous I want all those cool toys


• Should have never had that last slice of pizza.


• Hey Ewan, have fun at SXSW.


• What do you do first thing in the morning? I MUST have the largest diet coke I can purchase with the change in my pocket. rev rev...


• Recording The Jazz Show #21, jazz.thepodcastnetwork.com


• Trying to figure out why I can't hit a web site on a local port... Dang Django


• writing code in Python / Django

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FlexMail 2007, we’re done

Today is the last day I use FlexMail 2007. I've tried twice to use this application and both times it's failed miserably.

The first issue, I turned on my MDA and all the email accounts were gone, and I couldn't figure out how to reconnect them. All the data was on my storage card, but to no avail. Started over by adding all the mail accounts again.

Today, I started reading mail and data just started disappearing. The message body, the header, everything.

I'm not sure if this is a removable storage problem, but its a major problem.

Next step, write my own. There aren't any mail clients for Windows Mobile 5 except FlexMail 2007. I can believe that is true, but it is. If I'm wrong, please leave me links to these web sites.

[P.S. Scratch that, I'm pissed. I paid for this software. I wonder if the company did any QA at all. It's a simple set up. Windows Mobile 5, 1GB MiniSD. Come on, the quality of this software sucks. I'm tired of software companies allowing end users to be their Quality Assurance.]

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Calling all NASCAR Fans

OK, so I need a co-host for the NASCAR Race Day Podcast. This is a media event that I have wanted to make work for a long time. I'll do it solo for now, but I really would like to hook up with another NASCAR fan to really make the show rock. If you are a podcaster already and would like to take on an additional show, let's talk. If you are a crazy NASCAR fan, love to talk about the sport and would like an opportunity to share your enthusiasm, let's talk too. Thanks for any support.

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The Jazz Show #21

Visit the website, jazz.thepodcastnetwork.com or stream it below.

[audio:http://jazz.thepodcastnetwork.com/audio/tpn_thejazzshow_20070306_21.mp3]

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