Hooray! As much as I once loved my old design, it was begging for an update. Huge thanks to my friend Jesse Keyes (contact him for WP template design here) who listened to my whims, and put up with my incessant nitpicking. This design is much easier to read and navigate, and the code isn’t fraked from my constant adding and subtracting of widgets. Yes, it had become so bad that even trying to add an embedded video would cause the whole site to spiral into disaster. I’ll be more careful this time.

And to those of you who visit this site mid-transition, I’m sorry if you thought you were caught in some weird temporal vortex (the templates were switching around back and forth). There will be more coming soon to the site as well. I’ll be making a page of all my different projects, and adding to the pages that exist now. We’re also working on a cool header design, so keep an eye out for that one (if you’re not just reading from RSS, that is!).

One of my favorite new features are the Gravatars, which are the little icons in the comments section. It makes things a little more personal around here! Well, I hope you enjoy the new site. I’m very excited about it

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In case you missed it, Tom Merritt and I have started doing a Sword and Laser podcast every week. It’s just a quick rundown of some of the things that have happened in the latest book (Neuromancer) plus whatever other sci-fi/fantasy related stuff we’ve been checking out recently!

It’s pretty low-tech right now, but we hope to bring more audience discussion into it soon, by either using a TalkShoe talkcast or by using Yahoo! Live (which may have been the cause of the strange audio hissing from this week’s episode…). We even have some swag to give away on the next episode! If it sounds like something you’d enjoy, you can subscribe here.

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Lately on Mahalo Daily, we’ve really been leaning towards the geeky side of things (which, of course, brings me great joy). Episodes like the Stan Lee interview, the 3D printer and scanner, and the space junkyard tour have been some of my favorite episodes yet, and a couple coming out soon are even geekier (particle accelerators and massive all-terrain RV’s, for example).

I’d love to know what kinds of things you’d be interested in seeing in the future. Since we’re mainly based out of the SF Bay Area and Los Angeles, anything within relatively easy driving distance would be best, or alternately something that’s on the web that you’d like to see covered. You’re the ones watching the show, so I want to showcase things that you’ll enjoy!

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If Pro-Tools is the well-muscled, handsome (and rich) jock of the audio recording world, then Audacity is the smart (yet perpetually stoned) kid sitting at the back of the class. He’ll help you with your homework, sure, but don’t count on him to come through on exam day.

Two programs at the two ends of the spectrum. But what of the people who need an app that’s dependable, easy to use, and won’t break the bank? Sound Studio 3 ($79.99 from Freeverse) is a solid middle ground. I’ve been using it for the past couple of months, for anything from recording podcasts to voice overs. My setup at home is really basic (M-Audio Fast Track, SM57 mic) but I’ve been extremely happy with the sound quality of those tools with Sound Studio. Read the rest of this entry »

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