Welcome to the RetroTech Podcast!

In this first episode, I talk to Dr. Bill about Early email, BBS systems, FidoNet, Gopher and the VW Beetle.   We even touch on the start of AOL.

You can contact Bill at DrBill.cc

If you would like to be a guest on the RetroTech Podcast, please email Mike@mikedell.com

Catch us Next Week!

Next week we talk with Steve Lee from Netcast Studios.

The before picture.

I don’t know why the feed isn’t working.  I’m re-trying it now.

These will be mostly small mobile updates.

-Mike

We are battening down the Hatches here in Northern Michigan today. As the old song says, “The Gales of November came early”

Read this From Great Lake ans Seaway Shipping Daily News and Bloomberg :

A storm stronger than the one that sank the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975 is expected to slash across the Midwest tomorrow whipping waves as high as 27 feet.

A line of severe thunderstorms driving wind gusts of 50 miles (80 kilometers) per hour will arrive in Chicago before 10 a.m., said Andrew Krein, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Romeoville, Illinois.

The storm will be a cyclone, with projected central pressure, a measure of its strength, forecast to be 28.35 inches. That would make it the second most severe system to strike the Great Lakes, according to the weather service.

The Edmund Fitzgerald sank on Nov. 10, 1975, in Lake Superior about 17 miles north-northwest of Whitefish Point, Michigan. The Edmund Fitzgerald storm had a central pressure of 28.95 inches. The strongest storm recorded in the lakes was the “Great Ohio Blizzard” of January 1978, which had a central pressure of 28.05 inches.

In comparison, when Hurricane Earl reached Category 3 strength in the Atlantic at the end of August, its central pressure was recorded at 28.20 inches.

Great Lakes cyclones aren’t like hurricanes, however, Krein said. The storms gather their energy from the Jet Stream and the upper atmosphere, while hurricanes draw their power from warm ocean waters and have the strongest winds wound tightly around the core.

Krein said the storm also isn’t likely to produce a lot of rain. Aside from the heavy thunderstorms that arrive with the first blast of wind, the weather will be drier and breaks may appear in the clouds.

The blue sky shouldn’t deceive anyone, he said. The storm will last at least two days and will cause a problem for ships.

In advance of the storm, the weather service has issued a high wind watch from South Dakota to Ohio. A watch means sustained winds of as much as 40 mph are possible. In addition, a high wind warning, meaning gusts of 75 mph are possible, has been issued for parts of northern Illinois and Wisconsin, according to the weather service.

Open lake forecast for the region are included below:

Lake Superior
Storm warning Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday, winds building to 55 knots, waves 22 – 27 feet.

Lake Michigan
Storm warning with winds building Tuesday 50 – 60 knots, waves building to 20 – 25 feet through Wednesday.

Lake Huron
Gale warning and storm watch through Wednesday. Winds building to 40 knots waves building to 18 feet.

Lake Erie
Gale watch through Tuesday, wind building to 35 knots Tuesday, waves building 9 – 12 feet by Thursday. Heavy westerly gales predicted for Thursday may cause a siech effect dropping water levels on the eastern end of the lake and rising on the western side, further delaying shipping.

Lake Ontario
The system will weaken and pull northeast but still bring 30 knot winds on Wednesday with waves building to 6 – 8 feet.

I guess whatever leaves are left in the trees will be gone by Thursday. Maybe they will blow out of my yard and I won’t have to rake. One can only wish!

-Mike

Yes, this is #36. I took the 28 iPadio phonecasts I’ve done and added that to the 7 Mike Dell Unplugged episodes and came up with that number.

Just a quick update from my lunch hour at work. We are going camping this weekend over at the KOA in Gaylord Michigan.

I’m going to try to work on some video editing while there depending on whats going on. I’m going to do another episode of “So, You Want To Podcast?” in the morning when I get home. Check that out over at sywtp.com

Catch me LATER!

-Mike

I’m trying out a new audio recorder for Android and seeing if I can post it using only the phone.

It should sound better then my iPadio phone casts. I will use this instead.

It’s a bit more work but I think it’s worth it.

