Posts Tagged “Linux”

Ask around my office, or around Podcamp, or a technology centric podcast or recording area. People can’t help but compliment Audacity, the free software program does everything you need to do to produce professional recording and media. The best thing about free software is the price, the worse thing is that there usually aren’t good directions for what to do with it. Enter The Book of Audacity by No Starch Press. No Starch press offers a line of books that take a relaxed approach to presenting good information. they have a tendency to publish technical books that are, gasp! Easy to read. Imagine that.

Carla Schroder, the author spends time to segment the information into each platform discussing candidly with little fandom attached to good things about each platform, be it Windows Mac or Linux. The graphics charts, and helpful hints are expertly placed to break up the flow of text and make the book easy to consume. Carla’s voice can clearly be heard throughout the text, so that it sounds less like a white paper and more like a discussion from an expert point of view.

How does it Read?

Dry subject matter is dry, but a complex concept explained in good detail with frequent examples and bite sized chunks of relevant information is always the best way to go. When you pick up a tech book, do you want to go from soup to nuts? Or do you do what the rest of us humans do, flip right to the section you NEED at that point. This book is designed to make both approaches easy t understand. A short introduction and focused chapters make the information compartmentalized and accessible for users of any platform.

I’ve been using audacity both in work and at home for over 5 years at this point and I picked up tips and tricks which I hope will make my future recordings, mixes and podcasts that much cleaner. I am constantly called upon to teach sessions on using Audacity.  love helping others realize the value of a free program, you just have to provide the sweat equity to make it yours. With this book the time spent sweating is reduced and the time spent making good audio is increased!

The only area I saw that wasn’t really dealt with is What Happens when Audacity Crashes? But I have you covered there.

Rent or Own:

I judge all books based on whether or not you should buy them or take them out of the library. I would file this book in the Own category, not only is it a good reference for experiences users to eyeball when they are stuck on removing the last little bit of fuzz from a track or getting the most out of their setup. But this book is an essential tool for the new Audacity user.

Book Information

Record, Edit, Mix, and Master with the Free Audio Editor

by Carla Schroder

March 2011, 384 pp.

ISBN: 978-1-59327-270-8

$34.95 Print Book and FREE Ebook

$27.95 Ebook (PDF, Mobi, and ePub)

 

 

Consider Supporting the CaffiNation By purchasing this book from Amazon

* Full Disclosure: I was sent this book by No Starch Press, at no cost, for the purpose of reviewing it.

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Today we discuss everything from Apples, to Apple, Coffee to Hobbies, and Why the Math defeated the germans. We also return to a security discussion from before as well as a couple of other fun tidbits along the way.

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On today’s show we discuss the video rundown from last week, Lasers, Darth Vader, Knock off Toys, Google drops a lawn ornament, Steve Jobs defends his ideas, and The Grill gets its due.

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I’m sure if you are even passingly interested in technology news you are probably aware that we are once again on the cusp of a big Apple event. This happens every year to some degree. Since the world went gaga for the iPod some time back this means tons of media coverage. Even the morning news shows now tart up a 4 day old story as Tech Bytes and feed it to the masses.

The iPod, the iPhone, iMac, iaM tired of it. Even the i fixture in front of the word speaks less of original thinking and more of branding, and its fast becoming hackneyed

I like a machine that does what it is supposed to do, hopefully with as much transparency as possible and then goes about its business. I have never been one to give in to devotion or cultish following of any tech products. At their core they are purchases to be made, or not. Ecosystems to support, as someone in tech support, and liars. All products lie to you either through omission, or through outright deception. Read the rest of this entry »

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We have plenty to talk about in the worlds of Robots, Linux, Morse Code, and of course a ton of coffee and food bits collected at the end for you to savor.

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Other than the antici… pation of Roasting is been a relatively smooth week here. So the show has a great feel with lots of nostalgic fun, Legos, Arcade games, a C64 laptop, and so many more fun things have been dug up. Want to try Chunky coffee? I’ll have to explain that.

