Anyone interested in starting a tech podcast with me?

Chew the fat on more "recent" computing (1995 and upwards)

Anyone interested in starting a tech podcast with me?

Postby ajross on Mon Jan 28, 2013 4:55 pm

Hi folks,

I have an NZ based tech blog which is loosely faced at the enterprise/ICT professional audience, http://www.nzenterprisetech.com. Another of my hobbies is radio, and yep, another hobby is retro computing. The radio hobby involves running a streaming audio (IceCast) server for a community radio station in my old hometown of Greenock, Scotland (http://www.inverclyderadio.com), but I've also wanted to explore the world of podcasting. I have a home studio here with which I do a live studio broadcast back to the UK for the breakfast show on Inverclyde Radio. The station said that they'd be interested in syndicating my show, but I'd also like to look into pushing it up onto the likes of iTunes.

I am aware of Paul Spain's NZ Tech Podcast which is a great podcast, but I was hoping for something with a more lighthearted focus. Definitely would have a kiwi bent, but not necessarily 100% kiwi relevant in every item, due to the big wide interconnected world of tech out there. Look at my website for the sorts of things I'd start with covering.

Anyway, I'd look to do it once a week, with a run time of around 1 hour after editing. It wouldn't be live but am interested in perhaps having a streaming version at a later date if a popular idea. However, I really want to gauge interest at this point and see if anyone would be interested in joining in? Commitment would be anything from a ten minute skype/call once a week to a physical visit to my small studio and sit through the hour show (up to personal preference). The podcast would involve having a light hearted look at the tech of here and now. I want to have a good old chinwag about things rather than be a 'newscaster' (you listen to what I say sort of thing), I'd like to make it more a healthy debate and average Kiwi's perspective on what a given particular item. Perhaps every now and again we could delve into all things retro computing.

What do you think? I know many of you out there will work in ICT, like me and thought this was an appropriate place as any to ask the question first. All welcome, young, old - would love to hear from you.

Cheers,
Al
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Re: Anyone interested in starting a tech podcast with me?

Postby SpidersWeb on Thu Feb 07, 2013 2:16 pm

I'm interested in helping out / contributing. Sounds like a fun project.
I'm just reading more of your blog to familiarise myself with the topics you cover.

The UFB topic from 19 Jan got my attention pretty quick, that's something I've been ranting about for ages. There have been several attempts at financing a new cable, but each time it flops. The last flop did end up in the office of Mr Key getting lots of questions regarding it's effect on UFB - but of course, like any government, the answer was 'no'. I'm fairly sure when they planned UFB they were expecting that cable. Perhaps Kim will come to our rescue. We need the competition.

I'm also annoyed that the quality of an ISP seems (for most people) to be measured by 'how many GB I get per dollar' - performance should be a factor with this. You can't test performance usually until you're stuck in a 12 or 24 month contract either. I just want 60-80Gb a month, without having to sit through private server transfers still measured in KB/s (interestingly, that was 800KB/s immediately after the Skynet law was released, I blame those kids downloading Rhianna soundtracks damn it)

I will say 'props to orcon' for at least mentioning that being on an All You Can Eat Plan will likely cause speed differences. Many ISPs try to hide this, and I see Telecom is throwing up 500Gb packages now for the same price as older plans - my facebook is riddled with excited users - not aware of the speed problems that could ensue should they travel beyond the cache-zone.
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Re: Anyone interested in starting a tech podcast with me?

Postby arjoll on Thu Feb 07, 2013 8:23 pm

SpidersWeb wrote:I'm also annoyed that the quality of an ISP seems (for most people) to be measured by 'how many GB I get per dollar' - performance should be a factor with this.

It's one of the reasons I stick with Snap (have been with them - well, Southnet who they bought out - since 1996). They are not usually the cheapest (although their plans are competitive) but they don't have the problems with contention that some of the really consumer-oriented ones do. I see people posting speedtest results on Callplus/Slingshot with anything from 0.6Mbps to 13Mbps on the same connection at different times of day - that's crazy. My Snap connection consistently tests between 11 and 12Mbps, with virtually no change at different times of day.

On the UFB front I have one client who ordered 3 weeks ago, but they're in a multi-tenanted building so Snap are still waiting on an ETA from Chorus. I think a few places are going to get a shock when they find their router becomes a bottleneck - I'm upgrading these guys from a Netgear UTM10 (20Mbps) to a Watchguard XTM 330 (300ish and far better policy settings - I've over-specified a bit so I can be sure I can load them up with rules with no performance hit). One local IT company I know of (and used to work for) has been known to put UTM5's into ADSL2+ sites - those boxes only run at 15Mbps so very borderline. I also have a couple of sites running Netgear FVS318G firewalls - nice boxes, but they only run 25Mbps wan-lan and 7Mbps for VPNs.
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Re: Anyone interested in starting a tech podcast with me?

Postby SpidersWeb on Fri Feb 08, 2013 7:26 am

I just changed to Snap, so it's good to hear another supporter. That was that reason I was previously on Telstra Cable - cost more but better performance - however over the last year it's performance has become 'average' at best and that wasn't good enough. I got more Gb per month (40->60), and a higher connection speed (10 -> 15), but the performance was worse on average.