Catch me later!
-Mike

Visit http://ipad.io/MWz to hear my latest ipadio phonecast

Or listen here:

I learned today that having a whole day to myself can be productive.

I got out of bed around 7am which is early for me on Saturday. Kathy had to work today so I had most of the day to myself to get things done and to goof off.

Yesterday I went and got the camper and got new tires put on it. (I’m sure the tires on it were from the 80′s sometime) Today was the day to get the camper ready to go for a campout we are doing next weekend in the local area. I got the battery off from it and put it on the charger and put up the TV antenna to see if I can get that to work right with the new 22” flat Screen HD TV we will have in there (roughing it huh?). I didn’t have much luck with the antenna but I did find the problem. I went to radio shack and get some new coax and will re-wire the thing on Sunday.

I also got the lawn mowed put down more seed (in more of the blank spots) and watered the lawn and the plants.

I then took to working inside. On my trip to radio shack (What a mess that place was!) I picked up a set of cheap PC Speakers for my Ubuntu machine. I have this ubuntu machine as sort of a server in the house. I use it as a print server and I also use it as an Xastir APRS iGate. What’s that you say? APRS is Automatic Position Reporting System. It’s something we use in ham radio where some of us have a GPS hooked to a radio and the APRS software or firmware transmits our position every 2 min. or so. and an iGate is a fixed station hooked to the internet so that your position reports can be seen online (see APRS.fi or “track me” at the top of this page). My iGate runs 24/7 and any APRS station within radio shot are retransmitted both on RF and to the internet. The speakers are for a feature in Xastir (the software I use for the igate) which reads out the callsign of the station and how far they are from you when one comes into range. It’s real geeky but it is interesting to “hear” who’s driving though.

It also lets me know when someone has downloaded and configured iAPRS (an iphone app). The developer of the app decided that the default location would be 100 yards up the road from my house. So whenever someone signs on for the first time, they show up here. Now my ubuntu machine will call out the callsigns from all over the world as they sign on to iAPRS for the first time.

More on Sunday!

-Mike

Visit http://ipad.io/M9S to hear my latest ipadio phonecast

Or listen here:

Visit http://ipad.io/LXk to hear my latest ipadio phonecast

Or listen here:

Visit http://ipad.io/LBg to hear my latest ipadio phonecast

Or listen here:

Visit http://ipad.io/Kqj to hear my latest ipadio phonecast

Or listen here:

I haven’t pod-faded. Here is an update on what I’m going to be doing this week in podcasting.

Catch me later!

(recorded via iPadio)

-Mike

A mobile podcast for the first 2 segments. I talk about lots of stuff while driving around Traverse City running errands.

Sponsor: Hold your meetings online for just $49 a month Try GoToMeeting free.

In the third segment, I make a couple of podcast related announcements regarding the Ham Radio Podclass and Today in Aviation History.

I played the following songs:

Dead Dog in the street – Dirty Dozen Brass Band

Said and Done – Kevin Reeves

Thanks for listening!

Catch me later!

-Mike

Check out my other podcasts:

Geek of the North
Ham Radio Podclass
Mike Dell Unplugged (put this one in your RSS reader) – www.mikedell.com/feed/unplugged/
Today in Aviation History This week in Aviation History

As you can see, I’ve been tweaking and tweaking the look of this website. Partly because I could never get it “just right” and partly because I’m having a ball learning more and more about WordPress.

As you also know, I’ve had a couple of false starts on launching the Geek Of The North podcast. Part of that is I was trying to do a show that isn’t my style. Much like Strange Today. That was a great podcast, but it wasn’t “me” and if I can’t just be me, then I’m not motivated to do it on a regular basis.

So, to that end, I’ve widened the scope of what I want Geek Of The North to be. It’s going to be ME talking about the tech subjects that I like to talk about in a way that I like to talk about them. Relaxed, unscripted and comfortable. Like I’m talking to you over a beer or cup of coffee. I hope you will like the new format.

