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September 15, 2005

The PERLGURL.ORG Podcast FAQ

Here I'll try to answer various questions regarding the PERLGURL.ORG podcast.

Q:What's The Name Of The Podcast?
A: Ugh! I hate this question! For now it's "The PERLGURL.ORG Podcast". I know! I need a cool name, but I can't decide on one that sums up things succinctly!
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Q:What's This Podcast About?
A: The PERLGURL.ORG Podcast covers nature and travel topics. You'll hear all about Laurie's midsadventures around the world - places she has been or wants to visit, as well as issues she cares about like wildlife conservation, cool animal behaviors, and much, much more! Expect a lot of additional media - photos and video - to be included along with the podcasts.

Q:Who's The Host?
A: Laurie Darcey is the host of the podcast. You can find out more about her on her blog.

Q:How Do I Subscribe Directly? What's The Feed URL for iTunes or whatever my podcast catcher is?
A: It's http://www.perlgurl.org/podcast/podcast.xml

Q:How Often Will The Podcast Be Released?
A: I'm aiming for one podcast every other week, to start, although I may switch to once every two weeks after the first couple of episodes.

Q:How Long Will Each Podcast Be?
A: As long as it needs to be. Frankly, I had thought they would be 5 minutes long, since that's how long it takes me to read the scripty things I write, but somehow the first episode ended up three seconds short of a full half hour. I clearly have no concept in how long it takes me to say what I want to say - so let's assume that the podcasts will likely be between 15 and 40 minutes long. That seems safe...

Q:Do You Have Plans For Upcoming Podcasts? A Program?
A: My husband Shane just shook his head at me when the first thing I did was make a program schedule with many-colored cells in Microsoft Excel. In other words, yes.

Q:Okay, So What's The Program?
A: Well, I want to be able to keep it a bit flexible, based on response but some of my plans include topics like (no specific order): Great White Sharks, Grizzly Bears, African Safaris, and Being Attacked By Monkeys!

Q:Where's The Podcast Recorded?
A: Laurie lives in Santa Cruz, California, but podcast content comes from Laurie's travels all over the world.

Q:Laurie says she's a bad public speaker, what possessed her to do a podcast?
A: Laurie feels she needs to practice, and this is a fun way to do so.

Q:What are Laurie's qualifications?
A: Laurie loves talking about her travels as well as conservation issues. She knows next to nothing about producing audio or video stuffage, but that's not going to stop her. What she really has to share are experiences.

Q:How Is The Podcast Made?
A: Let's see. I tried using some of the podcast software around but it just didn't do what I wanted - and I'm being a bit cheap. The music and sounds I made myself using FruityLoops. How? I screwed around with it until it sounded kinda cool, and then I stopped. The travel audio is generally sound stolen from our travel home videos. I record myself using a slightly "customized" version of Microsoft Sound Recorder (it helps being a software engineer). By this, I mean that I have modified the default audio settings of the recorder as well as enabled it to record for more than 60 seconds. I also have been using Audacity, the free cross-platform sound editor available at SourceForge.

Q:What about copyright? Can I borrow audio, video, pictures?
A: All content on perlgurl.org is protected under copyright, unless specifically stated as taken from another source (like blockquotes, public domain stuff, etc). I'm fine with people downloading content for personal use, but if you're going to publish something, even on the web, please always give credit and link to the perlgurl.org website. Also, try to drop me an email (led AT perlgurl DOT org) so I can keep track of how things are being used.

Posted by sorsha at September 15, 2005 8:16 PM