Finally, the video training product many of us here at CMX have used on the Windows platform is now available on the Mac! 

Camtasia lets you easily create engaging presentations, demos, software tutorials and even marketing videos. If it's on your screen, you can recrod it in action!

I've used Camtasia for Windows for many years and love it. Now that I've recently switched to the Mac platform, I can't wait to add this software. And even better, Techsmith is offering a special promotional price of $99 US. If you're an educator who teaches software to your students, you have to try out Camtasia.

To learn more, check out Techsmith's press release.

My photos are now online from the camping trip with Tom Green and sons.

I shot approximately 600 images, and have edited them down to about 240, using Adobe Bridge as my primary tool.

I experimented with slow shutter speeds on many water shots this year and also made a conscious effort to find scenes which I thought would translate well into black and white. In fact, you'll get a first-hand look at how I created the black and white images on flickr in my latest tutorial, which is running on Tuesday of this week.

I've also included a few panoramics from the trip as well, including the one of the campsite.

I hope you get a chance to check out the photos. Feel free to comment on them; I love to know what people think.

 

Well, it's finally happened.

I just pressed the checkout button at the Apple store and in a few days I will be the proud owner of my very first Macintosh.

I ordered the 15" Macbook Pro with the faster, bigger hard drive.

My old Toshiba doesn't owe me any favors; it's had a hard three year life span - and will probably end up in the hands of my nephew for at least a year, but with the writing I've been doing, having the ability to work with both Mac and PC apps is becoming pretty important. I'll just install a trusty copy of XP on the system so I can still work on both sides of the Force.  ;-)

Can't wait till it gets here.

WOW - TODCon slipped by so fast ... it is over too quickly...

Anyways, this year we had an incredible line up of speakers, a bunch of wonderful attenders and the usual great time at the after events (i.e. dinner!). Florida is still hot, wouldn't mind it being a lot cooler, but that just isn't in the cards in June when you're in Orlando FL.

Some of the regulars didn't make it this year and they all were missed. We also had some new speakers who were standing up getting it done. Got to chat with a couple of the new speakers (Denise and Estell) and they are really cool people, hope you get a chance to meet them!

Best session (I went to...) was Derek's - he dressed up in a "Jedi" outfit (ok, it was a brown robe, but in context, he was a Jedi!) and I also picked up info from the other sessions I attended. The conference was great - you should plan to go to it next year - start saving today!

In less than one month, geeks will gather in Sunny Florida to catch some rays, share some laughs and learn a whole whack of geek stuff. Yep, TODCon is coming. I can't say enough positive things about this event. It's certainly opened up opportunities for me in my business, and the size of the event means you've got a great chance of hanging with your favorite authors or speakers, or making new connections to help you in your business.

There are some pretty interesting topics on the agenda as well (and I'm sure there will be a few surprises.) I'll be doing two sessions on Fireworks (Ok, that's no surprise).

The Wyndham Resort is a very nice place to spend a few days as well. You walk into the grounds area and forget how close you are to the hustle and bustle of Orlando.

So if you're in the mood for a break, and want to justify it as a business expense, TODCon may be just right for you. You get it all, sun, fun, education and networking in a nice little package.

 

Some months ago, I wrote about my interest in a new audio book category, the podcast novel. These novels are similar to those movie serials of old (Flash Gordon, Lone Ranger), radio serials of not so old (The Shadow, Green Hornet) and TV mini-series of today. Their popularity has grown and many of the authors have earned a certain amount of fame (if not fortune) by writing and narrating their own books in serial form.

Some of these podcast novel authors are now going from cyberspace to the printed page! Yep, they're signing book deals for the novels they used to narrate for free. I think this is pretty cool.

Scott Sigler's sci-fi (and ultra violent) podcast novels can be subscribed to for free on iTunes, but he now has a book deal for the print release of his novel, Infected, coming out in April.

Seth Harwood's film noire private detective podcast novel, Jack Wakes Up is also now in print.

J.C. Hutchins, author of the Seventh Son Trilogy will see the first of the trilogy, Descent, hit the printed page this summer.

