I submitted my podcast to iTunes, but haven’t gotten confirmation back. Is there another way people can get it in iTunes?

Any show, audio or video, with an RSS feed can be manually added to iTunes. When I record a Dear Cali Show, I release them in the GeekBrief.TV feed, but I also post them on this site, so if you wanted to, you could use this method to subscribe only to the Dear Cali feed, which of course, would make me sad. ;-)

1) If the site publishes their RSS feed, copy the link and move on to Step 2. If the site doesn’t publish their RSS feed on the site, you can usually guess it if they’re using a CMS (Content Management System) like WordPress or Blogger.

For WordPress sites, just add a “/feed” (www.dearcali.com/feed). For Blogger sites, it’ll either look like this: http://pixeloo.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default or like this: http://feeds.feedburner.com/BloggerBuster

2) Once you have the feed copied, open iTunes. Click on the “Advanced” menu, then choose “Subscribe to Podcast…”

3) You’ll get a blank box. Paste the RSS feed in the box, then click on “OK”.

Let it download the first show, and enjoy!

@iphreak on Twitter asked “Have you written anything in Dear Cali about how Ustream works? I wanted to set up a streaming like you did recently.”

I’ll walk you through my Ustream setup, but first let’s look at the basics. Ustream is a live streaming service. Anyone with a webcam can sign up for a free account and “broadcast” live. You might want to do this to let your family share in how big your son is getting, or you might want to produce the best show on the planet and share it with the world. The possibilities are unlimited.

Once you sign up, connect your camera. You can use a webcam, or a camcorder that connects via Firewire or USB. Not all camcorders will function as a webcam, so you might need to do some testing on yours. Next, click on the orange “Broadcast Now” button. This will open a popout window.

Choose your camera from “Video Source”, then choose your audio from “Audio Source”. Click “Start Broadcast”, and you’re now live! You can “Start Recording” if you want to save the recording on the Ustream site.

So, that’s Ustream at its basic functionality. You can use apps like CamTwist to add visual effects. For Cali Live, our weekly live streaming show, we use Vidblaster Pro, and three cameras. Vidblaster allows you to do live camera switching, lower thirds and add in video and audio. It’s Windows only for now, so we use it on Vista.

A couple tips Once you go live, make sure you have the chatroom open so you can talk with your viewers. If you know ahead of time when you’re going to be live, you can schedule shows. That way, people know ahead of time to stop by!

Since the iPhone was released, people have asked for the ability to search their phone contacts. Contact Find does just that, and more. Instead of just searching for the name of the person you want to call, it allows you to also search the phone number, area code, email address, physical address, and any notes attached to the contact.

For me, the main value in this application is the ability to search notes and companies. When you need to contact someone at a particular company, but can’t recall their name, this allows you to find them quickly rather than scrolling through the address book.

What do you guys think? How will you use Search on your iPhone?

Cro-Mag Rally has been available on the App Store for a while. It’s been very popular, and it’s easy to see why. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a 3D racing game featuring cavemen. You can Race or you can Gather, but either way you’ve got to collect bones and other goodies. If you want a challenge, definitely pick this game up. It takes skill to do right. Even a slight movement to the left or right will send your character speeding that direction. With time, you’ll figure out how to move smoothly through the course and have the ability to pick up your bones.

Even if you don’t care about skill or a challenge, and just want the feeling of flying through the game at super fast speeds, this will do it! :)

Plus, it matches the Macs in my life! Supported Media cards include Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, SD, xD and CF (CompactFlash).

Product Page via Gadget Lab

Is this a new MacBook Pro?

The gossip team at Valleywag found a picture on a French blog that might be a new MacBook Pro. I’m not one to embrace Apple rumors, but I’m interested in what you guys think of this photo. Rather than a track pad, it looks like there is an iPhone like multi-touch screen. Since that’s something I want Apple to do, I have my hopes up.

First question: Do you think this is real?

Second question: Do you see what I see? Is it a multi-touch screen instead of a track pad?

Before? I had the Red Scarlet on my shopping list for 2009. Today? I took the Red Scarlet off my list. Also today Red announced a change of plans. On a post at scarletuser.com, Jim said this:

“We have changed everything about Scarlet because the market has changed and we have discovered a lot of things in the process. We have a new vision.

Wipe you minds of the past announced Scarlet. Forget the design and forget the price. It is all different now. We think you will be surprised. Glad we didn’t take any deposits… ”

We may end up with a Scarlet in the long run, but that’s the nice thing about pro equipment. You can sell what you buy without very much of a loss.

Shownotes go here with links to the stories we talked about.

Pandora has an AIR app that give you the option to see what’s playing, pause and radio station buttons.

Finally, Starbucks is offering free WiFi for two hours. I think it’s about time.

A new study tells us the PS3 and Plasma TVs use more power than a refrigerator over the course of a year.

Canned Bacon. Uh…okay.

Small Worlds is a new site in beta. What do you think?

I’m on the skeptical side of the Remote Control Finder.

Big Trip T-Shirts

Pandora has an AIR app that give you the option to see what’s playing, pause and radio station buttons.

Finally, Starbucks is offering free WiFi for two hours. I think it’s about time.

A new study tells us the PS3 and Plasma TVs use more power than a refrigerator over the course of a year.

Canned Bacon. Uh…okay.

Small Worlds is a new site in beta. What do you think?

I’m on the skeptical side of the Remote Control Finder.

Big Trip T-Shirts

We released our first GeekBrief.TV episode December 23rd. We didn’t know what we were doing and didn’t figure an audience would come along until we got all the bugs worked out. The audience came fast and we had to learn fast. We still have tons to learn, but that’s not what this is about.

The Brief exceeded its bandwidth and was shut down by our hosting company, so we appealed to PodShow for help. They came to our rescue and we were back up and running within about a week. We also had a Plan B. We purchased some inexpensive bandwidth that would have gotten us back up for a little longer without PodShow’s help. When PodShow stepped in, we still had all that extra bandwidth.

Brian Hardin who produces The Daily Audio Bible Podcast (believe it or not, it’s very cool) was running into some bandwidth struggles of his own. Instead of being shut down, he was being charged more. He was on his way to a monthly bill of about $1000, so we donated our Plan B bandwidth to his show.

Brian was interviewed for a story in The Tennessean about the whole Godcasting phenomenon. The story made the front page and Brian mentioned GeekBrief.TV. Here’s how the paper reported it…

“But, he said, as his site’s popularity has grown, so have its expenses — he has to buy more and more Internet capacity to handle the crowd. Recently, a listener affiliated with Geek Briefs in Chicago contributed extra capacity so the service could continue.”

It’s now becoming increasingly clear that we have to go into the underwear business!

Adam and Ron PodShow Strategy Cast

BTW, we posted this here because Adam’s archive is down. You can find it a couple of other places on the Web, but since it was such an influential factor in our decision we wanted it posted here too.