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Maybe I Should Just Put This Post in My Signature Line

I’m steadily getting my Gmail and work email count back down to zero with the help of The Email Game, Saneinbox, and some increasingly intense conditional filters. As I’ve gotten close to zero, I’ve realized a few things that I didn’t realize before I began working

I’m steadily getting my Gmail and work email count back down to zero with the help of The Email Game, Saneinbox, and some increasingly intense conditional filters. As I’ve gotten close to zero, I’ve realized a few things that I didn’t realize before I began working with so many freelance writers and photographers, co-workers, and publicists:

— Every email you answer generates another 1-3 emails: More questions, more thoughts, more “thank you!”s and “got it!”s. I’m guilty of this too, but I blame others for this — everyone else sends “thank you!” emails to finish off a thread, so then I feel like I have to send these emails too. It’s pointless.

— Sometimes, even most of the time, a writer or photographer answers their own question if you give them an hour or two.

— People you don’t want emailing you are only encouraged to email you more when you send them an email telling them you aren’t interested in whatever thing they’re offering you.


And these are all problems, because email makes my day look like this (screenshot from RescueTime):

Rescuetime

So, what’s the solution?

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TheInterviewr - A Web App for Recording Interviews

Now that I’m a full-time editor again I haven’t interviewed anyone in about a year, so I haven’t kept up with new apps and tools for interviewing and transcribing. Actually, that first part isn’t 100% true. I just interviewed my friends Chris and Courtney about their

Now that I’m a full-time editor again I haven’t interviewed anyone in about a year, so I haven’t kept up with new apps and tools for interviewing and transcribing. Actually, that first part isn’t 100% true. I just interviewed my friends Chris and Courtney about their upcoming wedding. For that in-person interview I used Dictamus on my iPhone, which automatically sends the file to Dropbox. Once it’s in Dropbox, Wappwolf automatically converts it to MP3. It’s awesome!

I also just recommended theinterviewr.com to someone because of its clean interface. It’s a website that lets you schedule interviews, place calls, and store your audio. According to a recent blog post, they’re going to add low-cost transcription services, too. (EDIT: Looks like they added it, it starts at $1/minute for a 10-day turnaround, which is average for online transcription, but you can definitely find someone on craigslist for cheaper). That could potentially make it an all-in-one solution to interviewing and transcribing.

Since I haven’t been doing many phone interviews, I haven’t used the site, but I tried scheduling a call in advance to test it out anyway. You just fill out a screen on the site that asks for the interview day and time, and your number and the number of your interview subject. I don’t think the program automatically called me, like I expected it to. Or, if it did, maybe I didn’t pick up. I do that — or don’t do that — a lot. Later that night I tried simply adding in the info and placing the call, which worked perfectly. The call quality both on the call and on the recording was clear, not amazing, but definitely better than Skype. There was little delay. And when I ended my call the audio was there, ready to download or play in the browser immediately.

The interface is simple: a calendar for scheduling, a simple address book for keeping call contacts, and, on the interview screen, a place to keep notes both before and during the call. The log is actually really clean and nice:

There are just two major problems.

— No volume meter. I talked about why I need a volume meter before. Basically, when you aren’t using a physical tape recorder, when you can’t see the button pressed and the tape spinning, that digital meter becomes the most comforting thing in the world. You want visual confirmation that your recorder is, in fact, recording.

— No way to record without placing the call yourself. Most writers and journalists place their own calls, of course, so this isn’t an issue. But many entertainment journalists have to rely on publicists connecting the calls, so they usually call you. This won’t work for those calls.

And there’s one minor problem: cost. TheInterviewr charges .20 cents per interview, .10 per interview if you buy a $12 one-year membership. They start you off with a $5 credit, though, so it’s easy enough to try.

One possible worth-it situation is if you are interviewing someone overseas. Though I haven’t tried it, you could, hypothetically, get a cheaper call by routing it through TheInterviewr’s service, so their US-based number calls you, while they connect you to the overseas number. Again, haven’t tried it, but it could work. According to their FAQ, international numbers are fine, and their calls come from a 206 number.

Update: The Interviewr’s Roger sent me a few clarifications. Here’s his email:

I happened across the post you made on the site, and just thought I’d point out a couple things..

1) cost.. The price is per call, which when you look at most phone system, those are per-minute usually. And our per-call price is the same international. Obviously, we can’t operate a call system like this for free, so we have to charge somewhere. What we do charge is actually well-below industry standard though, where some places would charge 12-20 dollars a month, not 12 a year. And the feedback has been positive from our other users.