What I love about all this is how things got started; online, free, serialized but complete, versions of the books. These authors, and others, I am sure (I'm a sci-fi geek so my interest only extends so far, I admit), gained a following, a fan-base online and their hard work has paid off. It's a geat example of how new media is affecting the way things are done.

Check out iTunes or Podiobooks.com for a long list of podcast novels in a variety of genre's. Give yourself a break from the same old, same old on your iPod.

Personally, I'm hoping to dump a bunch of these onto Tom Green's iPod before our camping trip this August, and delete his Abba collection in the process . . .

Ok, I'm in Kansas and I thought we're pretty good with online business tech stuff - I have to file, monthly, on my income, etc. I can do this online which is quick, convenient and saved me a stamp and a check (EFT payment). Now, I'm no fan of taxes, but it is the law and not paying is more painful than paying, so I've been faithful to make the payments every month before the due date (errr.... on the due date) and get the yearly required paperwork in too. Each transaction has a confirmation ID and each monthly form is stored, electronically, on their site. I can see that I've paid for the entire 2007 year, have everything filed, etc...

However, today I get a call from the Kansas Department of Revenue - I wasn't there, so I call back when I get in. It is a long distance call and they are only open from 9am to 5pm. I have voip service, so I dial away. I'm put on hold. (insert elevator music here with brief interruptions telling me how important my call is to them...)

Mike answers the phone, I chat a little letting him know why I'm calling, give the case number and wait. He asks some questions to make sure I'm the right guy (you know, that hard to get information, like the address of my business...) - after he's certain I'm not some stranger calling to make good on a government debt for someone else, we proceed to figure out why they called....

"Sir, we don't have your filing for all of last quarter no the payment for the last quarter either"

I'm a little shocked, I know I paid, I saw the money leave my account, all he can tell me is I need to get the right paper work in. They do have my yearly, which has the exact details for my monthly, but we won't go there - having the government actually make the connection between the yearly and monthly reports is asking too much. I mutter something and then get off the phone. By this time, I've loaded up the Kansas on-line payment system and just got to the section about my payments. I call back.

May answers the phone. I give her the details like I did Mike. As we progress, I tell her I've got the electronic confirmation numbers for the payments. I give those to her. She says she sees them, but she can't open them (huh?) and tells me I'm late and fees are assessed , which I suspected, and that, if those were the reports, I'd need to call someone else to get it figured out. Oddly enough, they know I did make a payment and they know that the payment made matches the figure they said I didn't pay in December. Again, this is a leap they cannot grasp. I'm given another long distance number to call.

Kevin answers the phone. I tell him the issue and he's able to figure out that, yes, I did make the payments and yes, the confirmation numbers are for the transactions I said they were for and, yes I filed on time. However, he can't do anything about it. The money was credited to the first quarter 2008, mind you, we're not allowed to file for the first quarter until it is over which is in two weeks. I need to call someone else and, yes, it is a long distance number again. I need to call accounting and tell them that Kevin in the electronics division said it was OK and verified the payments (and since there is only one Kevin, I think they may check on that). See, someone in accounting mis-keyed the information in to the wrong area. Several thoughts went through my mind, but the ones I can print involve:

• Why am I fixing this problem? I did what I was supposed to do.
• Why can't the revenue department open the confirmed electronic transactions?
• Why can't Kevin call accounting himself and fix the issue?
• Why can't Kevin just fix it himself?
• Why couldn't May or Mike have called Kevin and then accounting to fix the issue?
• Why couldn't May or Mike have fixed this themselves?
• By the time this is done, I'll have spent more time resolving their foul up than the entire bill is worth
• When I screw up, as they thought and billed me for, I'm charged, who pays me for their screw ups?

In any case, I had to leave for an appointment before I could call accounting, something I'm "looking forward to" the same was you look forward to a root canal. Luckily, they will find in my favor and reverse the charges and all, but, man what a waste of time...

If you have read my most recent article, Tools for Designers: del.icio.us and Flickr', I made mention of starting a CMX Blog piece for anyone interested in sharing their design and inspiration tools,resourceful solutions for their business, and for self-organizational purposes.

