Tagged! The PAB 2007 Meme

OK… First, if you don’t know what PAB is, and why I’m excited about it, firt click on this: Podcasters Across Borders. And then try to figure out why a guy living in Kingston working in this space WOULDN’T be excited about it.
This is the first of a likely large number of PAB2007 posts. Buckle [...]

OK… First, if you don’t know what PAB is, and why I’m excited about it, firt click on this: Podcasters Across Borders. And then try to figure out why a guy living in Kingston working in this space WOULDN’T be excited about it.

This is the first of a likely large number of PAB2007 posts. Buckle up.

So Bob and Mark have tagged all of the listeners of the Canadian Podcast Buffet who are attending PAB with the meme. And apparently Chris Penn has done the same for all attendees. So I guess I’ve been hit twice. In any case, here we go:

Why are you coming to PAB?
The PEOPLE! And the learning, I guess. And the much lower travel costs then any other new meda event I’ve been to (Hoorah Bike!)
A little homework now: Which PAB registrants would you like to meet? Why?
As many as I can?Does that count as an answer? Or is that cheating?

Who is your “dream interview” for your podcast? Why?
I don’t really host a podcast. Yet. I’ve got one in planning. Involving toothbrushes. And you’re all getting emails for interviews when it happens. Ha.

Who would you like to interview at Podcasters Across Borders?
See above. Next year though - EVERYONE. It’s all about mass production.

What is your, “Can’t miss it” session at Podcasters Across Borders?
Well, Maffin’s Idea To Air is pre-kickoff so I don’t think it counts. I really like the social side of these events though… So I’m excited about the cruise.

What is your favorite podcast?
Wow. Pass. Too many good ones on my list.

What is your favorite web resource?
Netvibes. And Google. But Netvibes more. I’d whither and die if I lost it. (Well, and the OPML backup)

Who is your favorite podsafe musician? (eg. Sean McGaughey).
I don’t know. I have a wide range of podsafe stuff that I listen to a lot. Being that I don’t host any shows, I just enjoy listening to music and often forget who’s podsafe and who’s not.

Ginger or Maryanne?
Thurston. Because Magoo was awesome.

Bob, Mark, or Tod?
Bruce

PAB starts THIS FRIDAY (Two days from now) in Downtown Kingston. I believe there’s still a few seats left, so hurry in if you haven’t registered yet. Tell them Tommy sent you.

My Netvibes Addiction

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netvibes,
originally uploaded by Tommy Vallier.

So it was suggested recently that I talk about my Netvibes page and how I use it.
The screenshot posted along with this is a sample of my front [...]

netvibes,
originally uploaded by Tommy Vallier.

So it was suggested recently that I talk about my Netvibes page and how I use it.

The screenshot posted along with this is a sample of my front page. I’ve tweaked settings a little so as to not look too far behind, and have hidden my Remember The Milk calendar.

Getting Started

The page you’re looking at in the screenshot is my “Start” page. Along the left I have my twitter feed. Because I do try to stay in the loop. Down the middle you can see my Gmail inbox. ALL of my email is managed through gmail (Not even the for-your-domain version) and I see it from this panel. Below that is my Google and Wikipedia search box and the latest dig posts. On the right: Local date and time, weather and my calendar.

From this page I can quickly and easily see all of the things that are most important to me. Specifically the time, my email, calendar and the twitter feed. You can also see a large amount of tabs at the top. I’ll get to those. Note that I’ve set all of the modules on the page to be the same red-ish colour. It’s tab also has a unique icon. This is to visually identify the home page from others. I make a point of not using this red-like colour only on pages of personal interest - Home and bookmarks.

Branching Out

Along the top I have a wide variety of tabs. Each one is home to a large number of feeds and modules pulling in content from around the web. I do a few things to keep this organized too.

First, I identify tabs by the icons associated with them. All “real world” news feeds, such as newspaper feeds and feeds from TV stations, both local and not, share an icon. Same with blog feeds, podcasts and TalkShoe-related tabs. If I’m looking for a tab, I can then visually hunt out the icon then the tab name. You’ll notice they’re also grouped by icon. And personal tabs (Start, bookmarks and Meebo for communication) come before feeds. That’s because I use them more.

Module are all colour coded on a per-page basis too. If I’m looking at a page full of orange modules, I’m reading blogs (Regardless of topic). If it’s green - it’s a podcast. This works exceptionally well when you look at the TalkCasts tab. These are all shows created on TalkShoe (They earned a tab based on number of shows I track) and they share the TalkShoe icon, but within that page, all modules are green to match podcasts. The icon identifies the subject, the colour then identifies the medium.

The separate tabs/colour combination is part of the reason that, despite trying others, I don’t think I’ll be leaving Netvibes any time soon.

Mark All as Read

As tempting as this can sometimes be, I have never hit this button in Netvibes. Well, safe for adding a new feed I’m currently caught up on. One thing I do, admittedly, do though is NOT completely check out the content. I sometimes just don’t have time. I like knowing that there’s new posts, or a new episode, and will sometimes mark them as read if I look at a subject or topic and am not interested. I know that’s expected (How many of you read every post on every blog… or every article in the paper)… But I still feel guilty.

What About You?

I’m, clearly, a Netvibes Junkie. What about you? What reader do you use and why? Maybe you use Netvibes and can recommend a new module for me to check out? Maybe you’ve got a question? Looking forward to the feedback.