We were also having the problem of incorporating guests into the show. I bring my cohost in via Skype and we wanted a way to  be able to also bring in a couple more panelists if needed. Right away I thought of Leo Laporte’s Skypesaurus — maybe I even got the idea to do the show this way from him. He’s got a quite expensive setup though. Not only did he build four custom machines that are dedicated to Skype, but he’s also got the TriCaster, the IP audio mixer, and lots of bandwidth.

We had to figure out how to do pretty much the same thing for a fraction of the price. Instead of a TriCaster we’re using some desktop software. There are a few different options depending on what platform you’re on. Instead of building four custom Skype machines we’re using scrap parts that were being thrown out at the local high school — I’ll admin, we lucked out on this part. We got three older Dell gx270′s, 2.8GHz Pentium 4 Hyper-Threaded CPUs, and generic AGP graphics cards. To capture the screens, we’re using an application that captures the desktop and sends it over the network. I also invested in a gigabit ethernet switch as well as some low-profile capture cards. I’ve been planning to buy the switch for awhile anyway and the capture cards aren’t vital to the operation, but will let us send video back to the others hosts and/or guests.

Instead of the IP audio mixer I decided to go with — no, not even an analog mixer — a PC application, Virtual Audio Cable. It’s tedious, and probably doesn’t give us the best audio quality — definitely not any live control — but it saved loads of money. I should also mention, the only way it was possible to use Virtual Audio Cable with all these interfaces was a sound card donation from a friend’s freshman-year PC.

My goal was to get something as close to Leo’s setup as possible with quality that would make the show watchable without spending too much money for now. I figure, if the show grows we will be able to buy equipment with the procedes and not have to dig into our own bank accounts.

Make sure to check out the show for the quality. Just a note: Episode 13 will be the first one shot with the new CPUs. Before that the Skype frame-rate was quite poor. Before the Pentium 4 CPUs we were using the stock 2.4GHz Celeron chips.

set filename to do shell script "date '+date-%Y-%m-%d-time-%H-%M-%S'"
do shell script "screencapture -i ~/Dropbox/Public/Screenshots/" & filename & ".png"
set dropboxurl to "http://dl.dropbox.com/u/440480/Screenshots/" & filename & ".png"
set tinyURL to (do shell script "curl --stderr /dev/null \"http://bit.ly/api?url=" & dropboxurl & "\"")
tell application "Finder" to set the clipboard to tinyURL

delay 7

-- start of script
set the action_URL to "http://yfrog.com/api/upload"
-- the above cgi sends back your form data arguments, good for testing!

set the form_data to "url=" & dropboxurl & "&username=joshbetz&password=PASSWORD&key= P6FOXGSZ53932d4fae0d57c8ce72e966c20a70d4"

set the query_results_file to (path to home folder as text) & "My Results
File"

try
	with timeout of 20 seconds -- try connecting for 1 minute
		tell application "URL Access Scripting"
			download the action_URL to file the query_results_file form data form_data replacing yes with progress
			quit
		end tell
	end timeout
	tell application "Finder"

		set the file type of the file query_results_file to "TEXT"
		set the creator type of the file query_results_file to "MSIE"
		-- open the file query_results_file

	end tell
on error the error_message number error_number
	tell application "URL Access Scripting" to quit

	if the error_number is not -128 then
		tell application (path to frontmost application as text)
			beep
			display dialog the error_message buttons {"Cancel"} default button 1
		end tell
	end if
end try
-- end of script

tell application "System Events"
	tell XML element 1 of contents of XML file query_results_file
		set tinyURL to (value of (XML elements whose name is "mediaurl")) as string
	end tell
end tell

tell application "Finder" to set the clipboard to tinyURL

tell application "Finder" to delete query_results_file

Unfortunately the first thing I had to do was downgrade the BIOS, which was a little stressful, but after that it was smooth sailing. Here are some photos of the unboxing:

DNS

First setup the DNS, since it will probably take about an hour for that to update anyway, depending on the TTY that you use. If you’re setting this up and you want to make sure it works, you can edit your /etc/hosts file on a mac or linux machine. I think there’s a way to do this in windows as well, but I’m not sure of what file you’d be looking for. Just remember to delete that entry after you know it works.

To setup the DNS you first need to find the DNS control for the domain registrar that you use. In GoDaddy the option would be called Total DNS. Change the A record to the IP address you want to use as a server and you’re done.

Configuration

Now you need to create a new file in /etc/apache2/sites-available/. Call it whatever you want. I will call it NEWSITE.TLD. In this file you will create a new file that looks similar to this, only substituting information specific to your server:

NameVirtualHost *:80


	ServerAdmin you@your-domain.tld
	ServerName your-domain.tld

	DocumentRoot /var/www/your-root/

	
		Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
		AllowOverride None
		Order allow,deny
		allow from all
	

	ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
	LogLevel warn
	CustomLog /var/log/apache/access.log combined
	ServerSignature On

Now we enable the site with:

sudo a2ensite /etc/apache2/sites-available/NEWSITE.TLD

Reload the apache configuration and you should be good to go.

I had been thinking about it for over 3 weeks, ever since I got the recommendation. Then a couple weeks ago my blog started being super slow. At first I was worried that it was my design, but even the back-end was going slow. After a little research I came to the conclusion that the GoDaddy MySQL database wasn’t really setup very good for WordPress. I was a little worried because I had just signed up for a two year hosting plan and I didn’t want to be stuck with that service for two more years.

Finally, one day I was just fed up with it and I called tech support to figure out how much money I could get back, if any. The guy I talked to told me that I would be refunded for any unused time, but that they had to manually refund my money. He asked some questions about why I wanted to switch, but I only talked to him for a few minutes.

I backed up my site, setup my my iPower account, and then, after iPower was all setup, I changed the DNS in my GoDaddy account to point to iPower. Then the next day I called GoDaddy and cancelled my hosting account and got 23 months refunded. It was really great. I wish I didn’t have to switch off of GoDaddy, since their customer service was so great, but everything about the experience was slow. Even navigating through their menus was slow with too many steps. When I login to iPower I’m already set to manage my hosting account, but with GoDaddy there were three or four mouse clicks just to get to that point. And with iPower all the options are right there, on one page, whereas with GoDaddy it just feels like everything is more complicated than it needs to be, with too many menus.

One last note: When I first setup my iPower account and I was trying to setup my new blog, it wasn’t working. I didn’t know why at first, but it turns out that CGI scripting wasn’t turned on, so PHP wasn’t working. I went to the support section to submit a ticket for support and within a half hour I had an email explaining what had happened and that the issue had been taken care of. So far the iPower support has also been very good.