Please leave a comment on this post to share your thoughts. I look forward to seeing what you're up to and if I can get new ideas and be inspired by your ideas.

Happy blogging!

For those so inclined who would like to send a card (free) to the US forces in Iraq:

Thank you cards sponsored by Xerox

Seems Comcast thinks that they can interfere with your web usage on their network.  Apparently, if you have Comcast, you no longer are paying to use the bandwidth as you want - Comcast has determined various applications and services just aren't allowed.  Things like peer-to-peer file sharing, other VOIP providers, Lotus email and FTP.

So, if you have Comcast and you've been noticing things not working right, it isn't your computer - nor your browser (for once!) - it is your ISP meddling in what you are allowed to do.  Most likely they have a government mandated monopoly where you're at too, so you can't move to an ISP interested in just giving you service.  If you have Comcast, make sure you let them know you do not appreciate their business practice and, if you can, leave.

Comcast violates net neutrality with this move and if those with Comcast don't make it an expensive business decision, other ISPs may feel emboldened to do the same.  If they are taking an inch and not stopped, they will eventually make sure the only Internet service we get will be through their mutual business partners... 

Your design skills are not just limited to print and web. My wife and I have been trying to find a unique backsplash for our newly renovation kitchen. We looked all over the place and then we realized, 'Hey. We're designers. We have tonnes of resources'. Then the idea hit me. We work with a sign guy who has done vinyl on plexiglass for us before. Why don't we see if the plexiglass is durable enough withstand the wear-and-tear of a busy kitchen counter. 'No problem he said. It will last as long as your kitchen will.'

So here's the idea. We will get a custom cut to fit the shape of where the backslash will go. The edges of the plexiglass will be flamed so they will be nice and rounded and smooth. We will make our own design to be cut from a semi-transparent, frosted vinyl and apply it to the back of the plexiglass. We will paint the wall behind the glass white and pin mount the custom plexiglass to the wall, and voila! We have the coolest, custom designed backsplash for our kitchen. This will cost us under $300 for about 12 x 1.5 feet of backsplash. It beats the heck out of tiling and the cost of tiles. And the best part is, if we get bored of the design, we can take the plexiglass off, remove the vinyl and apply another design to freshen things up every so often.

If you know the software and have the resources, there are so many opportunities for you to do-it-yourself when your renovating your home. Try something different. It will make your home unique and will have a piece of you permanently etched in its structure. I'll post some pics of my kitchen when I get it done.

I just completed a 9 day trek deep into the Sierra Nevada wilderness, where many interesting things may be seen. I'll spare you the usual tedious mountain peak shots and proceed directly to an amazing phenomenon rarely caught as an image.

Below is a photograph of the elusive mountain ape in its natural surroundings (Evolution Lake in this case), where you can clearly see three prime specimens "displaying" for the females. What superb luck to witness it!

 

 

The females appear to be using body pigments of some kind (perhaps colored mud), revealing a hitherto unsuspected sophistication. Do the males wash off this pigment as part of the display? Alas, I arrived too late to view the early part of the ritual, and was soon compelled to retreat due to the risk of being discovered myself.

Exhausted by the exertions of the trail and the giddy excitement of my discovery, I had to rest upon a high slab near Muir Pass.

Next year I hope to return and learn more about these magnificent but endangered beasts. Until then...

 

This past Sunday, I peered into a world of the unknown, often unseen and clearly alien!

Where was I?

I was speaking at a conference for small boutique owners learning about web design and development.