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Today’s Show:  Web Design, Fear Mongering, Linux, Electricity, Green Tech, AP, Legos, and Cookies everyone likes cookies

Tons of content, but not much energy. Having a down cycle with caffeine right now but i will bring the news and fun to you just as quick, but maybe not so loud. The news was wide reaching this half of the week with interesting tech coming out of unlikely marriages, GM and Segway? We answer the question, Do 3D desktops make sense? AP is biting the hand that feeds them and Linux starts an interesting ad campaign.

All these stories and more. We’re continuing our Adopt a NewB Day celebration with More blog design guides and quick tips for blogging, living digitally and managing your online presence.

Happy Passover to all who are Celebrating!

Enjoy the show and Stay Caffeinated!

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Quick Hits

Geek Cruft:

Consumable & Caffeinated Bits

Thanks and Stay Caffeinated People

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Today’s Show:  Joy, Lego, Mario, Carbon Fibre, Carbon Footprint, Gold, Green Tech, Gardens, Helicopters, Pools, Peeps, LEDs, Linux, Pacman, Japan

Before I get down into the show I wanted to again mention how happy I am for my good friends Jimmy and Cathy. As they start their life together I wish them nothing but the best the world has to offer, but know that they already found that in each other.

lego-my-wedding

Their cake topper, Guess who sends me 60% of the Lego Stories

Today’s show is all about things that make me happy, not really a few of my favorite things but definitely a stream of consciousness show pulled together from stories which struck my fancy, and intrigued me to know more. Sometimes its simply a headline, other times the whole concept spoke to me on some level. I really enjoy putting shows together like this so hopefully that comes through in the final take.

So I ask you to come with me on this fun little adventure as we stroll through he gardens of tech jokes and the glades of  caffeinated dreams. A bit flowery of a description but hey its springtime.

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Quick Hits:

Geek Cruft

Consumable & Caffeinated Bits

Thanks and Stay Caffeinated People

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Today’s Show: Reviews, Caffeine, Christmas, The Pope, Hanukkah, Toasters, Coffee, Linux, Collaboration, Twitter, Apple

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This is the time of year when busy people go crazy, and crazy people go just a bit further, I have collected a great deal of news to tide all the busy folks over with information until they can stop to catch their breath while still leaving something to the imagination. We have a ton of great stories from serious to funny, from hoaxes to product reviews. As always its an eclectic show to say the least join us for our very own holiday rush edition. Remember if you’re still shopping to be kind to your fellow man, and if you’re done shopping to get out of the way of the crazy people who still may be.

Enjoy the Episode!

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Today’s Show: Utilities, Spyware, Virii, William Gibson, Hackers, Literature, Culture, Identity, Linux, Levity, Music

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Tonight’s show is a bit of a deviation from the normal show. We talk about some heady topics, such as Race relations online, we delve into Linux as a tool for educators, and we dig into some really useful utilities that you may want to consider for your PC. Overall I hope this show ends up being very useful to you.

Enjoy the Episode!

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Today’s Show: Coffee, Drugs, Watches, Plush Toys, Holidays, Visual Styles, Ubuntu

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This episode is what happens when you are stuck writing, producing and otherwise cramming content for this long. I love what  do and I can only hope the episodes have been worth the fun. I’m starting to hone my workflow even more and I might just do a Making of The CaffiNation shortly. Let me know what anyone thinks of that. Might be another live show in the works too. Testing the waters. Speaking of waters I have been inundated with questions about how to make better coffee, what type of machine to buy ect. On today’s show i have a couple different tips for these questions, and I’ll be adding my own thoughts in as we go through them. I might also try my hand at writing a bit of a how to guide in the future, but not sure about it yet. A Long show with a ton of content and a bit of gab in between.

Enjoy the Episode!

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LAMP is the Way to Go

I recently had a server die on me at my day job and I needed to choose a new os for it. After consulting twitter. I was suggested by Knightwise that I should go with a LAMP install of Ubuntu. LAMP stands for Linux, Apache, Mysql, and Php. All of the elements I needed in one spiffy package. I had never done one of these before so I decided to give it a shot. Let me tell you this install when blindingly quick. It took longer to download and burn than it did to have a working web server again. With less than an hour of total downtime, including swapping video cards, and burning an ISO. Both of those were done at the same time. Thanks So much to Sir Knightwise for that suggestion. I have run linux servers for a while but i never tried the Lamp install. Quick and painless let me tell you.

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