I’m also going to be sticking to a strict schedule. (yeah, I’ve said that before) So, anyway… My schedule is as follows:

Monday: No Podcasts. Use this for Web work
Tuesday: Record Mike Dell’s World (main feed)
Wednesday: Other recording projects (like BanjoTrax on Ed’s Mixed Bag)
Thursday: Record Geek Of The North
Friday: Record What’s Up With That (once in a while) and/or record **the yet to be amed new show with co-host**

Unscheduled: ipadio updates and / or record Mike Dell’s World (unplugged feed) Also, record for www.flightradio.com as needed.

I want to take my podcasting to the next level of dependability.

I really appreciate that you take a slice of time out of your week to listen to me and I think it’s only fair that I make sure I’m there for that time, every time and all the time.

-Mike

Ok, trying yet another way to get audio online. This time from my Droid phone:

YES, You are seeing double. I had to do this to get this episode into both feeds. Sorry for the confusion!

A new podcast? Well, sort of.

In Mike Dell’s World # 145 I asked was people thought of the current format of the show. Me talking, some music and the same stuff I’ve been doing for nearly 5 years. Some people thought the music was good, some thought the music was too much.

SO, this is what I’m going to do do for “unplugged”. This is going to be the feed where I do just voice. No Music, no sound effects and unedited. Just me chatting about whatever it is that’s on my mind. These episodes will will likely be shorter and can come out multipul times a week or maybe no times a week. I’m going to try to keep Mike Dell’s World (the main podcast) as it has been more or less weekly.

Please subscribe to Mike Dell Unplugged at this feed address: http://www.mikedell.com/feed/unplugged/ and soon to be on iTunes under it’s own listing.

Thanks for listening!

-Mike

This according to the weather channel founder John Coleman.

Watch this video and make your own mind up. Who’s right, Al Gore or John Coleman?

Just a quick post. I’m testing out this post by email thing that
posterous.com lets me do.

Should be interesting. A way to get quick updates on the blog
without having to log into it.

Happy new year!

-Mike

Posted via email from mgdell’s posterous

Just want to wish everyone a Happy New Year! This podcast is released at 00:00:01 on January 1st 2010.

Catch Me Later!

-=Mike

VoiceMail line: 231-715-1366
Email: mike@mikedell.com
Twitter: mgdell
Facebook: facebook.com/mgdell

Mike Dell’s World Podcast #144 12/16/2009

This Podcast is sponsored by:
GotoMeeting Hold your meetings online for just $49/mo. Try GoToMeeting FREE for 30 days.

I play “People Get Ready” by Detour and Simplify by Ryan Shupe and The Rubberband

I talk about Simplifing life. An other updates.

Merry Christmas!

How cool is this? This might make me get cable again if it really happens!

From Variety:

“Dirty Jobs” exec producer Craig Piligian has nabbed the rights to turn the dangerous work of airplane repo man Nick Popovich into a TV series.

Popovich is the co-partner of Sage-Popovich, a repossession firm that specializes in taking back big-ticket items — mostly airplanes. According to a recent profile of Popovich by Salon.com, the company’s clients include Citibank, Transamerica and Credit Suisse, and the firm nets $600,000-$900,000 per job.

Popovich’s business is booming in this weak economy, as he travels the globe to grab Gulfstreams, Learjets and even 747s from cash-strapped owners who have defaulted on their payments.

“Every case is different,” Piligian said. “Maybe it’s a small airline in Scandinavia that bought a 747. He has to figure out how to get past airline security and grab the plane. He plans it like a military operation. Sometimes he’s in disguise. Often it gets a little hairy.”

I got up this morning at 4am to get a deal at our neighborhood gym. (so yes, I participated on a very limited basis) But.. What I saw at the Best Buy store, Walmart and a few other big box stores completely blew me away.

After I got my 1 year membership at the gym, I decided I would go drive by best buy and see just what was going on. There was a line that was at lest a half a mile long from the front doors. There were people in tents, there were people selling coffee and hot coco. (those were the smart ones)

At 4am in our little city, the traffic was like rush hour on the streets. As I drove by WalMart, and the parking lot was as full as it would be on a normal Saturday afternoon. I suppose people are just looking for an excuse to spend some money. But, really? Tents in November in Michigan? No thanks, I will stay in my nice warm bed (or in this case car) .