It all started out when I exited my plane in Raleigh, North Carolina and made it to ground transportation for the shuttle to my hotel. Sparing no expense, we were staying at the Day's Inn at RDU. I saw the shuttle coming in fast heading for a lady with her bags a few dozen yards ahead of me. Not wanting to miss the shuttle, I quickly hurried to catch the shuttle before it whisked away with the lady and her bags. However, half way through hustling, I realized this was no ordinary lady. She was brightly colored, well matched and properly accessorized (watching What-Not-To-Wear has paid off!) with at least four bags, one of which was about half her size – I could go to a fast walk and she would still be getting situated. By the time I'd gotten to the shuttle, she had just finished chatting with the driver, who only managed to get one piece of luggage loaded. I plopped my bag down and climbed in. Suspecting she was here for the conference, she chatted for 10 minutes during the trip (this was her introduction – she is Penny) after which I asked “So, are you here for TJ's conference?” To which she was surprised that I guessed she was! Several minutes later, we were at Day's Inn. As I entered the lobby, I noticed a group of ladies, all brightly adorned and chatting away. There was TJ, sitting among them and she welcomed me to the fold. We were too early to check in, so we stayed in the lobby while the ladies chatted away. This was my first experience being in the midst of such lively chatters. One of the ladies commented to another that she does “Keystone”, I wondered – where is Keystone?

I hadn't eaten lunch yet and right next to the Days Inn was a Waffle House (hey, we were in the upscale part of town...) and Penny, myself and Buck went to the Waffle House for lunch. Buck was from New York and was there for his retail organization. Apparently, in NYC, soup spoons are critical to eating soup or chili, the Waffle House didn't have a soup spoon and much to the chagrin of Buck, he had to eat the chili with his regular teaspoon. Penny and Buck spoke a language I'd never heard before – talked about going Tribal and something about getting Spanx. Now, I'd thought perhaps I didn't understand these boutique shops or what went on in them – but again they talked about Keystone – and I wondered, do they get tribal in Keystone and spank? The waffles were pretty good and the Buck picked up the tab, making the lunch even better!

That evening, the planned event was a social BBQ for the boutique owners and a tour of the local boutique. We rode in cars on the way over, I called shotgun citing I was as large as the rest of the riders put together and needed the space. After the 20 minute trip, I can now honestly say I know how those who aren't ubergeeks feel around us ubergeeks (not YOU, US, as in the CMX people, you're just a normal geek) when we talk shop. The conversation went from having Tribal, again with the Spanx – on to kids, family, location and the vendors and then back to Keystone again. I wondered what was Keystone all about. One woman even said she does Keystone 2! I've not even found Keystone 1 yet or know what it is and she is talking about Keystone 2 – then, much to my surprise, Tee, the driver (whom spent more time talking to the back seat than looking forward) said she's even gotten up to Keystone 3. My mind was spinning.

We arrived a little later than the rest of the attendees, 27 ladies and 3 guys. I realized, rather quickly, I stuck out like a sore thumb – not only in gender, but in attire. I'm monochromatic gray (#666666 colored shorts and #CCCCCC shirt) – the ladies are all dressed in the fashion style they sell, all sorts of colors, patterns, design, accessories, jewelry, shoes and fully made over faces. TJ calls the group to order and the chatting stops. She introduces Terre and Buck and calls on one of the ladies for an invocation for the food. I spent the rest of the evening eavesdropping on conversations trying to learn what Keystone was all about.

On the drive back, the conversation takes off again. I'm navigating because we don't have instructions on how to return to the hotel. I'm guessing on which roads and exits to take while they continue the shop talk. This time, the chat was about the product types. They were talking about camisoles and how they worked in the stores. I learned that they are used for layering and how cheap they cost the stores. One even commented that, with camisoles, Keystone isn't even in the picture. Maybe Keystone is an a cold climate... During the trip, the Tee is talking to the back seat again, paused for a second and thoughtfully mentioned to me she can't really see that well without her glasses, which she left in the hotel. Now my attention was very focused on the other cars, exits and such ahead of us as we barreled down the road at 70 miles per hour. The reason I bring this up? During this chat, they start talking about shelf bras in the camisoles. Tee mentions she doesn't like them and proceeds demonstrates the problem with the one she is currently wearing. Pulling open her top a little to pull up the shelf bra, she laughs and apologizes for digging around “in there” and such. I can't really say if she did bear anything, I was too focused on the traffic and the turn off, plus I was still thinking about Keystone.

Back at the hotel, I modify my session for the next day, join a conference call with business partners and talk geek. I once again feel like a guy! I turn in for the evening ready for my presentation the next day.

