Cephalopodcast

I am scheduled to interview Dr. Clyde Roper later today. Anyone have questions they would like to ask of a scientist that studies Giant Squid? Email me PDQ at pulpodcast [at] gmail [dot] com.

Had a birthday recently. My aunt, ever the crafty lady, gave me a nifty little gift. Instead of merely including the cash in the birthday card (note, that’s Caulerpa algae on the cover), she folded it into an origami squid for me. Thanks!

• Octopot (designed by my aunt)
• Origami with Dollar Bills (Hardback)
• Origami squid I (not my aunt’s)
• Origami squid II (not my aunt’s)
• Papercraft flying squid

(more…)

Upgrading the Cephalopodcast blog to WordPress 2.1.2. Molting our old shell and pumping pixels into our digital skin to test out the new one.

(more…)

This is a test. This is only a test. This a test of the MarsEdit system. Is it better than Ecto? And is there a way to do hyperlinks and styling with a push of the button instead of having to type out the HTML by hand? If I make a post with MarsEdit, then find a simple typo and go back to fix it, is there a way to make the original post date stamp stick?

UPDATE: Melrin Mann inadvertently suggests TextExpander as a possible solution to the HTML coding.

UPDATE: If I had bothered to click on the button in the User Interface, I would have seen that MarsEdit has HTML tags a click away, or via keyboard shortcuts. Doh! But I am liking TextPander better. And I still don’t see how to keep sticky dates.

I don’t talk too much about my day job (seatrek.org) here on my personal site*, but I get to do some pretty neat things and work with some really great people. And today, CBS’ The Early Show did a segment on virtual fieldtrips that featured us. You can’t see me (I’m the one behind the camera) but you can see our studios at Mote Marine Laboratory.

Virtual Field Trips Take Off
Thanks to virtual field trips, students can visit far-away places without ever leaving the classroom. Susan McGinnis reports that the idea is catching on in many schools.

• Watch the video.

If you have any questions about videoconferencing or would like to schedule a program, let us know.

(Photo credit: clevergrrl and dawgfanjeff)

The Cephalopodcast is heading to the Georgia Aquarium today. We’ve downloaded the companion podcast tour. We’ve loaded the new video camera with tape and fresh batteries. Look forward to bringing you all a podcast of the experience later this week!

Fun facts:

• FLMNH Species Profile: Whale Shark
• Scientists at the Georgia Aquarium want to make history by becoming the first to breed whale sharks in captivity.
• The Atlanta Journal Constitution blogged the construction of the GAq.

There is a special surprise coming to the Cephalopodcast. The answer will become clearer each day until the New Year.

Need another hint? Click here.

There is a special surprise coming to the Cephalopodcast. The answer will become clearer each day until the New Year.

Need another hint? Click here.

There is a special surprise coming to the Cephalopodcast. The answer will become clearer each day until the New Year.

Need another hint? Click here.

There is a special surprise coming to the Cephalopodcast. The answer will become clearer each day until the New Year.

Can you guess what it is? Need another hint? Click here.

(Props to fbtb.net for the idea.)

Via Ryan is Hungry

The Cephalopodcast is hosted on the Laughing Squid servers. I don’t have any direct affiliation with them other than as a satisfied customer. It just seemed like a natural enough choice selecting their services when it came time to look for hosting. Indeed, Laughing Squid was a bit of an enigma to me at first, since they seemed to be more about art than science. But I just came across a video interview with the Laughing Squid founder, Scott Beale, that inked in some of the details:

Scott is an instigator, an experimenter, a businessman and guy with a lot of great t-shirts. Check out this interview where every story Scott tells leads to 5 more stories. This short interview doesn’t do him justice, but it’s a start.

Read the rest and see the video here.

As mentioned on a previous post, I ran into trouble with the power adapter on my Powerbook G4. This adapter design gets a lot of criticism, and there are many dissatisfied reviews on the Apple store. This has been ameliorated somewhat with the introduction of the magsafe connector on the new generation of MacBook Pros. However, they still look susceptible to the same kind of fatigue from regular bending.