OK this is the second try at posting from my Droid using an app. If this works I will do it more.

-Mike

Welcome to November 2009! Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit (as Chick McGee from the Bob & Tom Show says at the start of the month)

This November 1st is a strange 25 hour day. This makes up for the 23 hour day we had in spring so now the space-time continuum is in tact.

Daylight wasting time is over. I wish we would just do away with this antique concept. In fact, we should do away with time zones all together. We need to adopt UTC as the time all over the world and go to a 24 hour clock. Who cares if you go to work at 0700 or 1700 or whatever? The sun comes up at 1400 and you go to work at 1800. Whatever works. Time is just a number.

Oh well. Have a happy 25 Hour day and Look out for new podcasts coming this week!

-Mike

After screwing around a bit with it, I got my feed to validate!

Yeah!

I’m playing with themes for the website so, don’t be surprised if things don’t look the same as they have for a while.

I like the old theme because it is so flexable, but it has a bit of a problem with Blubrry Powerpress. Now, I would stick with it but I’m trying to simplify my blogging and podcast posting workflow and it’s so much better being able to post a podcast and not worry about extra settings to get the player to work in the post and all the other things that old theme made me do. I’m going to move that theme to another website of mine ( to be launched later ) where it will be the perfect fit. Stay tuned for that.

If you have a wordpress theme that you would like to see me try, let me know. I’m open to suggestions.

Thanks for dropping by!

-Mike

Traditionally, members of the nation’s veterans service organizations have rendered the hand-salute during the national anthem and at events involving the national flag only while wearing their organization’s official head-gear.The National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 contained an amendment to allow un-uniformed servicemembers, military retirees, and veterans to render a hand salute during the hoisting, lowering, or passing of the U.S. flag. A later amendment further authorized hand-salutes during the national anthem by veterans and out-of-uniform military personnel. This was included in the Defense Authorization Act of 2009, which President Bush signed on Oct. 14, 2008.

Kathy and I made it home from Las Vegas last night. Both of us are jet lagged but all in all, we are doing good. The weather here is nowhere as nice as the weather in Vegas. We can live with that. It’s nice to get back to our slow moving town and a more normal pace. I have to work tonight. Kathy is working today.

I will be working on a podcast wrap-up on our trip to blogworld and our fun in Las Vegas.

I think I’m going to take a nap before my radio show tonight.

More later.

It’s good to be home!

-Mike

Heading out to the Rawvoice / Blubrry party at the Peppermill in Vegas.

Met and re-connected with lots of friends in the podcasting and blogging world. This party will be just more of the same I’m sure.

I will get some video of this party (hopefully without anyone wearing a Lampshade!).

#bwe09 #bloglouder

Well, I put out most of the little fires (not real fires, but little problems) and now it’s time for me to sleep. I only had 4 hours of Sleep Sunday afternoon and I’ve been up 12 hours now. Lets hope there are no more little problems for the next couple of days. I need a break from them!
-Mike

Well, after putting my dual screens on this computer, I wasn’t able to login to my ubuntu install. Well, I found out Compiz isn’t comparable with this video card and it was causing a lockup.

I did “sudo apt-get remove compiz” and “sudo apt-get remove compiz-core” and it’s all fixed.. Without the fancy graphics effects.

I also un-installed Windows 7 and made Grub boot Windows Vista first instead of Ubuntu.

It will work for now..

-Mike

Record low maximum temperatures tied at Gaylord and Traverse City…

The high temperature at the Gaylord regional Airport on Saturday…
August 22…only reached 61 degrees. This value ties a record for
the coldest high temperature for the date…with the older record
being set back in 1923.

In addition…the high temperature at Cherry Capital Airport in
Traverse City only reached 62 degrees on Saturday…August 22. This
value also ties a record for the coldest high temperature for the
date…with the older record dating from 1926.

Global warming?

Lots of things going on around here lately. Have been having a hard time getting sat down to do a podcast. I will attempt to do one on Tuesday.

