After a long interval between episodes, I’m back with VFAF 5. Mark Temple joins me on this episode on a trial basis because podcasts with one person just seem awkward to me. We did this episode Diggnation style, but it’s audio, we’re drinking Diet Coke instead of beer, and we cut down on the profanity. I should also mention that if you ever need someone to bake cookies, don’t ask Mark or me. We burned cookies out of a package. Twice. I claim partial responsibility, but since I’m the one writing this post, I will say that it was mostly Mark’s fault.

I was inspired to do an episode this way by the Neal Show. Neal says he was inspired by me, but then I’m inspired by him, so we’re in an endless loop of inspiration now. So I didn’t cut out awkward pauses or mistakes; everything’s in there. Let me know what you think.

This episode is about sports in schools. I’ve noticed that my school spends a ton on sports. We have a huge athletic center, a large sports staff, most of whom do very little at all, and there’s a ton of waste. My position is that it’s important to make sure that students are physically as well as mentally fit, but sports should take a back seat. Mark isn’t so sure. He cites this study as a reason for keeping sports as a large part of school life.

Ultimately, we should be spending more money on academics than on sports. If sports enhances academics, then we should be supporting sports to the extent that it is assisting academics, but in an academic environment, sports should not be a focal point. I doubt my idea is going to be wildly popular, but I think that my school should cut the athletics budget in half and use it for academic purposes.

Thanks to Neal Campbell and Cali Lewis for providing a Snowflake USB microphone. The audio quality in this episode is certainly improved and I’m still experimenting with it to make the quality even better.

Buy MacHeist to get 12 great applications for your Mac. If you buy MacHeist from this link, you can get 12 great applications for one low price and $5 from every purchase will go to View from a Farley.

Now comment to your heart’s content!

Audio (4.5 MB)

There are some episodes that I like and some episodes that I don’t like.  I don’t like this one.  I’m a perfectionist and while I don’t go absolutely crazy when something doesn’t go wrong, I definitely don’t like it when I do.  This week I didn’t provide the level of coverage that I usually like to and I made a factual error.  I say at one point that Microsoft sent a letter to the Board of Directs of Yahoo! this past week.  In fact, it was April 5th.

I promised to give you a link to the Microsoft press release that contains Steve Ballmer’s letter to Yahoo!.  You can find it here.

Spencer Claiborne made the new logo and I bought a block of pixels at PaidbyPixels.com to support Cali Lewis and Neal Campbell’s Big Trip.

I’m going to Washington, so this week might be a bit light on blog posts, but I’ll do my best.

Audio (4.1 MB)

It’s been a while since a new View from a Farley has come out and I think it’s good to get people’s attention with something they probably weren’t expecting. After my brief period being unable to come up with good content, I’m back with View from a Farley 3.

I am officially announcing that I will not register with Democratic party when I turn 18. They’re just simply "bumfuzzled." I appreciate their principles and their philosophies, but their execution is disorganized and confused.

My improvement of View from a Farley this week is the addition of two jingles by Geoff Smith. You should definitely check his site out at thegeoffsmith.com and keep him in mind if you need a theme song of any sort.

Audio (4.7 MB)

I was searching for a topic for this week’s episode and I changed my mind about ten times. I was going to talk about copyright, but just wasn’t getting excited about it today. Instead, I talk about Teens in Tech. On the internet, kids aren’t kids. Whether 9 or 90, if we don’t say that we’re kids, no one knows. That provides a unique opportunity for teens that are not recognized legally as adults to show a more mature side of themselves. I have one worry: that the creativity of childhood will be lost. To illustrate my point, I use podcasting as an example. I mention Max Murphy from Mac News Weekly, Daniel Brusilovsky from Apple Universe, and a little later on, Riley Kaminer from F12 Help Me.I mention the iPhone SDK because I think I would’ve been exiled from the world of Apple fans if I didn’t mention it. Not mentioning an Apple event is one of those things you just do not do.

Finally, Mark Temple will be joining me to help me get rid of the evil Dreamhost stuff that I spend too much time on. How can you let a simple error take down 500,000 domains!

I am treating View from a Farley as though it is still in beta. So here are the known bugs:

• Using the same music all the way through (I need to get enough money so Geoff Smith to compose a jingle for me)
• I describe teen podcasters as decent. They’re not decent, they’re GREAT!
• I say “dissertating” at one point. That is NOT a word. I think I’m going a little crazy.
• There are probably a whole bunch of other things too. E-mail me at chris@viewfromafarley.com if you have any.

I’d really like everyone to sound off in the comments about this episode. I tried a slightly different style and I want to know if everyone likes it. Also, please take a few minutes to take the View from a Farley survey. Just in case you had a frightening experience reading novels when you were growing up, it’s exactly seven questions long, so do not fear.

Audio (5.4 MB)

I make my debut in audio podcasting in this, the first audio edition of View from a Farley.  First, I talk about View from a Farley itself, then I go on to discuss GeekBrief, Cali Lewis and Neal Campbell’s Big Trip and Paid by Pixels.  I wrap up the show with his views on Microsoft vs. Apple.

 Audio (5.59 MB)