Carnival Submissions are due tonight! 

Just a quick reminder, Carnival of the Badger submissions are due Wednesday, Aaron is planning to have a really fun Carnival this week, so don’t miss out on the fun.

If you don’t know what this is, it is open to any and all Bloggers from Wisconsin, just submit a link to your favorite post of the week, the host will collect and post all of the stories once a week. Each week the Carnival will be hosted by another Blog.

To submit an article, just send the link to badgercarnival@gmail.com or use the Carnival Submission Form. (make sure you select the proper carnival to submit to) This is a great way to get new people to visit your Blog

From the Mark Belling Late Afternoon Show 

Don’t Laugh!

There needs to be an investigation into this. Mark Belling has a great point, it needs to be someone from outside of state government. I don’t trust any of the people they usually use to investigate these thing, I want a REAL outsider, like the FBI to investigate this, we need to know what Doyle is hiding. 

JS Online: Travel agency questions state’s bidding process

For the first time, the travel agency that lost a controversial state contract to Adelman Travel, two of whose officers gave the maximum $10,000 allowed to Gov. Jim Doyle’s re-election campaign, is questioning the process that led to Adelman getting the contract.

In an interview today, Omega Travel Vice President Diane Bozicevich questioned whether Adelman’s political contacts played a role in the final decision and said final head-to-head price quotes between the two firms show that Omega was "not only competitive, but likely tied - if not beat - Adelman’s pricing."

For example, Bozicevich said, Adelman will charge a $24 fee for every domestic-flight ticket refunded or exchanged, in addition to a $24 initial fee to book the ticket. Omega’s final bid was $27 to book a domestic-flight ticket, with no additional charge if the ticket is refunded or exchanged, Bozicevich said.

Back in June, I read this post at Instapundit.com, it is a summery of what Glenn Reynolds uses for his blogging. That post made me start thinking about how I wanted to put "my kit" together. I was fairly new to Blogging at the time, so I started checking into what others were doing. The Daily Pundit had more ideas and some of the things they used were things that I already had, but at the time I was missing the most important part, the laptop, I was tied to my desktops at the time. Since then, I have gotten a laptop and it was the best investment I could have made.

Audio Tools 

Even though I didn’t have a laptop in those early days, I started gathering other tools that I thought would come in handy. At first, I started primarily with audio tools, since I was already familiar with using audio on my Blog. At the time, I had an mp3 player that would record audio from a microphone, but to this I added an Olympus Digital Voice Recorder. With this I can record up to 4 hours of audio in decent quality and feed the audio with a standard 1/8 inch plug into any of my computers and save the audio as mp3 (or several formats if needed).

The audio software I use is the very easy to use Audio Recording Wizard. This is the best $25 I have ever spent. I use it daily to record several radio shows onto my PC and I can then edit out any material that I may want to use on my blog. I can record from any audio source on the PC, from the microphone jack, TV tuner or any audio that can be played on my computers. This can also be used, with a microphone, for Podcasting. and the quality can be adjusted from 320 Kbps and 44100Hz Sterio for high quality (and huge file size) audio, down to 8 Kbps and 11025Hz Mono for very small filesize, but poor quality audio. Most of the audio I use at BadgerBlogger is in the 16 to 24 Kbps range, this gives decent quality at an acceptable file size. The Audio Recording Wizard also has a scheduler that allows it to start and stop on a timer, as I said, I use this daily, it starts and stops automatically, so I can set it and forget it. For a free alternative, you can try MP3 My Mp3 this was suggested by a friend and seems to work well, but has no timer. I haven’t used this a lot, but preliminary tests are good.

 I will also use Windows Movie Maker at times, this will also allow you to edit audio (as well as video) and is a free program from Microsoft. Movie Maker will only output in .wma or .wmv formats, but it is easy enough to convert the audio to .mp3, for that I usually use dBpowerAMP.

I have found that the best microphone to use is a decent quality headset microphone combo. I use a Plantronics headset that I paid about $45 for a few years ago, but even the $15 Logitech’s work pretty well. I also have a wand type Logitech microphone for use in an interview or another outside source, but since I often use Skype to make internet calls and voice chats, the headset works much better.

Photo / Imiging tools / Video

For photos on my blog, I use a simple, inexpensive digital camera, a Fuji FinePix A205. This is not a fancy camera, but it has gotten the job done so far. My plans are to get a digital video camera that can be used for stills as well as full motion video, but for now my little Fuji digital camera does the job. Of course the more storage you have, the better. I have put off the purchase of another flash memory card because of my plans to go with the video camera, but I would recommend a minimum of 512Mb, with a full 1Gb preferred. I would hate to run out of storage in the middle of something important.

The software I use for manipulating or enhancing my photos is usually the free program Irfanview, this is a simple to use basic imaging tool. I use this to crop, resize or enhance photos, but if I need something more powerful, I really like Serif PhotoPlus 6, this is a free, but powerful enough program for my needs. Some people will use Photoshop or Paintshop Pro, but these tools do everything I need.

For video, as I stated, I plan to get a digital video camera, but for the time being, I am limited to short clips from my digital camera. I can however capture video from the TV using a USB TV Tuner from Hauppauge, this is the model I have used for about 4 years now and it does a good job. With this, I can watch and record TV right onto my hard drive and I can put these videos on my Blog. To edit these videos, I use the Windows Movie Maker that I mentioned above. With this, I can edit the video, add titles, compress etc.

