PassingNotes.com

so i got an email earlier today asking for a recap of something i discussed with a few members of aiip a while back - how to record phone calls and convert the sound files on a project…thought i’d actually try to be serious for once and explain this in brief as a reference…but i typed this up fast, so there are some big ass typos! enjoy…

…before i begin, let me tell you that i never record illegally - i only record with the express permission of the interviewee…por ejemplo, i’ve worked on a bunch of television projects (hey, actually got some production credits, wahoo) and all involved extensive recorded interviewing and transcription…hey, did you know that i contributed to scip’s own book on ethics????

if you’re clueless about the rules for recording, then shit man, read up on the rules state by state - that’s why we have laws!

so let me explain my own situation - i’ve got a macbook pro, used to only have windows but now have both because i run parallels - why? because there’s some windows stuff that i’m using all of the time and don’t want to replace with ’style over substance’ mac apps…i’m using a landline for recorded calls, not a cell (though that’s covered down below)…

..yeah, so here’s the deal…i own a great little digital recorder - a sony pdp - you can pick up tons of these at any stapes, online, whatever you feel like doing…the sony models come with their own voice editing software, and that software will automatically convert sony’s bullshit oddball file formats into standard wav files for windows or mac (so you can burn ‘em cd for a transcriptionist and so on)

to connect the recorder to the phone and have a clear recording instead of just throwing the thing on a table and having it sound like shit, i use a small Read the rest of this entry »

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what in the absolute fuck is this? elgoog issuing an “official corporate statement regarding microsoft’s bid for yahoo“? is this a joke? after telling all employees last week to keep their mouths shut???? for those interested, i’ve translated google’s official statement into plain english and changed drummond’s dialogue into exactly what he’s means (my translations below each paragraph are in brackets and are italicized, the rest is from elgoog verbatim]]]:

Yahoo! and the future of the Internet
Posted by David Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer

[[yahoo and the future of the internet, and how google might be totally screwed. - posted by a guy with a law degree, google]]

The openness of the Internet is what made Google — and Yahoo! — possible. A good idea that users find useful spreads quickly. Businesses can be created around the idea. Users benefit from constant innovation. It’s what makes the Internet such an exciting place.

[[the openness of the internet is what makes it possible for google to aggregate incredible amounts of data on both individuals and businesses as well as governmental orgs and ngo’s alike. a good idea that users find that employs 8 or fewer individuals is a great google acquisition. users benefit from whatever we tell them to benefit from.]]]

So Microsoft’s hostile bid for Yahoo! raises troubling questions. This is about more than simply a Read the rest of this entry »

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so, i broke down this year and decided to give feedburner a try (elgoog bought them y’know) - seems simple enough…should also make it very easy to subscribe in any reader or reader service…oh, and you can also get new posts emailed directly to you if you like to sound out the words one by one and wish to savor and file each entry or bring the posts along to your EFL class…

…at any rate, got a great URL for this feed and you should see the link on the site as well: http://feeds.feedburner.com/passingnotes/fuckyeah

btw, got a new theme up too, it’s pretty and has stars. not sure how long that’s gonna last.

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…hey, i’m back, was in the sun then back to boston, had to fly with a sinus thing and my ear actually blew up when i got home (very nasty shit, blood and deafness, like a black sabbath concert)…and then i remembered that i hadn’t written anything on this site in like a month or something, got a few posts coming…

…so with all the hoopla running around each and every change that elgoog makes - from changing text on one site to a new button or font on another site, i felt it was only appropriate to circulate my own rumor:

rumor: in 2008, elgoog may possibly add an apostrophe to one or more help documents in support of their online applications. i have heard this from a very reliable source, same dude who tipped me off about how bosworth was demoted last spring and how steve jobs shines eric schmidt’s shoes now (supposedly schmidt has jobs in a headlock at a party last month and he’s like, “say ‘i’m a newton, say i’m a shitty newton” and jobs reached around schmidt’s whale belt and in between his doughy lower back and his Read the rest of this entry »

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i have it from a very, very reliable source that elgoog began migrating their own internal corporate employees to google apps nearly 13 months ago…to be specific, as of last winter elgoog employees were using gmail for communications and assorted apps for collaboration (mostly calendar)…actually, i knew this last november but was only able to share this information with a coupla folks who needed to know (also figured nobody would believe me and was unwilling to name this source though it is an enterprise employee within the beast)…

now if we peer into the future of elgoog, most notably their fledgling enterprise offering, one has to wonder why this grand operator has not boldly claimed their own entity as the most obvious testament to the reliability of their enterprise offerings for support of a major public company with a globally distributed workforce…

so we know they use oracle for finance, probably powerpoint for everything investors saw through last spring, and we know that they’ve built tons of their own apps in house (not just back end search stuff, but their own crm apps, their own hiring systems and so on)…i figure that eventually everything they’ve built in house will make its way into the hands of Read the rest of this entry »

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