I’m trying a new voice notes app.
I’ve used Whisper Memos for a while now, and really, truly loved it. But the last four or five notes I’ve tried recording with it were completely lost. No transcript, no recording, no summary.
When I rely so heavily on a tool that becomes this unreliable, it’s time to move on. So after a brief stint with Whisper Transcription, I’ve decided to look at superwhisper.
My last book, HTML and CSS: Visual QuickStart Guide came out about 5 years ago, in August 2020.
It was a book I signed pre-pandemic after pitching a different, WordPress book. I’m very grateful my publisher pitched this one instead, as it’s yielded my first book royalty checks.
That was before I fully switched niches. Actually, I was mid-switch when the book came out, which is not a great position to be in when you’re supposed to be promoting a book.
The funny thing about writing a book is that your last one is always your last one…until it’s not.
There’s some recovery period (for me at least) after writing a highly technical book, where one swears off writing another book.
Then the next idea strikes, and you catch the writing bug again.
I’m nearly halfway through Podcast Advent and on Day 11’s article, How I Produce a Podcast Completely From my iPhone, I included this at the bottom:
Disclosure: This article was written after I recorded the embedded episode and fed it through ChatGPT. Then I edited it for voice and clarity.
While I was reading The Coming Wave and thinking about how I use AI, I came to this realization: if you use AI to write, record, or produce something, it should be disclosed in the same way affiliate links or paid promotion has to be disclosed.
I’m certainly not the first person to think this. There are books where ChatGPT has an author credit.
It actually reminded me that Andrew Davis said something similar during is talk at CEX earlier this year. It was all about creating a Digital Doppelgänger (he named is Drewdini), and one of the points of the talk was to let people know if and when they’re interacting with an AI version of you.
That if you’re using AI so prominently, you shouldn’t be ashamed of it. I love that idea.
I’ve gone ahead and added disclosures to both this site, and Podcast Workflows.
My grandfather came to the United States from Italy in 1949 and worked in New York City for much of his life — primarily in construction.
Both he and my parents moved out of the city (though I wouldn’t say Upstate), after he retired. But he continued to do home projects as I grew up. My dad would say he could paint an entire room in a 3-piece suit and not get a drop on him.
For as long as I can remember, he had this big, metal toolbox — you know, one of those big grey ones with the curved top and the center latch. When he passed away, he gave it to me, and I still have and use it to this day.
In fact, most of the tools in his toolbox, Pop had for decades. When he found something that worked for him, he held on to it, and took care of it. There’s a hammer in there that has to be as old as I am.
And when you think about it, the hammer is a pretty good analogy for our digital tools. It’s a basic device, but there are countless variations, purpose built for specific tasks. Much like a task manager or notes app, you mostly know what you’re getting — but you may want something a little more specialized for your needs.
Back in November, I posed a question: When Do You Burn All of Your Processes Down and Start Over?
I was in the middle of changing several of my tools, both in the name of budget and features set.
So I thought I’d take this time, towards the end of Q1 2024, to check in and share the tools I’m using.
As I write this, I’m listening to the new blink-182 album, One More Time. It’s their first album with the original lineup since 2011. A truly excellent birthday present.
Earlier this week I made the decision to ditch Canva for Adobe Photoshop. There were a few contributing factors:
My thought is that Photoshop does everything I need Canva to do, and SO much more, so much better.
Plus I can still use the free version of Canva for literally everything I use it for. The only difference (for me) is the use of PRO assets in images — something I’ll be able to use with Adobe’s resource, or Envato Elements.
I do have some referral credits (I think…I can’t actually access them while my Pro account is active).
One thing that always bothered me about Canva’s referral program is you can only use credits on pro assets…unless something like Airtable, you can’t actually use credits for a Pro account.
This renders the referral program totally useless for their most ardent fans.
Anyway, here’s some of the fun I’ve been having with Photoshop. Original Photo:
Photoshop with a heavy lift from AI:
They also rolled out Firefly, their text-to-image AI. Here’s what I got for the following prompt, first in Midjourney, then in Firefly:
An illustration of a person in a pristine white room with an orange microphone, recording a podcast episode
Not too bad — though the Midjourney image is one of my favorites from the platform.
One thing I will have to overcome (potentially) is my VA using Canva to create images for the podcast. But that’s certainly not insurmountable — in-fact, this could be a good forcing function to try some other services, like Banner Bear.
Most likely, if she can’t continue to use her account to access the templates I’ve created, I’ll just have her recreate the templates.
It might be time for a redesign anyway.
(and use it to your advantage instead)
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