Other useful equipment

I have found several other things that come in handy while blogging, my most useful is probably my "Jump Drives" the useful USB flash memory sticks that have become quite popular. I use mine a lot to transfer files between my computers. The model that I like is the Lexar: JumpDrive Secure USB Flash Drive, this allows me to not only move and store files, it has a security system built in, so your files are a bit more secure than on some of the unsecured drives. (I would never trust this 100%, but every little bit helps) On one Jupm Drive I keep a large list of links and personal information so I can access them from any computer that I may have to use. I also carry with me a few blank writable CD’s for more permanent storage or sharing things with others.

I also carry a few pens, notepads and a clipboard with a legal pad. And don’t forget lots of batteries for the digital camera, .mp3 player, digital audio recorder and anything else you might carry that needs batteries. A small Mini-Mag flashlight and I also have a LED keychain flashlight that comes in handy.

And don’t forget the wires! I keep in my pack a few extra USB cables, a cable to connect my digital camera and .mp3 players through the computers USB plugs. I keep a few 1/8 inch mini plugs that allow me to record audio from any radio with an earphone jack by plugging it into my microphone jack. I also keep an extra A/C power plug for the laptop and I plan to add another battery. I also have a small USB powered light that clips onto my laptop and a small USB webcam. I also carry a CAT-5 cable and a phone line incase I have access to a wired internet connection instead of a wireless. A small USB hub is also a handy thing to have.

Keeping it all together

I use a laptop backpack to keep everything together. This is the model that I use. This backpack has a padded area for the laptop as well as plenty of storage space for my other goodies. I started with a brief case type case, but I find the backpack is easier to carry since this is fairly heavy once the laptop is added. The backpack is also more secure, I can wear it on my back, so I can keep everything on my person while my hands are free. I also had much less storage space with the briefcase style case.

Software & Hardware

Aside from the programs I mentioned above, I have a few other programs that I use to make my Blogging more productive, I couldn’t live without EditPad Lite, this is light years ahead of the basic Windows Notepad and is highly recommended. I also find the Qumana editor useful if I am doing something with a lot of fancy codes, although I usually do it by hand. I also use a Gmail account for Blog activity (comments, registrations etc.) and find that Google Talk is handy because of the email notification alert it gives. I also use an RSS reader, I like Feed Reader it is an easy to use tool and I use it to keep up with news sources and my favorite Bloggers.

As for the hardware I use, I run two eMachine desktops, my primary PC is a 2.7 Ghz PC (DVD Burner, half Gb of RAM, 160 Mb of hard drives etc.) and I run two monitors on it, I couldn’t imagine not running dual monitors on my main PC anymore. I always have several things going on at once and being able to slide an application or browser window to the second monitor while using the main monitor for the active window is a great help.

The second PC is an older 1.8Ghz eMachine,but it is dressed out nicely and it gives me a good backup and does everything the main computer does, just a little slower. These computers are also networked using a D-Link router.

I also use an HP 1315 printer/scanner/copier combo. and I have an external USB DVD burner if needed.

My latest addition is my laptop computer. I use a Averatec 5500, this is not a fancy computer, but it is small, light and has everything a Blogger might need, including a DVD+CD-RW, firewire, media card reader etc. To this I have added a wireless optical mouse since I really hate the touch pad which I disabled the first day. As I said earlier, I plan to add another battery, but in the months that I have had this laptop, it has done everything that I have asked of it.

Charlie Sykes had a short topic today on how common it is to abort babies that are disabled. This is a topic that I feel strongly about too. I work with the disabled, many of them would not have been allowed to live had the decision been left up to the monsters on the Left that believe someone with Downs or other developmental disabilities, don’t deserve life.

These people are wonderful additions to the world, yes they need more care, but that doesn’t mean they should die! They are so full of joy, but the tolerant and compassionate liberals that tell us how we should live, think they don’t deserve to live, it disgusts me!

This topic reminded me of what fellow Blogger Tom McMahon wrote about his son Ryan, I also posted the audio of Charlie Sykes reading Toms post, it was an extremely moving story.
 

Please go read the article Charlie talked about. While it may be a hard topic to discuss, the target of the compassionate Left deserve to have their fate discussed in the open. Now that abortion of the disabled is acceptable to so many, how long will the disabled among us be safe? When will they start looking to the elderly as an inconvenience, to be done away with. Many already hold these beliefs and without this discussion being help in the open, it will stealthily gain wider acceptance until, like abortion, it is an acceptable part of our culture.

Poor Dan Vrakas, he still can’t get his name pronounced correctly by WISN’s "out of town based" news reports. Dan, can’t you do something about that?

The latest Miller Park roof repair cost will pretty much drain the last of the money from the settlement reached with Mitsubishi for roof repairs. So if anything else goes wrong, it will be up to the taxpayers to come up with the repair costs.

JS Online: Miller Park roof repair will cost $12.1 million The cost to replace the flawed bogie system used to help open and close the Miller Park roof has been estimated at $12.1 million, according to new figures released Tuesday.

The $12.1 million for the bogie replacement project, the latest in a string of costly repairs, means there might only be approximately $1 million left from a $33 million payout the Miller Park stadium district received in an out-of-court settlement with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of America to address roof problems, according to Mike Duckett, the district’s executive director.

Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) is raising the tax levy on Milwaukee residents by some $5 million more than their previously announced raise for the year. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is towing the Liberal line by burying the story on page 6B in today’s paper

JS Online: MPS property tax levy higher under revised budget A committee of Milwaukee’s School Board endorsed a revised budget that would increase the property tax levy above spring projections.

The levy accepted by the committee Tuesday night is $214.1 million, an increase of $6.7 million from the previous year and $4.8 million more than the levy approved in May. The estimated tax rate would decrease somewhat from last year because property assessments have bumped up the average home value.

I like how they talk about the "rate" as if that has any meaning at all. They use the tax rate reduction as a distraction, what matters in the tax levy, that is the actual money that we have to pay!