Locality Switch

The Community Broadcasting Foundation has just announced in their July 2009 Update that they will soon be introducing grants for IP-Based Outside Broadcast equipment. Here’s the full announcement:

If your station would like to do outside broadcasts (OBs) using the internet, you will soon have the opportunity to apply for up to $2,500 toward IP-based OB equipment through CBOnline grants. These grants will be available only during 2009/10 – with applications closing on Monday 12 October 2009.

If you’re new to IP-based OBs and need some ideas for how to go about it, download the Mobile Broadcasting for Community Radio Stations Manual. It describes what options are available and whether IP-based OBs are suitable for your station.

This is fantastic! I’ll start putting my application together ASAP. While I couldn’t put together a full OB rig (kitted out with proper PA gear, outboard processing, UHF mics, etc.) for under $2,500 it would certainly buy the basics any station would need to get started. And that, I believe, is what this grant is about – getting stations started.

The part I find most interesting about this announcement is the Mobile Broadcasting for Community Radio Stations Manual. Let me say first that this is a great idea, publishing a concise manual to give stations a run down 0f how to perform an IP-based OB. It’s the right idea, but I think it has been executed in the wrong way.

The part that was unexpected and disturbing to me was that proprietary software was used for all of the examples! NCH’s Broadwave was pretty much used exclusively for the streaming, and Hamachi’s Log Me In was used for remote computer access. Both proprietry pieces of software, and both require you to buy a licence (they both have limited free versions, but it’s a licencing minefield).

While there is nothing wrong with each of these pieces of software, and I don’t blame them for using them as an example, mention should have been made of the open source alternatives. Shoutcast or Icecast are both massively popular pieces of software which allow you to stream stably for long periods of time. Shoutcast is closed source, but 100% free, and Icecast is 100% open source. I know they both work incredibly well because I use them both on a regular basis.

As far as remote access goes, I thought VNC would have been the option of choice. It’s open source, has a massive community around it, and is also easy to get running.

There was an appendix which made a brief mention of other streaming solutions. On this list I found NCH VRS (a logging program, not even proper streaming!), Real Producer Basic, VLC, Audio TX Communicator (a hardware solution), Ustream and Ubroadcast. At least mention was made of one open source piece of software, that being VLC.

The CBF is on the right path in producing this manual, but surly community radio should be trying out the open source products before dishing out cash to companies for proprietary software. It would be great if this manual could be revised to include mention of open source software.

I have got myself into this habit of visiting several websites by default when I first open up my browser for the day. These sites include Twitter, Whirlpool Forums, Facebook, Coding Horror, Signal vs Noise, Google News, and a few others. During the course of my browsing session, I find myself regularly visiting these sites. It would seem I am somewhat addicted?

Not that it’s much of a problem – after all, at each site I can discover something new and interesting.

But, what I really want to know is what makes these sites so addictive? These sites I regularly visit are very popular ones. Sure, some more than others, but each one would pull at least thousands of visitors per day.

There are three main things each of these sites have in common:

• Regular updates
• Human perspective / interaction
• Simple concepts

If you observe the most popular sites on the net, you will see these three traits are common throughout each of them (this isn’t a cold hard fact, just my personal observation). I believe that if you remove one of these traits, you will find the site is no longer as addictive.

Sometimes the thing which keeps dragging me back to a site is the perception of regular updates. See, if no one has posted anything visible to me on Facebook since I last visited, then Facebook will automatically make it seem as if something new has happened, by changing the Highlights section on the sidebar.

The simple concepts item on my bullet list is an interesting one. You will notice each of the sites I regularly visit have a simple concept at the heart of them. Let’s examine a few:

• Google News: get the latest news
• Facebook: connect with friends and family
• Whirlpool Forums: community discussion on Aussie Broadband

While each simple concept may be really really complex to actually implement in a coding sense, the user still gets a simple concept presented to them. While in many cases the simple concept has been expanded massivly, when you first arrive on the site, the simple concept takes center stage.

