Using low-cost ultraportable computers for audio editing on the go

A colleague wrote me the other day to ask for advice on setting up a portable audio recording/editing kit. Most radio journalists are used to carrying around a recorder, recording media (flash cards, minidiscs, digital audio tape, etc), a microphone, assorted cables, and a good set of headphones. Typically, you can run out to conduct an interview, record a press conference, or otherwise gather sound, and then run back to your office or studio to load the audio onto a computer for editing. But if you're on deadline and need to file your audio as quickly as possible, you might want to carry a laptop so you can edit your sound in the field and then upload it over a wireless internet connection.

All of which is to say that low-cost, tiny computers like the Asus Eee PC look like a godsend for professional radio journalists who spend a lot of time away from their desks. What my colleague wanted to know was whether the $400 Eee PC 701 would be up to the task. Here was my reply:

As for Audacity, it runs pretty well on the Eee PC 701. Keep in mind, while the Eee PC offers extreme portability, there are a few downsides for digital audio editing:

1. It has a very small amount of storage space. If you expect to be editing more than 1 or 2 GB worth of audio files at a time, you might want to invest in a 4GB or large SDHC card for the memory slot.
2. It has a pretty slow processor. That said, we were all using computers that were slower than the Eee PC just a few years ago, so it can certainly handle Audacity and several other audio packages. I haven't tried installing my old copy of Cool Edit, but it runs Reaper (www.reaper.fm) quite well. It just takes longer to import/export/render long files than it would on a faster laptop.
3. The 800 x 480 pixel display is less than ideal for mixing long pieces, since you just can't fit that much on the screen at once. But for simple cut and paste editing, it will do.

I've never tried mixing a full story on my Eee PC. But I have used it to trim long files, convert them from stereo to mono, and upload them to FTP sites. I frequently wind up doing tape syncs and other audio engineering gigs in Manhattan, and rather than come all the way back to my studio in Brooklyn I just find the nearest public library or coffee shop with WiFi and upload the audio from there.
be up to the task.

I've been playing with the HP Mini-Note for the past week, and while its processor is as slow, if not slower than the Eee PC 701, the Mini-Note is much more comfortable to use. It has a larger keyboard, which HP describes as being 92% full size. And it has a larger, higher resolution screen, cramming 1280 x 768 pixels onto an 8.9 inch display. That's just a few pixels shy of the resolution on the 15.4 inch laptop I use for most of my day to day computing. In other words, you should have no problem viewing multitrack project files using the audio editing software of your choice on a Mini-Note.

The Mini-Note is also a bit pricier than the Eee PC. The cheapest model is $499, and prices go all the way up to $750. That makes it cheap by ultraportable standards, but not necessarily cheaper than any other discount computer you can pick up at most big box electronics/computer retail stores. But at just 2.6 pounds, the Mini-Note probably fits in your bag easier than the big ole Dell/HP/Acer computer you'd find at Best Buy. The interesting thing is that Dell, Acer, and at least a dozen other companies, some of which you've heard of, plan to release low-cost tiny computers to compete with the Eee PC within the next few months.

You can read much more about this low-cost ultraportable revolution at my other blog, Liliputing.

The city that never sleeps is getting a bit sleepy: My latest NPR story

You can't really tell from the photo above, because it turns out I'm much better with an audio recorder than a digital camera, but this is a picture of Little West 12th Street in Manhattan's Meat Packing district. I snapped this shot at 2:30 in the morning on a recent Saturday night. And the place was hopping. There were dozens of people wandering between clubs and bars on this corner, and this was just the tip of the iceberg.

Throughout the city there are bars, clubs, and restaurants regularly open until 4:00am or later. There's a reason they call New York the city that never sleeps. But what happens when you live next to a club that's blasting music all night long? There are a series of community boards that represent Manhattan residents who have been pressuring new liquor license applicants to close up shop at 2:00am or at least to better police what goes on inside and outside of their clubs. And while the number of liquor licensed establishments that are choosing to close early is still relatively small, the community board recommendations have gained so much weight with the state liquor authority that it's getting hard to open a bar without getting approval from one of these boards.