My steady comparison at home, was private FTP servers in Europe that I use regularly - just a silly script that does single threaded non-encrypted transfers. In 2011, 400KB/s was pretty standard. Then the Skynet law came out and for about a month I got 800KB/s! Since then it's dropped down to an average of around 200 and occasional spots where it's clearly throttled to 20 or 40. Using alternative servers (paid accounts) revealed the same speeds +/- 10%. If I could get my 400 back from those servers I'd be very happy.

I'm still waiting for Chorus to switch on VDSL so I can give it a whirl (UFB isn't until next year for us). So I'm still looking forward to testing that and seeing what averages I get.

Yeah I've found that businesses/government departments don't upgrade their IT gear every 5 minutes (one major bank client of ours refuses to change from IE6 as an example) - so putting in the best you can is quite a good idea for the sanity of their staff. Borderline gear has no place. Some places I've been (can't name them, but corporate offices / government departments) it's faster to use a Vodem or T-Stick than to use their wired Ethernet - I suspect because in the basement is some respectably antique gear. UFB won't be helping them!
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Re: Anyone interested in starting a tech podcast with me?

Postby lizardb0y on Fri Mar 08, 2013 11:50 am

ajross wrote:What do you think? I know many of you out there will work in ICT, like me and thought this was an appropriate place as any to ask the question first. All welcome, young, old - would love to hear from you.


You know what? Yeah, I'd be keen for that. I didn't respond earlier because I wasn't sure I'd be able to commit time to it, but I'm pretty sure I can.

My specialist topics include InfoSec, vintage computing, GNU/Linux/FLOSS and teeny-weeny computers. And random ill-informed banter.

If you want an audtion tape, try these:
Nerd Nite - the Personal Computer Revolution: http://www.vintage8bit.com/content/nerd ... -computers
KiwiCon 6 - DIY Pen Testing dropbox w/Rasp Pi: http://www.scmagazine.com.au/Tools/Prin ... IID=324182
Game Masters - Preserving Laserhawk/Hawkquest: http://www.vintage8bit.com/content/game-masters-forum

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Re: Anyone interested in starting a tech podcast with me?

Postby ajross on Fri Mar 08, 2013 4:58 pm

lizardb0y wrote:You know what? Yeah, I'd be keen for that. I didn't respond earlier because I wasn't sure I'd be able to commit time to it, but I'm pretty sure I can.

My specialist topics include InfoSec, vintage computing, GNU/Linux/FLOSS and teeny-weeny computers. And random ill-informed banter.

If you want an audtion tape, try these:
Nerd Nite - the Personal Computer Revolution: http://www.vintage8bit.com/content/nerd ... -computers
KiwiCon 6 - DIY Pen Testing dropbox w/Rasp Pi: http://www.scmagazine.com.au/Tools/Prin ... IID=324182
Game Masters - Preserving Laserhawk/Hawkquest: http://www.vintage8bit.com/content/game-masters-forum

-- Andrew


Awesome! - I looked at the NerdNite video, really interesting that you like Charlie Stross' books - I used to sit and talk to him every month in the pub down the road from me in Edinburgh at the Edinburgh Linux Users Group (EDLug). It's clear that you and I share a similar background, so that should be good for starters!

I'm off down to Taupo next week so let's get talking about the details when I return and we can take it from there. Where are you based - just thinking about the logistics, whether this will be a Skype/GoToMeeting thing or whether this will be in person.

Exciting!
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Re: Anyone interested in starting a tech podcast with me?

Postby lizardb0y on Sun Mar 10, 2013 2:56 pm

ajross wrote:
lizardb0y wrote:You know what? Yeah, I'd be keen for that. I didn't respond earlier because I wasn't sure I'd be able to commit time to it, but I'm pretty sure I can.

My specialist topics include InfoSec, vintage computing, GNU/Linux/FLOSS and teeny-weeny computers. And random ill-informed banter.
[snip]


Awesome! - I looked at the NerdNite video, really interesting that you like Charlie Stross' books - I used to sit and talk to him every month in the pub down the road from me in Edinburgh at the Edinburgh Linux Users Group (EDLug). It's clear that you and I share a similar background, so that should be good for starters!


Yeah, I like to read things I can't understand. It teaches humility ;)

ajross wrote:Where are you based - just thinking about the logistics, whether this will be a Skype/GoToMeeting thing or whether this will be in person.


I'm in Wellington, so it will have to be by remote control. I have successfully recorded Skype calls before with local audio->left channel, remote audio->right, so I can easily provide a recording from source . I'll need to do a little re-organising of my office to reduce noise - I don't have a studio by any stretch of the imagination.

-- Andrew
lizardb0y / Andrew
Just another 8-bit hustler

blog: http://www.vintage8bit.com
twitter: @vintage8bit
google+: http://gplus.to/lizardb0y
trademe: andrew9 - over 500 positive trades.
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Re: Anyone interested in starting a tech podcast with me?

Postby ajross on Sun Mar 10, 2013 3:55 pm

No worries. I've actually got a years membership to GoToMeeting which does recording and hi quality audio built in so that's probably the best option until my subscription ends next year.

Ill be in touch after next week to get things started.
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