We head out to New Horizons for the conference. I show up early and setup the computer for my needs (Firefox, bookmarks, FTP program). I give the session. A few of them have chats with each other while I'm giving my speech. We take a break and I get good feedback – but I ask about the chatting. TJ says that is just how these women are, they don't ever stop. I decide to not let it bother me and continue on. We cover the basics of the web and I pull up those stores which have sites and give a light critical review. By the end, I'm thinking I have bombed. Then the questions flood in, it appears they can both talk and listen at the same time as they ask some really good questions. My session is over, I'm thankful, and we go to lunch.

At lunch, I sat with the international group (ok, two ladies from Canada...) and we discussed the session and some questions they have. Everyone says they liked it, I'm paid and I'm off to the airport.

But, before I leave, I do ask one of the ladies what is Keystone. She laughs, the same laugh we give when someone asks us what is HTML, knowing I've asked an apparent basic question, she explains it to me. Keystone is next to tombstone – if you're not marking up your product by Keystone, you will never succeed and your store will die and go to tombstone. Ah, so it all makes sense now. Further looking to understand, I ask about “going Tribal” and “Spanx” and I'm given the full product line names. I'm also told to never cross Brighton. They sue, apparently.

Content with my gained knowledge, I'm off to Delta (which means Doesn't Ever Leave The Airport) to fly through Atlanta to get back home. I hate Atlanta, every time I fly through Atlanta, I'm delayed and my 90 minute layover turns into a 30 minute layover. I go from being at gate B34 to gate B36 for my connecting flight to gate T01 to E45 (those people who travel Atlanta are groaning now, trust me) – this time, however, everything goes as scheduled for me. A connecting flight to Atlanta is canceled and I'm flying back home with no one sitting next to me – better than I expected!

TODCON 2007 RULED!

Ok, this was the best TODCon ever (exceptions listed below) and here are my top reasons:

• It was the largest so far!
• Great speaker line up with many new speakers
• Good deal of regulars attended and I always love seeing the regulars
• Adobe was there in force! (and they are a really great bunch of people, took time to speak to everyone they could and accepted everyone's suggestions and opinions to make the products better).
  • Ken - wow, managed to handle questions very diplomatically and with great patience (and yes, we want everything)
  • Randy - was sent to speak to the extension developers, which was me and Tom Muck - we had excellent conversations with some good dialog, really appreciated your time!
  • Christian - yes, Spry's code base is too big and, yes, I know you'll work on that :-) I enjoyed the conversations with you a lot and appreciate the time you spent talking with me (and the ideas you gave me for products I could make!)
  • Sharon - congrats on the promotion to manager! And thanks for the discussions on the product and helping us realize the daunting task of quality Adobe faces each cycle.
  • Greg - thanks for the dinner! And for bringing Steph in on time for her keynote session!
• I got to meet some wonderful small business people, some who'd been around for a little while (like the bike shop guys from Tallahassee - go Noles) and some who are just starting out (like Carrie Enders - CKA Creative who is transitioning from print work to web design work with a focus on small business).
• Met the crew from lucidus (or, found out they were the crew from lucidus, already having known them a little while) and that was cool!
• Found some new opportunities from several attenders via networking!
• Got to pick up the slack on giving Green a hard time.
• Several really good dinner conversations and good eats too!
• Found out that, in fact, I can survive drinking Pepsi instead of Coke products.

Some exceptions are:

• Chris Flick wasn't there, nor was Sheri and other regulars, they were really missed.
• Barbra had to leave early and I didn't get to spend any time chatting with her
• Vegas, in June, is still very very hot
• I didn't have an internet connection through the first half of my AJAX/server side presentation - but I was able to recover!
• Missed out on Chaz's BBQ dinner (heard he is a great griller!)
• Didn't get to meet with a lot of the new attenders this year.
• I have to wait another year to go to the next one (once Ray recovers from this one and wants to do the next one!)

As usual, the conference was better then the prior ones. Hopefully next year, everyone can attend and we will have a better conference then before! A special thanks to Judy for the ride to the airport!

It's coming. In two short days, TODCon will be here once again. And I can't wait.

Bright lights, big city, geeks . . . what more could someone ask for?

