shownotes_MCM20111011

Opening
  A discussion of the softwate, tools, and methods I use for preparing for the Maccast
Emails and Voicemails
  I use Gmail
    Mail.app is used on my Mac and Mail on my iOS devices
    I use special IMAP folders to organize different picecs
    Filters are also set up for specific items
      These are set up in the GMAIL interface under Mail Settings-->Filters
      any emails with an audio attachment get filtered into a 'Listen To' folder
      Set up special filters to watch for "call to action" emails, like 'Why I'm an Apple User'
      These could also be done as Rules in Apple mail, but I prefer the processing on the server side
    IMAP folders sync up, so when I orgainze in either place everything gets updated
    I prefer moviing items on iOS because it access folders in context to the Mail account you're working with
  Voicemail is handled 3 ways
    1) The mail filter I already mentioned
    2) The "hotline" which is a Google Voice number
    3) Skype voicemail
    Google Voice
      These come in and I also get an email with a rough transcript
      Listen to them in the iOS app or on the website
      Respond via email if needed
      Have to download comments as MP3 files via the web interface in Safari
    Skype Voicemail
      This one is a bit trickier
      I can listen in the Skype app, but need to use another app to record the audio.
      I use Audio Hijack Pro for this.
        Launch Audio Hijack
        Select the Skype preset and click Hijack
        Click record in Audio Hijack and then play the message in Skype
        I record to an AIFF file and use a 'Monomizer' filter
    Regardless of the voicemail source it gets converted and Levelated
      Use QuickTime 7 and it's audio export filter to save the source files as a 44.1 kHz, 16-bit, Mono AIFF file
      Drop that into Levelator
      The file output from Levelator is what is added to Garageband for the show.
Research
  I use RSS feeds as my main source for research
  Subscriptions to over 25 different Apple and tech blogs and publications
  I use Reeder as my primary app on both the Mac and iOS
    Syncs with Google Reader
    Typically take a first pass each day and "Star" the articles I want to focus on
    I may also simply clip a fact or section I want to cover into Notebook
      Periodically I go through the Notebook clippings and organize them into related groups, add notes, etc. It's kind of like a thought book more than an outliner for me.
    Or, if it is a longer form article I may send it to Instapaper.
  As I'm prepping I also go through my 3 source locations, Reeder, Notebook, and Instapaper and start to process it.
    Ultimately everything ends up in my Omni Outliner notes
    I'll start a show Omnioutliner file and save that to my iDisk. The reason is that OmniOutliner on iOS can access that.
    My Notebook pages can be eport as OMPL and opened in OmniOutliner and then copied right into place. I then can expand these with other content from other sources.
    I'll read through the longer articles, typically in Instapaper on my iPad, and may add stuff to the OmniOutliner notes on the iPad (copy paste)
    I do the same thing from Reeder and also Gmail for the listener questions and content.
Pulling it all together
  For recording everything ends up in a "show" folder in my Documents folder
    Within that I have an audio folder for all my clips and an images folder for all the album artwork
    At the root of that folder are the GarageBand and OmniOutliner files (copied over from iDisk)
  For Album art I typically use two tools
    Skitch, recently aquired by Evernote
    Acorn
    All files are saved out as 600 px by 600px PNG files
Recording
  I covered most of the equipment and technical deatils in Maccast Member Episode 031
  I use Garageband and the Podcast track. Add album art and info.
    Best trick here is I drop the audio and images folders into their respecive areas in the media browser in Garageband which gives me quick access to add those assets to my project without having to use the Finder.
  Use Share-->Export Podcast to Disk and create AAC and MP3 versions
  Those files are added to iTunes so I can add all the ID3 tags and meta data
Posting
  Files are uploaded to my hosting service (Libsyn or Cachefly)
  I use Transmit for FTP
  The Feeds are all generated using Feeder
    This direcly generates and update the RSS (XML) file on my server. Published via built in FTP
    Feeder als uses XML-RPC to set up the post on my Wordpress site
  Maccast site is in wordpress and I log in there to clean up the show post and add the code to allow the HTML 5 audio player which uses the Media Element.js plugin
Closing
  That's it.