Posts Tagged ‘podcast’

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Too many podcasts

January 15, 2015

We didn’t record the movies show for Christmas and that put us off. Instead, we recorded two shows the next weekend. Isn’t it lovely to be ahead?

No, no it is not.

Yesterday, we posted the show on Bluestamp Engineering, a neat summer program for high school students. I feel like it was a month ago since we talked to them, I know I had some things I wanted to tweet. And I really should be posting that to Facebook and other places so it gets a few more listens.

For a week from yesterday, last weekend we recorded a show about hula hoops (it is awesome). I really should write the show notes before I forget the relevant links. Last weekend, I also wrote the guest outline for a show about words (yes!) that will got up two weeks from yesterday.

Today, in an apparent effort to get very little work done this afternoon, we recorded the show about words (also awesome). Once I finish writing show notes for hula hoops, I should do notes for words.

Yesterday, I had coffee with a gatekeeper to have Famous Person on the show. Today, I wrote the email that the gatekeeper suggested (Dear Zuul). We are booked out to April (I think there may be one slot in Feb and one in Mar but those were offered to people and I’m waiting to see who accepts) so you’d think it would be one less thing to worry about. Except the wheels need to keep turning on guests so I have two emails received today that I need to respond to in order to schedule future guests.

Also, I should start thinking about the outline for the next show. I think it is about processors but I’m not sure that’s the next one or the one after.

Oh, and if I’m doing an at-conference recording for DesignCon or She’s Geeky, I should start playing with the new recorder. And how in the world am I to do a mash up between those two very different conferences? Two episodes? That seems like a lot of editing and since I only left one slot, that puts us even further ahead.

All of this isn’t to say podcasting is too stressful. My problem is really the intermingling. Being ten days ahead sounded nice: if someone cancels, it is much easier to find another guest. But Chris and I do ok when it is just us.

I think that if I do at-cons, they will be bonus episodes and we’ll remove our buffer. My brain will feel better when we go back to recording 3-4 days before we post. I still have the same amount of work but it will spent less time on the stack.

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Debugging

December 17, 2014

A podcast listener requested a show about debugging. I’m still working out just what he meant by that but between that and working on a Trinket, I find I have a few things to ponder aloud for you.

First, the Trinket is a small board with an ATTiny85 on it. It is a very low power, deeply embedded sort of processor. With all of 8k of code space and 512 bytes of RAM (and 512 bytes of EEPROM), this is a dinky little thing. Plus, with the on-board bootloader, there is only about 5000 bytes of code space. I feel like a kid again.

So why in the world would anyone use the Arduino interface with this? Well, it is what I have, it is what Adafruit had in their tutorial, and I’m too unmotivated to set up a GCC cross compiler (yet).

Usually when I use the Arduino compiler, it is with a proper Arduino board (or the MicroView which is a “proper Arduino board” for this discussion). Debugging is done via printf because there is a serial connection via USB after the bootloader has finished programming the board.

Under “Debugging Tools” on my resume, I have “DVM, oscilloscope, logic analyzer, JTAG, ICE, printf” so I’m fine with printf as a way to determine what is going on with my code. On the other hand, if I can have an on-chip stepping debugger, I much prefer that. But that isn’t an option with the Arduino compiler so I limp along. Nothing I do on an Arduino is all that complicated.

All that said, the ATTiny doesn’t have the serial debug interface. There is no on-chip debugger and no printf. That means debug is usually through GPIO lines and prayer.

There are tools that could help me. I think. But I’m trying to do it the way everyone else is. Or the way I think they are. I’m writing little pieces of code and running them. I’m blinking the little onboard LED once for good, three times for an error. It look a stupidly long time for me to figure out why my byte variable wasn’t getting to 256. It isn’t impossible to work like this but it is a lot harder.

So, yeah, maybe it is time to talk about debugging. We could start with Arduino (and mbed) and debug through printf. Then go into the tools available for that space. Then the SWD interface for the ARMs (i.e. Cortex-M0). What are ITMs and ETMs anyway? We could talk about timing errors due to debugging (both serial and on-chip). We could talk about the extras that are available on some IDEs (mmm… profiling and backtraces!). We could talk about GDB, how it is super powerful but opaque and a pain to the beginner. We could even talk a bit about data logging and error handling (other listeners have requested shows about these).  I wonder if we’d even get into unit tests since some systems I’ve developed for run on-target-hardware via debugger.

I feel a lot more secure and confident when I can see what my chip is doing. I don’t mind using printf but I’m better at getting things done with better tools. Most tools are cheap compared to my time.

So yeah, debugging…

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Podcast statistics

February 18, 2014

I know little blog, you are not getting the attention you deserve. Neither is the are-you-ok device. I’m spending a lot of time working and a lot of time with my podcast.

Speaking of my podcast, several people have recently asked for statistics on the listeners. It would make more sense if said people were offering me money (i.e. sponsorships) but because the podcast is sponsored by our consulting company (Logical Elegance), I haven’t bothered to figure out how to make sponsorship work. And if it is this annoying, I may never bother.

Anyway, I decided to sit down and figure out the statistics. And write a paper-let for potential non-sponsors. (Why? Why? I really do have useful things to do but this is what I did.)

Determining traffic is very difficult, particularly as producer Chris and I do the podcast as a hobby, not as a business. However, I’ll try to give you some ideas to help you decide if this is a good media outlet for you.

embedded.fm stats

This is our traffic to embedded.fm over the life of the podcast. Most people hear about the show and visit embedded.fm.