And the line up looks great. Some very cool topics will be covered. No doubt much fun will be had in the city that never sleeps.

If you're attending for the first time, you're in for a treat. If you're a veteran (like me and many others) it will be great to hook up with all of you again. If ya can't make it this year, save them nickels and book your spot for next year. It's a great networking and learning experience for everyone. Not to mention the most fun a geek ever had.

I'm holding two sessions this year, one about Fireworks integration with Bridge and Photoshop and the other on working with the new pages and sub layers features in FW.

It's been fantastic to see what Adobe has done as they bring all the products into the Adobe family. New life (and I believe new respect) has been breathed into Fireworks. As the sole true web graphics program in the Adobe line, I'm seeing lots of new users coing on board. Many are skeptical, but once they see how fast they can work in Fireworks without having to switch applications, I think they'll be sold.

Old friends, I'm looking forward to seeing you. I hope to make some new friends too.  I can't wait to see everyone.

You'd think that the perfect Web 2.0 recipe organizer would already exist online — after all, they have a tool for everything else! — but I have yet to find it.

Food blogs are really big now, and though I don't food blog myself, I have gotten hooked on reading them. In fact, I pretty much get all my recipes these days from food blogs and never look in my cookbooks. Why would I? They're not searchable, they don't have beautiful full color photos of every recipe, recipes aren't backed up by real people's comments of how they liked it or adapted it, etc. Online recipes really are the way to go.

I began bookmarking each individual recipe in del.icio.us, as do many other food bloggers and their readers, because you can tag each recipe bookmark with all of its main ingredients or other characteristics (like "low fat," "easy," "Indian") and then use those tags to search for recipes that contain the mixture of characteristics you are looking for. So, I could find all recipes tagged with the combination of "dinner," "low carb," "chicken," and "garlic" by using the plus signs by each tag listed as a "related tag" to further filter down. I could also just do a search within my bookmarks if I was looking for something very specific.

This system worked exactly as I wanted, with these exceptions:

• no photos of recipes from the pages
• no rating ability
• no ability to add items to my list that aren't online
  

The rating ability wasn't a big deal to me, and I could also do without the ability to add my own recipes (I was fine with maintaining both an online and offline paper recipe collection) but I really, really wanted the photos. I searched high and low for an online tool that had the abilities of del.icio.us but with the added ability to choose a picture from the page you're bookmarking to associate with the bookmark. I found a number of online recipe organizers that came nowhere close to what I needed, and a number of social bookmarking tools that let you have a thumbnail of the whole page associated with the bookmark but not an individual picture that you can choose from within the page itself.

Finally I found Kaboodle, which is billed mainly as a wish list and shopping site. I thought it did everything I wanted except the rating, so I was thrilled. But I was wrong — it actually lacks the essential search tool of combining multiple tags to search that is the strength of my current system in del.icio.us. You can view all your items with a specific tag, but then can only filter those by keywords within their titles, instead of by further tags.

So, I'm still without the perfect online recipe manager, and undecided whether to stick with del.icio.us or Kaboodle. If anyone has a suggestion for what to use, I'd love to hear it! In the meantime, I have no problem with someone stealing my idea for the perfect online recipe manager and becoming the next big Web 2.0 success story — just please let me be the first person in your beta.

Fours years ago, on March 31st, 2003, Community MX went live with their very first tutorials. It was a crazy time, exciting and scary at the same time. Was the web ready for this type of business model? Would they accept it? Lord knows there were plenty of "naysayers" out there who were very vocal with their opinions. But we didn't listen to them...we believed in what we were doing, we truly believed that there was a market for what we were doing. And it sure looks like we were right.