Finally, us humans love human participation, interaction and perspective. That’s why there are a couple of blogs I regularly visit – I want other people’s perspective on things. Life gets boring if you never get told what other people think. The comments section on a blog are also really important – it shows us what other people think on the same issue.

If you want to build a popular site, then make sure you can check off each of these three items. There’s a lot more to building a successful site, but these three features are at the core of addiction.

I would hate to be a surgeon – there’s so much stuff to remember! Do one thing wrong, and you could kill somebody. That’s a field of work I could never pursue. The World Health Organization announced last year that they are introducing checklists to make sure surgeons don’t miss anything out:

A WHO initiative to encourage surgeons across the world to use checklists when they operate on patients was launched last month.

[From WHO: Checklists Save Lives]

Brilliant! It’s so simple, but so brilliant.

We could do with more checklists in every occupation, not just the medical profession. Mechanics, librarians, council planners, plumbers, electricians, programmers, etc.

Web-based software firm 37signals has demonstrated their checklist for deploying new updates. If it is good enough for them, it’s good enough for me.

Checklists are great, but they only help when you use them.

Yesterday, I was debugging a WordPress plugin which wasn’t working with the Cutline theme. The plugin seemed to be configured fine, and worked perfectly on every other theme we tried, but not this particular one. Why? After some poking around in the plugins files, I discovered that the plugin was set to run when the template’s footer loaded. That’s nice – our footer was loading, wasn’t it?

Well, sort of. The footer was loading, but it was not telling the WordPress engine when it was loading. A simple addition of <?php wp_footer(); ?> to the footer file seemed to sort the issue out! Simple. How could this have been missed out of the theme? If there was a WordPress theme checklist, then this could have been avoided.

But wait – there IS a WordPress theme checklist! It’s a shame the Cutline theme developer didn’t follow the checklist. A small oversight, I’m sure. It’s an easy mistake to of made (hey, even I didn’t know this checklist existed until recently).

I’ve since emailed a fix to the developer, so let’s hope they get it and can release a fix – all in the name of good software.

This has got me thinking, how could I reduce errors at my radio station if I had checklists? Here’s a checklist I just made which could be run through every time I finish work on a studio:

• Do all mics work?
• Does the on air light activate and deactivate when the mics are in use?
• Does the console send an output to the DAs?
• Does the on-air switcher still activate the studio?
• Do the CD players load CDs, trigger from the console, and play through the correct fader?
• Do all computers log on to the network, load the correct software and play audio to the console?
• Do the telephones function?
• Are the studio monitors functioning?
• Is everything in phase?
• Do all headphones function?

This should be second nature to every technician, but it can’t hurt to have a checklist for this stuff. Here’s another place a checklist could save dramas: new sponsorships

• Does the sponsor have an agreement filled out?
• Has the agreement been approved by management?
• Has the money been received in the station’s bank account?
• Has the copy for the ad been approved by station management?
• Does finished recoding sound audible through studio monitors and cheap mono speakers?
• Does the finished track have the end date embedded in the ID3 tags for automatic deletion?
• Is the client happy with their track?
• Has the finished track been added to the correct folders?

This one is a bit more complex becasue it required multiple people to fill it out, but in essence it’s still simple and could save trouble later down the track.  If checklists are helping the medical profession, wouldn’t they help us?

Why is is that the majority of radio specific software sucks? Also, why is is proprietary and closed-source? How is it that nothing has been done to fix this problem?

I say the majority of radio software sucks, because generally the interface of such software is clumsy, un-intuitive and generally not easy to work with. Sure, it may get the job done, but the learning curve is steep, and it can take too long to get the job done.

The rest of the world has beautiful web-based software, much of which is open-source/free. Why can’t our own industry have the same?