For my latest NPR story I tried to look at both sides of this issue. There's been a lot of reporting in the local press over the last few weeks. But for the most part reporters talked to one community board member and the lawyer for the New York Nightlife association. I talked to them both, but also headed out way past my bedtime to find some of the people who enjoy New York's nightlife scene and find out what they think. My editor also pushed me to actually find someone who lives next to some of these noisy bars, and I'm glad she did because that made the story a lot stronger. All told, I conducted 5 sets of interviews for this short story and had to leave a lot of things out. But I'm pretty happy with the way things turned out.

For anyone keeping track, this piece was recorded with a Sony PCM-D50 digital audio recorder and an Electrovoice RE-50 dynamic microphone.

So this is how it feels to be #26

Anybody know where I can order a sports jersey with the number 26 on the back? Because according to TechCrunch, I'm one of the top tech bloggers around... Number 26 to be exact.

Now these statistics are kind of meaningless, because it's just a breakdown of top stories that showed up on Techmeme over the past four months. And while Techmeme is a handy tool for keeping track of conversations in the tech corner of the blogosphere, the site certainly doesn't track all blogs or news sites. But hey, it's still nice to be recognized for my work at Download Squad.

I should point out that this is not a dubious distinction I hold all by my lonesome. Two other people also managed to get 33 posts on Techmeme so far this year, which means that Sarah Perez of ReadWriteWeb and Saul Hansel of Bits, the New York Times tech blog are also #26. It's an exclusive club I belong to now, but it's still a club, not a... umm... solitary thing. And of course, I don't blog alone at Download Squad. We have an excellent team of about 20 bloggers, most of whom have day jobs and therefore can't post as frequently as I do. If they did, I'm sure they'd outrank me on this silly little list.

Network Blogging Tips: New blog for bloggers who blog for others

There are literally millions of blogs littering, or umm, I meant to say lining the internet these days. Many are personal diaries from folks who have some thoughts to share. Many have a newsier bent. And while many people make no money at all from blogging, some make a few bucks or more every month from advertising or selling items. And a handful of the folks treat blogging like a part time or full time job write for larger blogs that are part of networks. I personally do most of my writing for Download Squad, Green Daily, and TV Squad, three blogs that are part of the Weblogs Inc network owned by AOL.

While there are a ton of web sites out there that offer tips on blogging and on making money by blogging (ironically most of the blogs about making money are set up by people who hope to make money by blogging about something that many people are interested in. I'm not convinced that most of the people trying to give out free advice about making money online actually have much advice worth giving), there are very few sites targeted at folks like me: those who write for a blog network/employer.

If you think about it, writing for a boss is very different from writing for yourself. If you're a network blogger you tend to get paid either a salary or paid per post. If you write for yourself, either the work is its own reward, or you're trying to sell advertising. In both cases, page views are important. But aside from that, they can be two very different jobs.

So I was pretty happy to see the emergence of a blog about blogging that actually looks pretty useful to me. Network Blogging Tips is an independent site run by two network bloggers who write for a whole slew of b5media blogs. The site is still pretty new, but it already had some useful advice in posts like:

• Should you sign a confidentiality agreement?
• 12 Ways to find blog post ideas
• 5 Reasons you should write a list post
• Being a team player at a blog network
• The pros and cons of being a network blogger
  

I'll be curious to see how fresh they can keep the site after the first few dozen posts, but they're certainly off to a good start.

[via ProBlogger]

Announcing a long overdue site redesign

This blog is a year, a month, and a few days old and for most of its life it's had a pretty ugly design. I've learned a lot about tweaking blog templates over the last year. And most importantly, I've realized I'm not very good at designing things from scratch. Fortunately, I was able to find an awesome blog design that I could work with. After a bit of snipping, cutting, pasting, sweating, sleeping, waking in the middle of the night with new ideas, and tweaking some more, I'm happy to unveil the new design for BradLinder.net.

I actually did most of the hard work a few days ago when I launched Liliputing, my new site dedicated to mobile computing. This site's new design is lifted directly from Liliputing's, but I still spent a few hours trying to make sure everything came out right. If you notice any rough edges, please let me know. And if you're interested in low-cost, ultramobile computers, please subscribe to Liliputing. You can also find the latest Liliputing headlines on this site, but the articles are so much prettier with pictures.