2000 + articles later, we are still going strong. Each and every business day we have released two new pieces of content...it might be a tutorial, an article, a review, a JumpStart or an extension...you never know what you'll find. We've heard from several folks that it's like Christmas morning every day. And other than weekends and major holidays, we've never missed a single day. That's a lot of Christmas mornings! :-)

I am so proud to have been a part of this endeavor from the very beginning. Honored to be associated with such an amazing group of people. Experts in their fields, with so much knowledge I am in awe at times. While we have had some partners go, and new ones come, the majority of the "founding" partners are still very much a part of CMX today. Ray West, Tom Muck, Bill Horvath, Kim Cavanaugh, JoJo (Adrian) Senior, Jim Babbage, Stephanie Sullivan, Danilo Celic and myself have been here since day one. In the last four years we have welcomed many new partners on board, all of whom have helped shaped CMX into what it is today. Heidi Bautista, Arman Danesh, John Gallant, Holly Bergevin, Joseph Balderson, David Stiller, Robert Reinhardt, Chaz Chumley, Paul Davis, Kim Dudley, Chris Flick, Tom Green, Sheri German, Zoe Gillenwater, Knut Kubenz, Gordon Mackay, Steve Schelter, Rob Williams, Derrick Ypenberg and our newest partner Bevi Chagnon. Each and every one of them has so much to offer it's mind boggling at times :-). Such an amazing group.

But, all the talent in the world isn't enough...without our loyal subscribers, we wouldn't be here, it's that simple. I'd like to offer a heartfelt thank you to each and every one of them. They are the "community" in Community MX, they make it what it is today, a resource like no other.

So, here's to the last 4 years...and to the next 40!! Happy Birthday Community MX! I can't imagine being anywhere else. :-)

I'm an avid reader (of certain genres like horror, sci-fi and some fantasy) and over the past while, I've also become an avid listener. With my loyal iPod sidekick, I've been busy discovering the world of audiobooks.

But not just any audiobooks - I'm talking free audio books. I even have a favorite site: podiobooks.com.I found podiobooks through iTunes and let me tell you, they've got a ton of books available for download, right from iTunes, in serialized format. The books are orated, chapter by chapter, usually by the author. Sometimes authors are better writers than speakers of their work, but hey, it doesn't cost me anything so I'm not complaining.

If I have a long drive ahead of me (which I'm known to do), it's great to switch from my music to a strange new world, immersed in someone else's words and ideas.

If you get a chance, check out podiobooks. I'll even make a couple recommendations:

• The Immortals
• Ancestor 
• Earthcore
  
• 7th Son - Book 1
• 7th Son - Book 2 

Others that I can only find on iTunes:

• Burn
• Undiscovered Country
• Roadworks
• Come, Let Me Whisper
  

The books I've listed are Sci-fi and horror, but Podiobooks (and iTunes) have many other genres to pick from. 

So next time you're looking for a break from the beat, and don't want the radio, check out an audio book. Who knows, you might just discover a new hobby!

I'm jonesin' for a good burrito right now. Unfortunately, I haven't yet found the perfect one in my area, and I can't afford to be eating burritos every day to find it. So some of you other North Carolinians need to pitch in and submit some reviews to Burritophile. Do it. If we all do our part to share our burrito experience, we can all avoid the disappointment of mediocre burritos for the rest of our lives. And isn't that a dream worth fighting for?

Last year, I made a blog post here describing a certain holiday song/story that my brother and I used to listen to on a holiday album my mother used to have. The story was by Red Skelton and it was called "The Littlest Christmas Tree".

Since that post last year, I have received so many personal e-mails and responses to my blog from people telling me how they too had listened to that story on that same album and how they thought they'd never be able to find it ever again.

Needless to say, when I did my very thorough internet search last year for this Red Skelton story, I never thought I'd get the response that I have. Last year, I was just trying to find out if I could still purchase the story some where or if that old holiday album even existed any more. Apparently, the album has been re-recorded but the story has been left off. I found a lot of Red Skelton stuff - CDs and DVds but nothing that gave definitive proof whether this story was included on any of his collections. But I did find a web site that had a WAV file of the story. It was here: www.albertarose.org.

If you go to my original blog, you can get the direct link from there. But what I thought I'd do this year is save it to my own web site in a .MOV file... just in case there have been some web visitors out there that have been unable to listen to the Albertarose WAV file.

Here is the .MOV version of the Littlest Christmas Tree, by Red Skelton:
The Littlest Christmas Tree (.MOV)

Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday Season this year!

Sincerely,
-Chris Flick