2) If you are a subscriber, then you can actually have calls come from any number you want it.

3) We are releasing a browser phone shortly, but will give you volume control via your computer, but not getting into too many details til it’s available. :)

4) Transcriptions, yes, they may be cheaper on Craigslist, but we actually have a team of professionally trained transcriptionists working with us, and our main transcriptionist actually teaches at a transcription school locally. As for the prices, they are actually based on industry standard, and has actually been well received as well as we have already done over two dozen transcriptions since it launched.. FYI, it actually launched a couple weeks early for our 12 dollar a year subscribers, as they also get access to features early.

We’re actually not that new-ish, we’ve been in business for over a year, and have dozens of interviews being conducted every day, sometimes more.

Other factors with us, is we provide top-notch support and answer most tickets within minutes usually to help resolve any issues.

Anyhow, this ended up being longer than planned, I just wanted to point out a few things :)

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Drafts is Quicksilver for Your iPhone or iPad

I am still devoted to Quicksilver, even though other, friendlier launchers like Alfred, have overtaken it in the Mac app launcher field. I spend a lot of the time I save using Quicksilver wishing that other applications were as elegant and simple as Quicksilver. Drafts is a newish iPhone app,

I am still devoted to Quicksilver, even though other, friendlier launchers like Alfred, have overtaken it in the Mac app launcher field. I spend a lot of the time I save using Quicksilver wishing that other applications were as elegant and simple as Quicksilver.

Drafts is a newish iPhone app, and it’s the closest thing I’ve found to Quicksilver for Mac, but for your iPad/iPhone. You launch Drafts and it presents you with a clean screen. Type some text, then decide where you want to send it: To a new text message, to a new email ready to be addressed and sent, to Twitter or Facebook to post, to Evernote, to your calendar to create an event, to Omnifocus to create a new task, or to your Dropbox as an appended line to your “Ideas” file. You do have an Ideas File, right? I do, right next my Enemies List in Evernote. Here’s a fuller list of the services you can send text to:

Drafts is especially awesome if you also have Activator (available for jailbroken iPhones), an app that lets you assign all kinds of button combos and gestures to system preferences or app actions. That way you can also set up a single button, shake, or swipe trigger to launch Drafts. Did I mention it also lets you use Markdown?

Edit: Now it looks like Drafts will have email templates to send to ifttt, another favorite of mine.

It seems silly to get excited about a blank screen, but these clean, simple apps are exactly what I get excited about on the iPhone. They get out of your way. Realizing that is what made me realize that Quicksilver was its closest cousin.

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If you care about something you should measure it

Over the last couple years I’ve become a huge believer in self-quantifying.  It started with Your Flowing Data, a website that let me take measurements of whatever useless bits of biographical information I wanted to keep track of: The number of times I ate lentils that year, what movies

Over the last couple years I’ve become a huge believer in self-quantifying.  It started with Your Flowing Data, a website that let me take measurements of whatever useless bits of biographical information I wanted to keep track of: The number of times I ate lentils that year, what movies I watched, how stressed I was, for example. But I started to notice that the simple act of tracking and having to record my choices influenced the choices I made. I began using my iPhone to track almost anything involving behavior I wanted to change or improve. I’ve gone through a lot of tools, but here are the ones I keep going back to.

Track Your Happiness

Track Your Happiness is a survey project that is part of Harvard PH.d student Matt Killingsworth’s doctoral research. The website sends you a short survey twice a day via email or text. It asks you questions about where you are, what you’re doing, how many people you’re with, and how happy you feel. They each take about two minutes to complete. After a couple months of steady data, the website begins sending you correlations between things like your mood and how much sleep, exercise, work, and social activity you’ve reported.

This can tell you a lot. For instance, I am happier indoors that out (that probably has a lot to due with winter, though I began the survey in the fall. ) So. okay, I’m not outdoorsy. You maybe guessed that by the subject of this blog post. But I didn’t know that I was also happier the less people I had around me, down to about three. Three is where I’m happiest before my happiness just drops. Guess that makes me kind of an introvert. One other surprising thing, at least for me: I am happiest when I want to do something that I have to do. I wasn’t happiest doing whatever I wanted. I need to enjoy something I have to do (work, chores, etc). I like work. That’s something to keep in mind if I ever win the lottery or want to retire.

Fitbit

The Fitbit is a wearable device that can track your steps, calories, stairs climbed, and sleep. I bought this thing on a self-improvement whim fully believing it would be in a drawer by the end of the month. It’s not. Except for a few days where I forgot it at home (but thankfully, it’s had no trips through the washer), this thing has always been on my person since I bought it back in November 2011.