However, once they’ve heard about the show, they use a podcast app to listen regularly, such as iTunes, Instacast, Stitcher, or Zune. For the ones that use RSS (iTunes, Instacast), libsyn provides the statistics of episodes downloaded. (Zune and Stitcher are used by less than 5% of listeners.)

libsyn download stats

I find the graph a little hard to read, though the orange trendlines do show a week-to-week consistency. Looking at the monthly numbers, you can see that there was a bump in November when Jeri Ellsworth’s show came out (and my show was mentioned on The Amp Hour).

 

Year-Month Month Year Total Downloads
2014-01 January 2014 4,160
2013-12 December 2013 3,558
2013-11 November 2013 5,700
2013-10 October 2013 2,216
2013-09 September 2013 656
2013-08 August 2013 608
2013-07 July 2013 507
2013-06 June 2013 383
2013-05 May 2013 122

 

Geographically, the listeners come from around the world, though mostly English speaking countries.

Listener geography

 

Looking at a few specific episodes, the numbers depend on many factors. I don’t know what they are, some of it is guest promotion but a large part is simply how interested the market is in the topic.

Episode 36: Drive your boat with a Wii mote. Saleae founder talks about the Saleae Logic

Episode 36: Drive your boat with a Wii mote. Saleae founder talks about the Saleae Logic

Episode 29: Ducking the Quadcopter. Microgen Systems VP of Engineering talks about energy harvesting.

Episode 29: Ducking the Quadcopter. Microgen Systems VP of Engineering talks about energy harvesting.

 

Episode 26: The tofu problem. Deeply technical discussion on internationalization of embedded devices.

Episode 26: The tofu problem. Deeply technical discussion on internationalization of embedded devices.

Episode 23: Go for everything I want. Jeri Ellsworth talks about CastAR and Valve.

Episode 23: Go for everything I want. Jeri Ellsworth talks about CastAR and Valve.

Finally, I can’t speak to the specific breakdown of the audience, from the emails I receive, it is primarily hardware and software engineers.

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Intro to podcast

January 21, 2014

Dear Friend,

Thanks for forwarding on this message to people who might be good candidates for being a guest on my podcast.

My podcast is Making Embedded Systems, the show for people who love gadgets. Usually more about the development of gadgets than actual gadgets, the audience consists mostly of hardware and software engineers.

The show is in iTunes, Instacast, and Stitcher or you can get it directly from embedded.fm.

I’m interested in talking to folks about their gadgets: how does it work? how did you develop it? how did you fund it? what’s your favorite tool? did you set up a manufacturing line and where? how do you teach people to do this?

If any of those could be something you can chat with me about (either personal projects or professional), then I’d be happy to send more details about how it works.

The summary is that it takes about 90 minutes of your time, it isn’t live so mistakes can be removed, and you shouldn’t have to prep much since I want to talk to you about something you already know. I prefer to record in my home studio near San Jose and Campbell, California but we can do recording via the Internet.

While this is sort of advertising for for my book and our consulting company, we don’t really discuss them (except to say, yep, still there). I do this mostly because I like to talk to interesting people about their jobs… and maybe to have a few more more women’s voices talking about technology (but not necessarily about being women-in-tech). That isn’t to say it is only women guests, if you’ve got a widget that you are enthusiastic about, I’m open to lots of topics.

Interested? Know someone who might be interested? Please send a message

Thank you!

Elecia

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Why I podcast

September 13, 2013

A couple times, after we stop recording, people have asked why I have a podcast. I need a better answer than I currently have. This is all going to be stream-of-conscious as I sort out the reason and come up with an answer.

The podcast started as a way to learn something new. I was going to do a half dozen shows so I could understand how recording worked. It was a replacement for my normal community-center classes on stained glass, soldering, clay, hula hooping, laser cutting, woodshop, bookbinding, etc.

We’re way beyond six shows and I’m starting to make plans for people three months out: I’m going to be doing this for awhile. I need a better answer to the why question.

Let’s see… It isn’t “to give back”, I hear that reason from other people but I don’t feel that motivation myself.  “To share my passion with other people” is closer. I really like engineering and building things. I want other people to come and play in this lovely sandbox.

I suppose that dovetails into my other reason, “I like people to share their passion with me”. Wow, that kinda came out wrong. And now that I’ve seen that, I look back to the other and snicker. Oh, go ahead and snicker, might as well laugh with me instead of making me go it alone.

Do you ever have those moments when everything is snicker worthy?

Back to topic!

Ehn, let’s circle around and see if I can put this another way.

I like Sports Night, the TV sitcom about running a sports TV show. It is smart and funny. But what I liked best is that the people on the show loved their jobs. Their jobs were annoying, sometimes dumb, sometimes hard. They were jobs. But the characters loved doing them. A common thread with my TV habits is that I like watching happy people do neat things.

Do you see where I’m headed?

I like doing the show because people share their passion, enthusiasm, amusement, happiness, spark of ingenuity, whatever-it-is, with me. I think this is a solid reason and accounts for about half of “why”.

I’m a little shy so I need a way to engage with people, especially in this way. I need the cover of the show to be able to go up to the head of content at EETimes and say “talk to me?”. Or to have a serious (semi-serious) talk about going to Mars with a woman I’ve never met. Or to have a good friend talk about his views on engineering without it seeming like makework.

There is another, subtler reason. I’m a proponent of women in technology (and science). I’ve heard from many sources that a lack of role models causes women to give up too easily. And I’ve seen how never having met a female engineer has warped some folks sense of the possible. I make sure to get a big cast of female engineers on my show. If we’ve have two males guests in a row, I start mining my women-in-tech contacts to make sure the trend doesn’t continue. It hasn’t been that difficult. Really.

To sum up, why I do a podcast, in order of importance:

  • To talk to people who love their jobs
  • To share my passion for engineering
  • To promote the visibility of women in engineering

Huh, ok. Those are good reasons. I don’t need to introspect any deeper. Oh, and in case our accountant reads my blog: