Tag Archives: NaNoWriMo

MPEG-4 Lessons, Server Woes, eBay Shopping

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Maria Speaks Episode 20: MPEG-4 Lessons, Server Woes, and eBay Shopping.

Transcript:

Hi, I’m Maria Langer. Welcome to Maria Speaks Episode 20: MPEG-4 Lessons, Server Woes, and eBay Shopping. This episode is a hodgepodge of information related to my podcasting efforts and the trouble it has been giving me lately. You can find the transcript of this podcast in the “Call Me a Geek” area of Maria’s WebLog. The easiest way to find that is to click the link on my home page, www.aneclecticmind.com.

Let’s start with the MPEG-4 lessons. If you’ve been following my podcasts, you know that I’ve begun creating the occasional enhanced podcast. Enhanced podcasts include images and links and are saved in MPEG-4 format with a .m4a extension. My other podcasts are saved in MP3 format with a .mp3 extension.

Podcast publishing is not exactly a simple task — well, not when you do it the way I do. After recording, editing, and saving the audio file, I then log into Blogger where I create a blog entry for the podcast. There’s a link field that I fill out with the URL for the audio file’s location on a server. I put a short blurb about the episode in the entry and publish it.

Publishing the entry on Blogger does two things. First, it creates the Maria Speaks home page. That’s the plain old Web page you see when you browse www.aneclecticmind.com/mariaspeaks. Then it creates an XML feed file called atom.xml, in the same location as the home page. This feed file has all the codes necessary for podcatching software — like iTunes and a bunch of others I really don’t know — to see and download the new audio files.

But that’s not what most subscribers use to access my podcast. They use my Feedburner feed. Every 30 minutes or so, Feedburner’s software checks out my atom.xml file to see if it has changed. If it has, it revises its version of my xml feed file, which can be found at feeds.feedburner.com/mariaspeaks. That’s the file most subscribers subscribe to and it’s the one with all the bells and whistles to make sure my podcast entries appear correctly in the iTunes Music Store and elsewhere.

Sound confusing? It is, in a way. But I don’t usually have to deal with too much of it. As I said, I create and save the audio file, then create and publish the corresponding blog entry. Blogger, Feedburner, and subscriber’s software does the rest.

My MPEG-4 lesson started yesterday. Well, in all honestly, it started about four months ago, but I didn’t realize it then. Back then, it was a problem getting my podcasts to work. But I changed the way I was doing things and it started to work, so I assumed I’d been doing it wrong in the first place. Actually, I wasn’t.

Here’s the symptom: my enhanced podcasts weren’t accessible from the Maria Speaks podcast. Anyone trying to access the file from the Maria Speaks home page by clicking the entry name got an error message. File not found. And there was no attachment to either version of the xml feed file.

The regular podcasts were fine.

Thus began my troubleshooting exercise. I zeroed in on the difference in the file name extensions and started researching. To make a long story short, I discovered that in order for me to include m4a files in my podcasts, I had to set up a MIME mapping on the server to identify the m4a extension’s type as audio/MPEG.

If you’re completely lost, don’t worry about it. This isn’t the kind of thing most computer users need to deal with. I certainly don’t. Fortunately, I have a server in my office that I can set up MIME mapping. I added the appropriate entry, moved my m4a files over to that server, fixed the URLs in Blogger, republished, resynced Feedburner, and everything began working fine.

I’m still trying to find out if the server space I have on GoDaddy.com can be modified to add the MIME mapping I need there. I’d much rather serve from that server than the one in my office.

So that was my MPEG-4 lesson.

Server woes started this morning. I was still fiddling around with the MPEG-4 files and was very surprised to see that the folder on my GoDaddy server that I’d been using to store my MP3 files was gone. I mean gone like it was never there. And oddly enough, two folders that I thought I’d deleted were back. What the heck was going on?

I assumed that I’d accidentally deleted the missing folder and was mistaken about the other two folders. After all, I’ve been busy lately with my QuickBooks book and a bunch of unexpected helicopter charters. I was obviously being careless. So I rebuilt the missing folder from backup files on my iDisk and went to work.

All the way to work — it’s a ten-minute drive — I thought about my carelessness. And when I got to my office, I did some more research. What I soon realized was that all of the space on my GoDaddy server had been reverted to the way it looked on October 10. Over a month ago. What the heck was going on?

I called GoDaddy technical support and was fortunate enough to have a tech guy answer right away. I told him the symptoms. We did some brainstorming, using the info we both had. We soon discovered that on October 10, I’d requested a change from a Windows server to a Linux server. For some reason, it had taken GoDaddy five weeks to process the change. In the meantime, I kept uploading files to the Windows server when the Linux server was already set up but not accessible to my account. Last night, GoDaddy switched my access to the Linux server, which hadn’t been updated since I requested the change. So I was suddenly faced with a server that hadn’t been updated for five weeks and access to the server I’d been using all along was completely cut off.

Well, this wouldn’t have been so bad if I was using the server space for a Web site. I keep backup copies of all my Web site on my main production computer. If a Web site’s directory or disk is trashed, I can have it replaced in a matter of minutes. But the only thing I use this server for is storing my podcasting files. Not just for Maria Speaks but for KBSZ-AM’s Around the Town radio show, which is broadcast every weekday. When GoDaddy made its change, it wiped out about 20 podcast files.

The really tragic part of all this is that I’d been saving all those podcast audio files on my PowerBook’s hard disk. Two days ago, I got an onscreen message saying I was running out of disk space. Well, why not delete some of those podcasts, I asked myself. After all, I can always get new copies from the server.

Two days later, of course, I couldn’t.

Well, the GoDaddy tech guy was very helpful. He told me they’d do a server restore for the Windows server and copy the files in my directory there to the Linux server. Although GoDaddy usually charges $150 for this service, they admitted that they were at least partially at fault for the screw-up and waived the fee. Now I just have to wait up to 10 days for the files to reappear. And, when that happens, I have to re-upload any files I uploaded to the server between yesterday at midnight and the day the server is restored. Like this podcast.

Oh, and I did lose one of my enhanced podcast episodes. It was one of my better ones, too: Mac and Windows File Sharing. It was on my .

Mac disk space, which I also cleaned up in an effort to get rid of unneeded files. So if you have a copy of it — that’s the version with the m4a file extension — please send it to me at mariaspeaks@mac.com. I’d really like to put it back online for the latecomers here. The lesson I learned in this ordeal is that I must have a copy of every single file I want to make available on a server. If I’d had all my files, I could have just restored the server back to its original condition and got on with my life. And not bore you with this story.

SmartDiskWhat’s weird about this is that I considered the server my backup and I deleted the originals, depending on the backup. If you recall my famous NaNoWriMo podcast episode, you’ll remember how I spoke about the importance of backups. Yeah, well the originals are important, too. Which brings me to the final topic of this podcast: eBay shopping. I’ve been surfing eBay for the past two weeks, trying to get a deal on a portable FireWire hard disk. The idea is to use the external hard disk to store all my media files, thus keeping them off my PowerBook’s internal hard disk, which is only 40GB. SmartDisk makes a drive called the FireLite and I figure I can get an 80GB model for about $130. There’s plenty to choose from, all in unopened boxes. But I seem to have the worst timing; I’ve lost about a dozen auctions in the past two weeks. I’ve gotten to the point where I actually bid on two of them at a time, knowing I can’t possibly win both.

That’s the same technique I used to snag a new iSight camera this week. I put the same bid on both cameras. I won one and lost the other. Fine with me. I figure I’ll bring the camera home and use it on my laptop for a Webcam and for iChat. I might also do some video podcasting — but don’t hold your breath on that.

My other big eBay acquisition is Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger Server Unlimited. It’s about half the price on eBay as it is in the Apple Store. Sealed boxes, unregistered. Sounds almost too good to be true. We’ll see.

The server, of course, is so I can finally get rid of WebSTAR and do some serious Web hosting on my server. I’ll bore you with that in another blog entry.

That’s all for today. I hope you learned something from this mess. Thanks for listening!

NaNoWriMo Expanded

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I talk more about beginning novelists.

The other day I wrote an opinion piece about NaNoWriMo ’05, which I turned into a podcast for Maria Speaks. Here are some related thoughts and experiences.

One of the things that has always bothered me was way organizations prey upon people who want to be writers — particularly novelists. They have writers’ workshops and writers’ magazines and and writers’ Web sites with forums and writers’ mail-away courses. They sell products to writers to motivate and inspire them and make them better writers. I’ve seen these products and although I admit to have bought my share of writing books, I’ve also seen enough to know that only a small percentage of what’s sold will really help a writer. And the thing that bothers me most is the fact that the vast majority of writing publications focus on topics of interest to beginning writers — people just starting out. I’m talking about people who haven’t had anything published yet. It’s as if they never expect their readers to get beyond that point.

The people they prey upon — the beginning writers — have a story (or or two or three or dozens) inside their hearts that they’re trying to get out. They’re convinced their work is better than bestselling author, fill-in-the-blank. They believe that the editors who have rejected their work are stupid, selfish, and evil. But rather than spend their time writing, getting those stories out and fine-tuning them for submission and possible publication, they waste a lot of time whining about editors and publishers and the industry in general in online writers’ forums. Or providing all-knowing (or sarcastic) answers to serious questions posted by other want-to-be novelists.

This is where something as silly as NaNoWriMo can help. If these people would stop wasting time and get down to it, they might actually get some work done. A novel in 30 days sounds impossible, but if they’ve been thinking about it as much as they’ve been wasting time in online forums, they should have all the hard part done: the planning, plotting, and character development. Getting the words down should be easy. Just stop procrastinating.

And if there’s one thing that’s always helped me produce, it’s deadlines. Ask Cliff, Nancy, and Megg, three of my editors. (More on that in another blog entry.)

Here’s a real life story about someone I knew years ago. There’s a slight chance she might read this and, if she does, I hope she’s not offended by me telling her story from my outsider’s point of view.

Mary (not her real name) always wanted to be a novelist. I think she was partial to fantasy and science fiction, but she may have had other things in mind. I don’t know because I only had an opportunity to read one thing she’d written. She spent most of her non-working hours online, frequenting bulletin board systems’ (BBSs’) message boards (precursors to the Internet’s forums). She had a BBS and so did I. In fact, that’s how we met.

Her BBS posts were consistently negative toward publishers and editors. She spent a lot of her writing time writing short stories and entering them into contests. She never won. (More about writing contests and other gimmicks in another entry.)

Sometime around then, she sent me one of her short stories to read. I don’t remember what it was about. I don’t recall it being bad, though. But it did have one big flaw. At the end of the story, which takes place in Washington, DC, the main character looks out the window and sees the Pentagon. It was an important part of the story’s irony — seeing that building. I remember that clearly. But it was also a serious flaw because the Pentagon is not in Washington, DC. It’s in Arlington, VA. And it simply cannot be seen from the location her character was standing. When I pointed this out to her, she got extremely offended, as if I’d gone out of my way to find something wrong to pick on her story. I hadn’t gone out of my way. The glaring error was there, right in my face. I would have done her a disservice if I hadn’t pointed it out.

Anyway, she didn’t send me any more stories.

Then one day she decided that the biggest thing holding her back from being a published author was her job. I’m talking about her “day job” — the one where she spent time to earn money to pay rent and buy food. That job. So she quit and retreated into her apartment to write her novel.

A year later, Mary was completely out of money and borrowing from family members to survive. She hadn’t finished her novel and she hadn’t had anything published. I think someone pulled the money plug and she was forced to go back to work.

That’s about the same time I left my day job and started teaching computers and writing how-to books. She claimed I “sold out.” I think she meant that I was writing non-fiction instead of fiction because I was in it for the money. Maybe I did, but my current lifestyle sure beats the 9 to 5, suit-wearing grind I’d be stuck in if I’d kept that corporate job. And who the hell wants to be a starving writer, anyway?

I moved to Arizona and we pretty much lost touch. I heard she had a short story published in a small literary magazine. She was paid in copies. (See my blog entry about Freebies.) But she had her first clip.

The point of this story: this is one person I know who falls into the same category as many of the beginning writers attracted to things like NaNoWriMo, writers’ magazines, and writers’ Web sites with their forums. I’ve just reported her progress in about five years of her life. Five years is a long time. Too long to waste if you’re serious about becoming a writer.

Every day you don’t write, though, is a day you waste if becoming a novelist is your goal. And don’t fool yourself into thinking that participating in those writers’ forums is good practice for writing your novel. I’ll agree that it’s good practice for typing your novel. But it isn’t going to get you any closer to finishing your work in progress.

So why are you reading this? Get back to work!

How Expressing My Opinions Gets Me in “Trouble”

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And why I don’t care.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know that I occasionally — or often, depending on how I’m feeling — express my opinions about things. And sometimes those opinions seem rather harsh in that they go against the grain of what other people think. Or think they think.

That’s the key, of course. It all comes down to thinking. And I believe that’s where I differ from my critics. I think. They let other people think for them.

[Uh-oh. Another harsh one coming. Better put on your mental armor and get your hackles up.]

For example, a few years back I wrote a blog entry putting forth my opinions of the snowbirds that flock to Wickenburg every winter. I commented on the increased traffic, crowded parking lots, and blocked supermarket aisles. I made some observations about the attitude of most of these people toward their winter home and its year-round residents. The observations were not positive. I also commented about how the town’s dependence on a seasonal economy supported by fixed-income, part-year residents was a big mistake. The blog entry gained me fame throughout Wickenburg. The people who spread the blog entry were trying to make me look evil. But most of the people who read it — the year-round residents in the same boat I was in, looking with the same kind of eyes and heart — agreed with me. I was stopped quite often for a few weeks by people who told me how much the blog entry had made them laugh or how it was nice to read something that wasn’t the same old party line.

I’ve written other blog entries with my opinions in them. I think my opponents have realized that calling attention to my blogs was helping my cause more than theirs because I haven’t gotten much local publicity lately. Too bad. It’s always fun to stir up the pot here in Wickenburg. Too much old school, old boy thinking.

I did a piece a while back about the yellow ribbons that people were sticking on their cars. It turned out that I wasn’t the only one bothered by the yellow “Support Our Troops” ribbons. I’ve since read dozens of blog entries with the same basic opinion.

And then there was the one about public sacrifices for the War in Iraq. I didn’t get any feedback about that one. Could it be that everyone who read it actually agreed with me?

Last week I wrote a podcast about NaNoWriMo where I stated a few very strong opinions. It might be safe to say that I “blasted” the folks who run the NaNoWriMo Web site. But I made my statements — as I make most of the statements I make here — after some deep thinking about the topic. In that case, I’d been exposed to NaNoWriMo for a few days and had visited the Web site in question. I was able to look at it with the eyes of an outsider, someone who has succeeded as a writer and knows something about the business, even though I’ve spent my time on the non-fiction side of the business. (More on NaNoWriMo in another new entry.)

Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts from NPR, Slate, and the Progressive (egads!). They’re full of strong opinions, even stronger than the ones I write here. I agree with some of them and disagree with others. But in all cases, I’ll admit that the authors of the pieces have put a lot of thought into what they composed. They’re logical arguments based on facts. And I think that’s why I listen to them. They not only expand my knowledge of a topic, but they provide insight into the way other people have thought about it. People with brains. People who aren’t afraid to think for themselves. And sadly, for the rest of us.

I think that’s a huge problem today. I believe that only a small percentage of the U.S. population actually spends time learning about and thinking about the things going on around them. I don’t think they spend time making their own opinions. Why bother when someone else can make opinions for them? A political party, a church group, a club? Find a herd, join it, and follow it anywhere it goes. Put a flag or yellow ribbon on your car because everyone else is doing it. Just don’t miss the next episode of Desperate Housewives, Lost, or the latest incarnation of C.S.I. I don’t belong to a herd and I’m not interested in joining one. I’d rather think and act for myself. And if it gets me in “trouble” with people who don’t agree, so what? The more of them who speak out about the things I’ve said or written, the more I know my message has reached them.

And maybe, just maybe, it’ll get them thinking, too.