I suppose the reason we don’t have beautiful open source software for our industry is because there is too much money to be made. Why make something free, if you can make good money out of it? If someone made a beautiful-but-functional traffic/scheduling package, and open-sourced it, the whole industry of propriety software for radio could be wiped out. I’m serious!!

Well, when I say wiped out, I don’t mean gone completly, I just mean very very consolidated. A bit like the current market of Content Management Systems – are you aware of a single closed source CMS which is really popular? No? I didn’t think so.

A common misconception about open-source software is that you can’t make money out of it. This is just totally and utterly false. The real money in open source is in support. You have the software 100% free, and then develop a whole business around support, and training. You attract people to the system because it is free, but then you can charge for helping the less tech savvy people get your system running. You could even provide a hosted solution.

I am currently aware of one project which is currently developing a modular web-based system, as well as a desktop audio playout system to compliment it. The project is called Bentokit. However, they haven’t released any software yet. I’ve been in touch with the developers to see if I can help out, and so far I’m still waiting for them to send through some code so I can take a look and see what I can do to help.

The Bentokit project looks like it will specifically target community radio, but if what they have is decent, I hope it can start to reach the wider radio industry. However, as of yet, not many people know what’s happening with the project, so it’s a waiting game. With their website still saying “Downloads are slated for release around February 2009″, I don’t think they know when it will be ready for release, either.

Will Bentokit succeed in getting into community radio stations when it releases? Will it penetrate the market of radio software? I hope so.

If they don’t do it, I hope someone will. Hey, if someone dosen’t hurry up and get something released soon, I’ll do it myself. I desperatly want something like this to happen, so I’ll do whatever is necessary to get it happening – yes, that is a threat!

I always love it when someone new comes along and wants to get involved with the technical aspects of our radio station. My positions requires that I be the one doing the majority of training for new techies, which is good because I enjoy passing on my knowledge.

I want to share my experiences on training new techs. Sure, I’m only sixteen myself, and have been doing this for two years. Am I qualified to be training new people? I feel that even though I am only fairly new to the industry, I should be out there on the front line, helping enthusiastic young people to get a start in the industry. I don’t know everything, but what I do know, I want to share.

Firstly, let me make this clear: we are talking about training people with no background in radio. We’re talking about people who are enthusiastic to help out, and want to learn on the job. Also, the things which I mention in this article are very general – your training you do for the new-comers will vary wildly, depending on if they have past experience in related areas (such as IT, or telecommunications). For example, it would be unnecessary to teach a telephone technician how to use a Krone tool, or a system administrator how to use remote desktop to connect to a server.

When I am showing the ‘newbies’ how things run, I generally like to start with the grand tour and explain each piece of equipment, what it does, and how it helps us. This is their induction. I encourage heaps of question asking on their part. Sometimes I even get asked things which I don’t know, which is great, because we can then go and research it.

After they have been through this induction, I like to get them to look over my shoulder as I perform my day-to-day operational tasks. We’re talking about stuff such as file backups, computer updates, re-jumpering connections, updating wiring documentation, etc. All the grass-roots jobs which have to be performed on a regular basis.

It is even benificial to get them to perform some of these tasks after first seeing how it is done. Need some XLR connectors soldered, a hard-drive swapped or a standby transmitter tested? Your junior tech can do that, even if you still have to be there to provide advice. In fact, it is a good idea to always supervise your junior techs until they are confident (and responsible enough not to pull the station off air).

After a while, it’s time to give your junior tech a more permanent set of duties which will keep them involved. Potential duties are:

• Performing weekly computer backups
• Ensuring the asset register is up to date with new equipment
• Checking the faults log for any issues, and either fixing them, or reporting them back to you
• Weekly testing of the standby transmitter, standby STLs, and UPS batteries
• Checking internet usage, and reporting on potential issues
• Performing weekly checks on the status of free hard drive capacity

Those are just a few suggestions, some of which may not even be applicable to your station. Whatever duties your junior techs are assigned, it’s important that they are comfortable with them, but also feel happy. They need to be doing interesting things at least some of the time – if you give them boring tasks 100% of the time, they will probably leave.

