Above is a picture of my new Samson C01U Microphone. It just came in the mail and I am very excited about it. “But why?” you might be asking. Well, the answer is simple. I have decided to delve into the world of screencasting and podcasting. I know this is a scary thought, but I am hoping that I will prove worthy of this new found medium.

And Your Reasoning Is?

With the new site relaunch (still some time off I am afraid) I wanted to have something more then just a blog and a portfolio. I wanted to have something that people could use. Since I’m not qualified to give financial, medical, philosophical, theological, or other such , I figured I would give advice on things I am qualified for, namely web design and everything that is centered around it. Doing Tutorials seemed like a good way for me to accomplish this. I figured I knew enough about Photoshop, Illustrator, CSS, and Design in general that I could produce some decent quality stuff. These tutorials wont be exhaustive mind you, but I am hoping to start with the basics and move my way into the more advanced stuff.

What to talk about

Aside from the tutorials, Have also decided to possibly try a strictly audio podcast. I’m still debating this as there are a few very good and informative podcast about web design and development already out there. The major one being Paul Boag’s boagworld.com. If you haven’t checked it out, it highly worth a look and I suggest you take some time to listen. I am listening to it right now in fact, as I write this post. As there are already several good podcasts out there on the subject, I am not sure that I feel that it would be worth my while. Also, I really feel that a podcast is much more captivating when it is set up with a co-hosted radio format. This means I would have to find someone willing to do the show with me. So I am still debating whether I am going to try the podcast or not. If I do manage to come up with a unique idea for once, then I will go ahead with it.

When exactly?

I hope to have a couple of tutorials up for the new site launch. One will probably be about Photoshop and the other will be on Illustrator. I am going to be using Viddler to accomplish this as well as screen recording software that I have yet to determine.

I am going to try my best to get to South By Southwest Interactive this year. It is in Austin Texas, so it isn’t too far of a drive, and attending this conference would be a lot of fun.

South By Southwest is a huge, yearly conference and festival that includes Music, Film, and Interactive categories. It is a major event in all those industries, and a lot of big names come out for it.

Being a web designer, I am mainly interested in attending the Interactive part of the conference. There are going to be a lot of great panels to sit in on, and major individuals like Dave Shea, Molly E. Holzschlag, Jon Hicks, Ryan Carson, Elliot Jay Stocks, and Jeffrey Zeldman just to name a few are going to be there. To say the least, it is a great opportunity to further immerse my self in the industry, and to learn a ton of valuable lessons from more experienced people.

Hopefully I will be able to scrounge up the finances. It wont be cheep and I am hoping that I will be able to get it all together to attend.

I opened the mail box today and instantly my mood went up several notches. My first issue of .net had arrived. I was as excited as a young child with a new toy. Simply ecstatic I tell you. I rushed to open it and vigorously flipped through the different articles and pages. I am still reading through it, but several articles have great promise.

I have wanted a subscription to this wonderful magazine for quite some time now, but only finally broke down last month to place an order, it is a bit pricey to get it in the US. Thirteen brilliant issues promise to have a wealth of information for me in the coming year.

For those of you who are unaware of the web design world, in other words the majority, .net is a UK publication on web design and development. It contains articles and techniques and general information on what is going on in the web design world.

The UK is a big hub in this industry. There are loads of talented people over there. LOADS I tell you! Brilliant designers and developers and general innovators. I hope to be able to get over there in the future to attend some of the many different web centered events that go on, especially Oxford Geek Night.

I will probably have a lot of posts that are inspired by articles from the magazine, so be prepared for it.