There’s so much to like about it, but the two biggest things are that it’s always tracking, and it uploads automatically. Like the Happiness Survey, it tracks all the time, not just when I feel like keeping track. And the automatic Wifi sync works amazing well and consistently. I haven’t changed the amount of walking or stairs-climbing or sleeping I do, really. But somehow, the act of tracking has improved those numbers anyway. Here’s how it works:the Fitbit is your standard pedometer that also tracks stairs you’ve climbed, estimated calories you’ve burned and your total distance traveled. It also has a little flower graphic that grows and shrinks depending on how much you’ve moved in the past hour.

 

The two applications below are self-quantifying tools, but they’re also commitment devices.

Beeminder

Beeminder is both a self-tracker and a commitment device. It can track and graph anything you can measure, from runtimes to blog posts to pounds to lose. You can set goals or limits, and Beeminder will warn you, then charge you money if you stray too far off your goal. The biggest benefits here are the fact that it’s incremental — your final goal is broken down week by week, so it’s more important to stay on track than to think of your goal as some big, huge (or low, tiny) number that is 12 months away.

I just began using Beeminder at the beginning of the year, when Stickk and other commitment devices seemed too narrow for my purposes. So far it’s worked great. I resolved to start learning Spanish and to read more fiction this year. I’m still doing both. And since the goal is to stay on one side of the line, I am working at a slow but steady reading/studying pace. But it’s a pace I’ve stuck with, and it’s April — beyond prime resolution quitting time (which I think is February? Or even mid-January?

That graph at the top of this post is my ‘words posted to blog’ graph. I did this post to avoid losing today. Try to wrap your head around that.

Gympact

Gympact is another commitment device with financial consequences. You set a goal for the number of times you want to go to the gym each week, then you check in via iPhone app every time you go to the gym (and stay for at least 30 minutes). Fail to reach your determined number of visits each week, and the app will charge you an amount you’ve set (like $5-$50. $50 if you’re some sort of masochist rich person). But if you’ve made your commitment, then Gympact will pay you a small amount out of the pot of losers’ cash.

In the six months before I started using Gympact I went to the gym maybe five times. I haven’t missed a gym trip (2-3 workouts a week since beginning of January) since I signed up, except for the weekend after a birthday dinner and bar trip where I spent the next day laying on my couch under a blanket and eating Tums/watching Locked Up: Raw. My biceps are the sickest they ever have been, and I’ve only torn my rotator cuff once (really).

If you’re curious about self-tracking check out the Quantified Self website. It has links to over 400 self-quantifying tools.

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How to record and transcribe interviews quickly and cheaply

I like finding computer-based ways to do my job cheaper and faster. Most of these methods are to cover up for my natural procrastination: using hotkeys, text inserters, autoresponders, and capture tools helps make up for the time I spent Googling “child riding boa constrictor.” I really, really love finding

How to record and transcribe interviews quickly and cheaply

I like finding computer-based ways to do my job cheaper and faster. Most of these methods are to cover up for my natural procrastination: using hotkeys, text inserters, autoresponders, and capture tools helps make up for the time I spent Googling “child riding boa constrictor.” I really, really love finding this stuff, but I never get to talk about it. Today I’d like to talk about recording and transcribing interviews.

I do 1-4 interviews a week. That’s a lot of audio to deal with, and, for just a little feature, that’s a lot of hearing some guy or girl you used to think was pretty interesting talking about how “melodic” their new record is (a lot of interviewers are terrible, but people forget that lots of bands don’t know how to talk to people either).

I use several things to make doing and transcribing interviews easier: Skype, Audacity, Express Scribe, and a program from Ecamm called Call Recorder. Skype and Audacity are free, and Call Recorder costs $14.95.

Here’s why this trio is an interviewer’s dream:

Skype / Skype Out: I purchased a Skype Out number for $2.95 a month. This allows people to call me from a land or cell line, and lets me call regular land/cell lines. I also get free calls in the US and Canada. I don’t usually have to call overseas, and Skype Out lets you pay as you go for international calls, at reasonable rates. Lately I’ve been using Google Voice for this, because their rates can be even cheaper. Sure it doesn’t have the portability of a cell phone, and you might have to look like this, but the call quality is usually great and it allows you to use the next tool.

Ecamm Call Recorder (for Macs).

This program’s amazing for two reasons:

1) You can set it to automatically record any call if it lasts more than 30 seconds (or any time length you want), so you don’t end up with a bunch of automatic recordings of your boyfriend asking if he should buy cat food or rings where no one answered, nor do you ever forget to turn it on when Cat Power calls you.