It is also a good idea to get them involved with special events or projects, such as outside broadcasts or studio reconfigurations. You want to make sure they feel a part of the team, so make sure they are included on these things. Make sure that there is no discrimination because they are new.

By the way, if you have any suggestions about how to better train junior techs, please send me an email or share a message in the comments area.

96Kbps multiplied by three hundred listeners is how many Gigabytes in a month? What about 128Kbps? If you’re working with Audio over IP and are trying to figure out how much bandwidth you need, the sums can make your head hurt.

Luckily, Google knows the answers to all of your tricky questions. All we have to do is ask it a question, and we get an answer! Let’s try.

I typed “96Kbps * 300 in GB/month” into the search bar, and upon pressing enter, I got a result: 96 Kbps * 300 = 9 028.50894 GB / month

Awesome! It’s a real help when you need to really crunch some numbers in regards to streaming, for example. With this brilliant feature, I can fantasise about the bandwidth requirements of an audio stream with hundreds of throusands of listenets. See:

24.414Gbps is a lot of bandwidth! But, if I was getting to 200,000 simultaneous listeners, then I think I’d be getting pretty good advertising revenue. One would hope, at least.

Google also knows about Petabytes:

See, that’s pretty handy! Plug any calculation in there (and I mean any calculation), and Google can find your answer.

Hopefully you find this as useful as I do.

I love it when companies go and fix data inconcistencies within their system. Today, Twitter fixed a rather odd problem which effected the count of how many people followed you. If you don’t know about it, here’s the news direct from the horse’s mouth:

For some time, the follower and following counts we display have been incorrect for some folks. We’re soon to push a change that will address this issue. This means that the count you see in your sidebar should match what you see on your follower and following pages.

However, a consequence of this change is that follower counts will drop for some people. In particular, those with large followings may see significant changes as we correct for spam accounts and data inconsistencies. No legitimate followings should be affected—we’re just cleaning up artifacts in the system.

[ From Correcting follower and following counts ]

I say this is an odd problem, because the whole concept of counting how many people follow you should be really simple simple, right? In the Twitter database, I expect there to be a column in the users database which contains the number of followers; each time you get a new follower, the count increments.

On my own Twitter account, I had about ten more followers in the count, then I could see in the list. How can the numbers get this different? I don’t know, but I bring it down to growing pains. While Twitter now seems to be getting more reliable, it isn’t past all of it’s problems – the links in the chain still break occasionally. It will still face ongoing challenges when developing and expanding this unique social networking platform. They are innovators, and with that title comes certain expected problems; let’s hope they can work through them.

Yesterday I briefly outlined the benefits of using an Active Directory, and explained some advantages of the features such as Group Policy and DFS Replication.

This is all very well and good, but by now I’m sure you’re wondering how you can get started with all of this. You have two options:

1. Hire someone with knowledge on the platform (like me!)
2. Start learning it all yourself

Option one is for anyone who really wants a top class network without too much hassle. I would recommend this option if you don’t want to spend hours upon hours of learning Windows Server, practicing, throwing it away and starting again, etc. It is the sensible option.

Option two is for people like me who love to learn something new, and can really commit themselves to learning all there is to learn about Windows Server. It’s not for the faint hearted, nor for those who don’t have the time. I also must say that you don’t want to learn about Windows Server if you don’t have any knowledge of computer networking concepts, etc.

How do you start learning Windows Server?

The first thing to do would to download the evaluation copy of Windows Server 2008, and install it on a spare PC, or a virtual machine. Have a play and fiddle around. It can be run for up to 120 days, and after that you can reinstall to keep playing with it.