So I have this bit of advice, which I hope helps other Mac users. I picked this trick up from one of the Apple Store Geniuses. As an aside, since he showed me this technique and confessed that all the other employees use it too, it seems pretty clear that Apple knows the design is flawed.

So the technique can be seen in the picture (click for larger image). The idea is to give the cord a wide, slack first loop before wrapping and then continue to wind it around the brick loosely, giving the cord a half twist each time. It should be just like winding rope.

Seems simple enough. But if you wrap it tightly like in the picture shown in the product promos and on the Apple website, you are likely to wear out your cord and get the same cracks that I had with my Powerbook. We will see if this techniques helps my new brick last longer. Also, I added some white Gaffer tape to the end points too, as reinforcement.

Well, the Cephalopodcast is one year old today. It was actually back in July/August 2005 that I woke up with the name “cephalopodcast” rolling around in my brain. Fortunately, podcasting was still new enough that no one else had registered the domain yet. I was also thinking of calling it the SquinkLink, but fortunately my wife nixed that idea.

I suppose it’s close enough to the New Year for me to make some predictions too. I am finally starting to read up on how to roll my own Wordpress templates. Expect more customization and design of the Cephalopodcast blog in the coming year. I am also playing around with Drupal and might switch over to that CMS in the future.

I started this blog/podcast mostly as a learning exercise. Now that the curve has leveled off, expect more actual content next year (certainly more than four podcasts, geesh!). There are a number of local and national marine science figures and organizations I hope to communicate with soon. And now that I have the TuneTalk, I can be a bit more spontaneous and mobile with recoding as well. Plus my buddy Stephen will be back in town. If that doesn’t lead to some improvement in production, I don’t know what will. The dude’s clever like that (nudge, nudge). Assuming he makes it safely back from San Francisco via the Panama Canal.

I have been experimenting with live productions with the help of these fine folks. I expect that will continue in the future. I hope to add some video to the mix too.

There is the TONMOCON II in June to look forward to. Lots of cephalopody goodness there.

In the bigger picture, I agree with some sentiments voiced by Leo Laporte. The shine is off podcasting. All the early adopters have adopted. All the secondary adopters have contracted with the early adopters for support and services. If there is any rush at all in the coming year, it will be when Microsoft finally adds podcast support to Windows Media Player.

So if you have any predictions for the next year, or ideas for future podcasts, let me know. Email pulpodcast [at] gmail [dot] com or leave a comment. Thanks!

My Powerbook G4 has been out of commission. It started with a frayed cord near the brick of the power adapter. This seems to be a common situation. Sadly, Apple classifies this as my problem and would not fix it, even with AppleCare and visits to the Genius Bar. Out of desperation, I made the mistake of getting a 3rd party adapter. A couple weeks ago, the center prong on the connector broke off inside the computer. I tried to remove it myself, but the 2mm of metal wedge inside the power port won’t come out, despite various strategies. The repair is likely to be +$400.

Consequently, the Cephalopodcast has not received the attention it deserves. I hope to rectify that in the immediate future.

My wife came back from Belize with a bouncy little dashboard cephalopod souvenir. It’s inspired me in the creation of a real logo for the Cephalopodcast. I know it’s pretty derivative from other podcasting logos. But at long last, both of you that have been clamoring for Cephalopodcast fashion can be satisfied. That’s because this fine emblem is now proudly featured at the new Cafe Press Cephalopodcast Emporium.

Also, look for it soon in your content aggregator, as another episode of the Cephalopodcast is coming out this week. Enjoy!

DISCLAIMER: 95% of the purchase price goes to the elves at Cafe Press and 5% is sent to me (~$1 US).

Updating the backend of the Cephalopodcast. Please pardon my pixels if things look wonky.