Samson Go Mic + EMS Today = Podcast Goodness?

I leave for Baltimore in the morning, to attend EMS Today.

Let me clarify, I am leaving sometime between “I should really go to bed” and “the sun isn’t even up yet??!!!??!!??” to head to Baltimore.

You see, EMS Today is back in town and I’m going to the show to assist our sales force with techno-geek stuff. It’s actually a really good time, spent with good colleagues/friends.

This year though, the Geek Gods are also smiling on me…

In addition to getting to see a few good friends, I’m going to record a few podcasts with our authors and customers. Pretty sweet huh?

I have my trusty Sony voice recorder, but since I’ll have a place to set up my laptop I really want to record direct to my external hard drive through Audacity with a quick post edit in Levelator. For that, I’d need a mic to record with, and let’s face it – my on board mic from Dell sucks.

I picked up the Samson “Go Mic” for just about $60 at Best Buy. It’s a micro condenser that’s USB-powered and packaged in a well thought out clip that attaches neatly to a laptop.  With a choice of cardioid, -10db, or omni polars it’s got a lot of promise packed into its svelte casing.

I’ve only done a few quick tests with it, but the quality is shockingly clear. I am having a hard time noticing a difference between this and the $150 Marshal MXL model I had used previously.

Stay tuned as I’ll post updates on my field testing this weekend.

How To Score A Seat On NASA’s Final Shuttle Missions

Space, the final frontier…yeah, ok, that was pretty lame.

But what isn’t lame is the fact that we’re rapidly approaching the final two missions of NASA’s Shuttle program, with just STS-133, and STS-134 left on the mission docket.

To commemorate the end of an era, NASA is allowing ANYONE who wants to go into space the chance to do just that, virtually of course.

NASA’s “Face In Space” Program allows you to upload a digital photo of yourself to NASA (I can just hear the conspiracy theorists moaning now) which will fly with the crew on their mission.

Once the mission is complete, you will be able to return to the NASA site and download a Flight Certificate, signed by the mission commander…

Billy’s going to space!!!

R.I.P. Firefox, I’ll Cherish The Memories…

Ok, so Mozilla’s Firefox project isn’t dead, but it’s gone from my machine as of tonight.

For those that know me, I’m quite infatuated with all things Google yet I chose to remain loyal to those products/items which always did right by me, Firefox’s once AMAZING browser being one of them.

I realized some time ago that if I wanted to stop pulling my hair out each time I logged online, I’d need to move away from Internet Explorer. I was quickly enamored with Firefox for its speedy, reliable, and customizable performance/look.

Factor in widespread support for Firefox compatibility, and I quickly became a fan of the Mozilla kool-aid…

Lately however, most notably following the version 3.5+ rollout, I’ve had something of a love/hate relationship with FF. Perhaps it’s because I allowed the spark to dwindle in our relationship, or didn’t do my part to keep it fresh, but in either event, Firefox and I have become quite estranged as of late…

So, as Steve Holy would croon, I got me a new girlfriend – Chrome v5.0.

Now, I hadn’t always been a fan of Chrome. Many of the applications I use for work (Webex, DimDim, & Skype) didn’t work well in Chrome in the early days, and the thought of launching one browser for fun, and another for work was just too much effort to consider seriously.

Sebastian Junger couldn’t have asked for a better setting…1) Flash for Firefox repeatedly crashed Webex on me, 2) Multiple updates to Firefox fixed my Webex woes, but killed my IE Tab plugin, and 3) I opened an email from a friend who raved about the newest version of Chrome – It was for all intents and purposes my “Perfect Storm”…

With over 5,000 extensions, themes that simply work, and a browser speed better than anything I’ve seen in a while, Google has really hit it out of the park with this one in my opinion.

Mozilla Firefox, 2006 – June 22, 2010 R.I.P.