Then, you really need to start going through a set of structured lessons which covers the platform, concepts, technologies, jargon, and so on. There’s heaps of people who will sell you video lessons on the subject matter. However, I suggest you take a look at the offerings from Train Signals. Train Signal offer an eight video set on Windows Server 2008, which takes you through all the basics, and then some of the more advanced stuff. It is all downloadable, and costs nothing!

After you have completed their series, you will then have the knowledge to go through all of the other roles in Windows Server, and learn it yourself, with the aid of the internet.

If you want other some website to read with articles on Windows Server, I suggest you look at Windows Networking, Windows IT Pro and Techrepublic. They’re all usually a great read.

I wish you well with your quest to learn about Windows Server. Remember, don’t apply anything to a real live network until you are confident you know what you are doing. If in doubt, consult someone with some experience in the matter.

In computers, centralised management is great. Centralised management of all your users and computers can save you both time and sanity. If you’re running more than a few computers, then you really need to start thinking about ways to centralise everything. You need a directory.

A directory is where details are stored about objects. One example of an object could be a user. Another could be a computer. You get the picture?

Each operating system has a different flavour of directory. On Mac, you have Open Directory (through OS X Server). On Linux, there is Samba. Windows has Active Directory. Each one of these really shares a common protocol, which is LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol).

Thing is, a directory by itself is very boring – all it does is store objects. How dull.

A directory gets exciting when you add in extra features which make managing these objects much more easier. Today I’m going to explain the advantages of using Active Directory technologies. I’m focusing on AD rather than other platforms because it is what I am farmiliar with, and I know how well it can work and how much potential it has to make your life easier.

Starting from the top: Active Directory is a directory service built into the Windows Server platform (e.g. Windows Server 2008). It is the fundamental way Windows server-client networks are structured – if at work you log on to a domain, then you are really logging on to an Active Directory (99% of the time).

A domain allows anyone to logon to any computer, and have all their settings and preferences come with them. This is one of the key advantages to installing an Active Directory network. If you have more than a few computers on your network, you should seriously be considering an Active Directory.

Active Directory is great because it has extra functinality designed specifically to manage Windows clients. Such functionality includes Group Policy, NTFS domain security, Windows Server Update Services, software deployment and Domain File Services. Each one plays a very specific role, and all of them can be useful to you.

Group Policy would have to be my favourite management tools. In a nutshell, it allows you to configure settings (policies) to groups of people. Want to define one set of settings for every Internet Explorer browser in the building? Group Policy can do that. Want to define a common desktop background? Group Policy can do that. Want to have a set of mapped drives for just your office staff? Group policy can do that.

Group Policy is great for security because you control every aspect of every computer. I would go so far to say there are no limits to the power of Group Policy – if a certain restriction isn’t built into Group Policy, you can write it yourself!

Active Directory also allows you to deploy software to groups of computers. Have you just bought a site licence for some office-productivity package, and need to install it on 15 computers? Set it up on your Active Directory, and the software will install automatically on the next restart of each computer.

Another great thing about Active Directory is that you can setup distributed file storage between multiple servers, using Domain File Services Replication (DFS Replication). This is great if you have more than one server, because you can set up it to automatically sync files so if one server goes down, the other one will take over. This is awesome in radio, because you don’t have to go off air of one computer crashes!

Six hundred words about Active Directory, and I haven’t scratched the surface! All of this is great, if you know how to install and configure it all properly. That’s why I’ve decided to share some tips with you tomorrow about how to start learning about the Windows Server platform. Then, next week I hope to share with you some tips on how to get all of this software really cheap, assuming that you are a non-profit organisation, of course.

Make sure you check back tomorrow!

I want to share a video with you. It’s a video of Steve Ballmer, from Microsoft, getting really excited on stage about software developers.

You can see, this guy gets really excited about his community of developers! Community.

There’s a reason Steve is excited about developers: Microsoft’s success is thanks to the massive amount of applications developed around their operating systems.

Community radio is also driven by community, hence the title. If the community doesn’t support community radio, we won’t be able to run much longer.

So, are you passionate about your community?