2) If you loathe the sound of your own voice and your pathetic questions next to the sound of Chan Marshall purring lazy answers at you, then Call Recorder will allow you to split the sides of the conversation. Cat Power purr on one file, your voice on the other. Now you can transcribe without cringing or crying. This is especially great if you’re grabbing quotes for a feature where you don’t need your questions at all.

3) You can add markers during the call, so, if you’re sprightly and sly, you can add markers like “Question about Scientology affiliation” and “Where he called me a genius,” and they’ll show up as chapter markers in Quicktime. If you convert the file, you can still export your markers (with the timecode) to a text file for easy reference.

4) I said two reasons. There are actually four. You have a visual meter, so you can make sure it’s recording and that it’s recording at a volume loud enough to hear later on.

Audacity (free, open-source sound editor):

Or even better, convert that .mov audio file to mp3 (you can do this with Call Recorder’s built-in scripts), then fire up Audacity and cut out the parts where you were asking questions (it’ll appear as silence on the interviewee’s file). Then you can use Change Tempo to slow it down. I find that -42% keeps the interviewee’s voice clear, but is slow enough to transcribe without having to pause. Hand that edited crap over to your transcriptionist (or intern, or boyfriend). If you’re paying someone and you’re a cheap-o, you could probably get away with editing out your voice, and speeding it up slightly, thus saving on those transcription-per-minute fees. Then you can spend your transcriptionist savings on artificial tears or a conscience.

Express Scribe (free)

If you’re transcribing files yourself and you have a Mac, I recommend using Express Scribe along with your own foot pedal. I just got mine, and it’s excellent, especially when I use it with Express Scribe. The program lets you set universal hot keys, slow down or speed up audio tempo on the fly, and add in time stamps automatically. I usually listen to audio at around 150% speed until I get to quotes I like, then I slow it down and just transcribe what I need.

What about typing during the call?
Some people can do this. I can’t. I usually stare at my own questions, or Google artists or locations they’ve mentioned while they’re talking, so I can come up with smart follow ups. I’ve just never been able to do more than write down the time or scratch a note whenever I’m interviewing someone. I lose my train of thought, or lose the flow of the conversation, if I try to transcribe while talking on the phone.

Oh yeah, also.
Get a headset. No way you can type or Google things or, I don’t know, trim your nails? Eat dinner? During interviews without one. Don’t you want to look this cool:

What about recording on your cell phone?
I have an iPhone, I believe there’s a program that can record your phone calls now. I also used to have one of those attachments from RadioShack that lets you connect your cell phone to a recorder. Me, I use drop.io. For the cost of a single upgrade on a “drop,” I get a conference number where I can place conference calls. The same number will also automatically record the audio and upload it as an MP3 file to your account. The $10 also gets me storage space and outgoing faxes. Not a bad deal. When I need to record an interview on my cell phone I just call my drop.io conference number, then call my subject for an awesome three-way.

 

How about in-person interviews?
I’ve got an old iRiver IFP for this. It’s about five years old, but it still records to MP3, sync with my Mac, and has super clear audio. The best part? It’s really small. I haven’t recorded to tape since I had my old mini tape recorder in college, but I remembered how interview subjects’ eyes would also glance over at my recorder. I think seeing the thing makes people subconsciously self-conscious. My iRiver player is small enough to keep next to my hand, under the table, hidden behind a salt shaker at a diner, etc., so that the subject knows it’s there, but it’s small enough to forget. Loose lips make for the best interviews.

One last thing.
Don’t forget to check your state’s laws on taping conversations. My state, New York, allows for one-party consent. When I do phone interviews I don’t tell them I’m recording, I assume they know what they say to me is on the record. I usually make clear that I’m recording interviews when I do them in-person, just because they don’t always know everything’s on the record, and I’d rather avoid problems later.

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EDIT:

Here’s some tips from some friends:

From Yancey Strickler:

the trick i always use is just having the internet transcribe my interviews for me. costs about $18 an interview. well worth it: http://waxy.org/2008/09/audio_transcription_with_mechanical_turk/

From my awesome ex-editor Reid Davis:

Also, when I’m away from my computer, I used MacAlly’s iVoice pro hardware plug-in for my iPod along with Griffin’s iTalk Pro software. You can record through the built-in mic, or plug in another device, like a landline phone (Radio Shack telephone recorder, about $12.)

From writer / Tucson friend Curtis McCrary:

also, fyi, google voice will record incoming phone calls for you (but not transcribe them). but it’s an easy shortcut to getting an interview recorded and in easy-to-listen-to form on the computer.