Had a great weekend at the Sugar Island Music fest up north. Could have been a little cooler and dryer but it wasn’t too bad.

Yes, I’m still here!

-Mike

Free TV : Ustream

Does anyone know of a better twitter client for the blackberry?

Let me know

Record Report
Statement as of 5:45 AM EDT on July 10, 2009

From the National Weather Service, Gaylord Michigan (APX)
…Record low maximum temperature set at Gaylord on July 7th…

The temperature only reached a high of 58 degrees in Gaylord on
Tuesday July 7th. This was the lowest high temperature ever recorded
for this date…breaking the record of 60 degrees set in 2004.

Records at Otsego County Airport have been partially established
from co-op data.

“Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid. Human beings are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant. Together they are powerful beyond imagination.”

– Albert Einstein

Learning a lot at podcamp ohio. Very good speakers this afternoon! 2 more sessions after this one and then the final keynote and then Beers and food at a pub up the road.

Already looking forward to next year before this one is over!

www.podcampohio.com

Just playing around with another wordpress site. This one is kind of like twitter. Check it out at http://mike.mikedell.com

Give it a try!

I find it interesting watching twitter for DTV. Lots of stations are switching this morning. A couple around here did it last night with others going throughout the day. I get to witness the last station in our area go off at 11:55pm tonight. I will be filming the the guy turning off the transmitter and turning on the new Digital transmitter at my former employer’s station. They are waiting for the last minute due to the Redwings game tonight. They want to make sure everyone that wants to watch, can watch.

Lets hope all goes well for everyone today and if you loose your TV reception, take that as a sign that you need to watch more video podcasts and Hulu

-Mike

I went to the car wash this morning because we have to use the old pickup to haul some stuff to a friend’s house. We have had trouble with sap falling from the trees and covering the cars in the driveway. Anyway, my old truck has some rust on it and isn’t the greatest looking thing in the world. I don’t care because it does what I need it to do.

SO, I pull into the carwash and get out to wash the truck (it’s a self serve place) and I hear the guy in the next stall say ” Wonder why he’s washing that thing. It’s like polishing a turd.” I had to laugh because he was washing a big old SUV. I suppose he has a point though. That old Ford of mine doesn’t get waxed and the only real reason to wash it is so I can see out the windows.

I don’t care what people think about what I drive. When I get there, I’m just as “there” as they are and I don’t have to worry about door dings.

Funny stuff.

Well, I’m recovering nicely from my bout of new car fever. This weekend I caught the bug big time and ALMOST bought a car. It’s been 200,000 miles since I last bought a car. I’m not going to get any more car payments and I still think it’s cheaper to fix the old car for a few more times before I go spending any big money. So, for now, my car fever is going away and I will get to the business of fixing up the old Toyota for another year. Maybe I should try for 500,000 miles! (somehow I doubt that will happen)

I’m sorry to contribute to the GM/Chrysler problem.

-Mike

I’m trying out a twitter plugin called Tweetable. It’s supposed to post my blog posts to twitter better then the other one I’ve been using. #wordpress

When I woke up this evening, I saw the sun! For a short time anyway. It quit raining for a while. We had almost an inch of rain here and everything is greening up around here. Maybe I will get to try out the new lawn mower this weekend without the dust chasing me off.

We are planning to do a What’s Up With That? Podcast in the morning so stay tuned for that.

Still waiting for the rain to stop. Its supposed to sometime Friday. Its a good thing too. Our lake. Errr driveway has enough water for now.

Bedtime for me now.

Have a good day!
-Mike

Northern Michigan has been under a red flag warning for the last couple of weeks. (that means an extreme wildfire danger) Today we are getting a good “frog strangler” of a rain. (as Jim Farley puts it) We are supposed to get an inch of rain today. Only problem is, that my driveway is becoming a sixth great lake. (Lake Dell?)

Oh well, I will take it! Beats the dust we have had for a few weeks!

Now I can put my new mower to use once the grass recovers.

Besides, it’s great sleeping weather and that’s what I need right now.

So I’m going to write one more post to be released later today and off to bed I go!