In this introductory lesson, we discuss the key reasons why and how to create your first eBook. For more information, please visit http://www.thepersonalpublisher.com

Popularity: 4% [?]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

By Ray Bradbury

Originally Aired August 18th, 1950

One of Bradbury’s most elliptical narratives, the Martian Chronicles teases its audience with plays on narrative voice and credibilty, weaving a kind of ghost story in which the audience is never quite sure whether the ghosts, the ghosts of Martians, or the Martians themselves are real or are the product of isolated explorers unmoored from Earth-ly ties.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

[ad]
Consolidating your debt can help you to manage your debt more easily by helping to pay off many creditors at once with the use of another loan.

While this is generally only a transfer of debt from one place to another you can often get better interest rates on these new loans, particularly if you get it through your bank as a personal loan or by using your home as equity and that in itself can save you money.

By consolidating your debt at a lower interest rate you will be able to reduce your debt faster and in the process have the ability to pay off your high interest debts sooner.

It might also give you the ability to take advantage of saving money by making your loan repayments earlier and sometimes you can get discounts for paying debt on time.

Having one loan rather than a number of individual debts can make your budgeting a lot easier and can also reduce the number of debt collectors who could be calling at your door seeking payment of outstanding debts.

If you do decide to consolidate your debt then calculate precisely how much you need, to cover the various debts that you want to clear, and use the new loan to pay off that debt immediately otherwise you might be tempted to use the money elsewhere and in doing so create even more debt.

It might even be worthwhile having your new consolidated debt payable over a longer term to reduce your monthly payments and help you to focus on other more important or higher interest debts sooner.

The whole idea of debt consolidation is to improve your financial position and you should be looking at ways that you can do this. You must make sure that the interest payable on your new consolidated debt is fixed at a rate that you can budget for as it is too risky getting a variable interest rate loan where the rates could rise and leave you in a more difficult position than you would have been had you not consolidated.

If you are working with a credit counseling agency then discuss your intentions with them beforehand and get their expert advice on what the best solution for you will be.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Well, I had the idea to produce a live screencast on tonight’s show, showing the use of Audacity to “fix” some items in post processing of podcasts. Well, my cat had other ideas apparently. In the Pre-Show, an echo developed and I started tracking down cables (thinking one had come loose) only to discover that my cat had chewed through the cable of my Logitech USB350 Headphones with mic. So, I wasn’t totally prepared for a disaster and clicked on my USB Soundboard, however, I didn’t have enough time to complete the setup, so I went to the phones.

Using only my phone connection to call in on, my connection wsn’t the greatest (my voice was too soft according to the listeners), but the show must still go on!

I proceeded to shut down uStream and started the show, sans intro (I’ll fix it in post ) and briefly talked about a spam letter I received today in the US Mail from DLSCorp.net that wanted me to send them $75.00 to “renew” one of my domains. After reading the fine print (found on the back, conveniently), it told me that is was an opt-in request and not a bill. I hate spam!

Next, I brought on Josh Budde with his segment on Wetpaint Nation and then Jeff Chandler brought us up to speed with the WordPress Weekly News.

I went ahead and walked the listeners though the use of Audacity and what exactly post processing is and why you would want to do it.

I then brought on Patti Serrano with her segment on Broadcasting Tips and she talked to us about using improv to fill dead air during our shows.

I ended the show with an article I seen earlier today about the 7 Reasons that Radio Personalities die young! You can read this article here!

Josh Budde asked about how to build a list for his newsletter he wants to start. I will discuss autoresponders and list building on next weeks episode. I talked about some autoresponder software that is inexpensive and works well. I will post an article about it soon here.

Here is the screencast that I spoke about on Friday’s episode:

Popularity: 1% [?]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Wetpaint Mother’s Day Card – Wetpaint has released a Mother’s day template where you can show your mother how much you love her. Sure, she may not be able to hang it on the fridge door, but she can email it out to her entire address book and say, “My baby did this just for me!” She’ll undoubtedly be the envy of all her friends. [ScreenShot of a Template that was Completed!]

Topic from Wetpaint Nation – Social Promotion, Why you should use Social Networks and Social Bookmarks, what it will do for you and how it can help you to get more Visitors, Participants and Collaboration. [Show notes from Wetpaint Nation, Episode 10]

Next on Wetpaint Nation – Next Episode is on Friday, May 23, 2008 and I will be talking about Wiki of the Week, Tip of the Week, News and Much more.. Join us live on May 23rd. – Check out the Talking Wiki and TalkShoe Show Page.

Questions, Comments and Feedback welcomed – If you have any questions about Wetpaint, Wetpaint Nation or using the TalkShoe Service for Wetpaint Nation, Drop me a line at podcast@buddes.net and I will get back to you. I love seeing questions, comments and feedback, so let me know what you think.

Popularity: 2% [?]

**WordPress News For The Week Of May 9th 2008**

*Automattic Turns 21 –* Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com has hired it’s 21^st employee. He goes by the name of Warwick Poole and has been hired on to keep the barriers to publishing low by scaling the infrastructure which runs wordpress.org, wordpress.com akismet and other automattic sponsored projects. – http://blog.linuxinternet.org/joining-automattic/

*Your Favorite BookMarklet?* – Matt Mullenweg laid the question out their to the community to receive their feedback on what publishing bookmarklet did they favor the most. Many people including myself vouched for the usefulness of the Tumblr bookmarklet. Some mentioned the WP Quickpost plugin but others were quick to point out that the quickpost plugin lacked features. It would appear as though there may be some development going on into a new bookmarklet, which disappeared with the release of WP 2.5

*Subscribe To Comments Now Unchecked By Default* – The popular subscribe to comments plugin which was developed by WordPress core developer Mark Jaquith now leaves the subscribe box unchecked by default. According to Mark, the previous method which was an opt out way of thinking was and has continued to be a shady practice and makes for a bad end user experience. Mark now leaves the choice of subscribing left to the reader by default. This sets a good trend that I and many others hope will continue. – http://markjaquith.wordpress.com/2008/04/24/why-subscribe-to-comments-doesnt-let-you-check-the-subscription-box-by-default/

*Plugin of the week* – The plugin for this week is called Article Templates. Article Templates enables template support for both posts and pages. If you find yourself routinely posting the same information in relatively the same layout, this plugin is perfect for you as you can manage as many templates for content as you can create. However, the plugin only supports the templating of content and not of categories, tags, and post titles associated with the post. Things I would love to see added to the plugin. – http://www.bin-co.com/tools/wordpress/plugins/article_templates/

If you would like to know more about what is going on within the world of WordPress, visit www.weblogtoolscollection.com <http://www.jeffro2pt0.com/> or tune in to my weekly podcast called WordPress Weekly which comes on immediately following this talkcast.

Popularity: 2% [?]