Josh Bancroft’s TinyScreenfuls.com

Some people, including Robert, have commented that the feed for this site is getting cut off in their aggregator - that is, not appearing as full text. It’s always been set to full text, so please tell me if you’re not seeing the whole post in your aggregator.

Blogger.com is doing something weird, because the full post always appears for me in Bloglines. I have no idea what’s going on, so any info you have to report would be helpful. Thanks!

I told Robert not to re-add me to his feeds unless/until I deserve it - it’s a great motivation to post better quality stuff.

I was having a late night discussion last night with my brother and our wives. As is our wont, we were waxing a bit philosophical. Since we all have small children, we were talking about what we most wanted to teach or instill in our children. Rather than let the things we came up with just evaporate, I emailed them to myself on my Samsung i730.

The more I think about it, I think these things also apply to how to be a successful blogger, podcaster, or really, to be successful at any endeavor. So, I’m posting them here. Maybe they’ll be worth some discussion.

There was all kind of background discussion and elaboration around these, and we weren’t setting out to make a list, but these are the things we came up with:

• You have to want to change. You can’t make someone else want to change.
• You have to take risks. Just do it, confidence or not.
• Learn to overcome fear.
• Find and do what you love. Have passion and authority.
• Love to learn. Love to read. Never stop.

Find and doing what you love (passion and authority) is the one that made me think of how this all relates to blogging and podcasting. I’ve been doing just that with this blog, and my podcast, and it’s made me quite happy. I wish everyone had the opportunity to discover what they love to do, and are really good at, and then to do that every day. I’m very, very thankful for all of the things in my life that make it possible for me to geek out as much as I do, and share it with other people.

So, what you YOU most want to teach to other people, your children, etc.? What do you think about the things that we came up with?

It’s even funnier if you know Chris and Ponzi, but even if you don’t, Ponzi and Pirillo is a videoblog you should definitely check out. Very funny, and very real - more real than reality TV. Chris told me that everything they do is true, but there’s a little dash of showmanship thrown in. Which pretty much describes Chris’s personality.

It just publicly launched today, but I’ve been watching sneak previews of these clips for a couple of weeks. If you subscribe to any video blogs, especially if you have an iPod with video, you should definitely check it out.

Speaking of videoblogs, I have to mention my very favorite one - Rocketboom. Short, interesting, funny, and topical. It’s the rock star of the videoblog world, and if you haven’t watched it, you should. Available in just about every format under the sun. Check it out.

Technorati tags: videoblog, podcast

One of the things I like about the Dell Axim X50V Pocket PC as a podcaster is the fact that it supports the Bluetooth Headset/Handsfree profiles. That means that you can pair a Bluetooth headset to the X50, and pipe all system audio through the headset, including the ability to record. The quality isn’t the greatest, but it’s usable for mobile podcast recording, and it’s the only non-phone Pocket PC I know that supports this.

Until now.

A coworker and I were experimenting with pairing a Bluetooth headset to his X50V, which he upgraded to Windows Mobile 5. We could get the two paired OK, but Windows Mobile 5 includes a new Bluetooth stack (from Microsoft, I believe, instead of the Widcomm stack on WM2005 X50s). We weren’t able to get any audio to come through once they were paired. To make sure, I paired the headset with my WM2003 X50V, and the audio functionality worked just like I remembered it.

So, it seems that if you want or need the ability to pipe audio through a Bluetooth headset from a Dell Axim X50, you’ll need to forego the upgrade to Windows Mobile 5. If you have an X51, which comes with WM5, you’re probably out of luck completely.

Yay for removing features in newer versions of software! GG Dell! *sigh*

Here’s this week’s show. You can download the MP3 file directly (right-click, save as), or subscribe to the TinyPodcast RSS feed in your favorite podcast aggregator to get the show delivered automatically to your computer and MP3 player. This week’s show is a little short, about 25 minutes, 11 MB.

Brian and I have had a heck of a time getting together to do a show. One of us has been travelling or busy or something, and we’re cursed again this week with some VoIP technical difficulties. However, we did manage to salvage a show out of it all Here’s what we talked about:

• Brian’s experiences with the i-mate JasJar as his main phone/PDA while he’s been travelling so much.
• Some people are reporting slowness/sluggishness with Windows Mobile 5 on the Dell Axim X50V/51V. Could be apps that aren’t optimized for the way WM5 flushes RAM storage to slower flash memory (a.k.a. Persistent Storage).
• Josh’s review of the 60GB iPod with Video (5G). Verdict: Best. iPod. Ever.
• Some brief thoughts from Josh on Podcast Academy and the Portable Media Expo. LOTS more to talk about here - we could fill up a couple of shows with just this. Great stuff.

As always, we love to get feedback! You can email us at tinyscreenfuls@gmail.com or call our voice feedback line and leave us a message - 206-339-TINY. Let us know how we’re doing - good or bad.

Thanks for listening, and stay subscribed!