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Coalface Tech: a podcast produced by IT pros for IT pros

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Mark Wilson

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Coalface Tech podcast graphicWay back in June, I wrote that James Bannan and I were thinking of launching a podcast – the theory being that we are both full-time IT guys who write about IT in our spare time, rather than professional journalists who write about IT but don’t need to worry about keeping the lights on.

Well, last month, we finally recorded the pilot episode for what has become known as “Coalface Tech”, and APC Mag has kindly given us a home on the web (multimedia downloads would blow my bandwidth allowance for this site very quickly!) – please do check it out and let us know what you think.

Please bear in mind that this is a pilot and we still have some work to do on the audio production (next time I will use a headset!) and the RSS feeds (for MP3 and AAC versions of the podcast) are not live yet so you can’t subscribe via iTunes (we’re working on it!). James and I are looking to schedule another recording soon but, in the meantime, check out the pilot episode – and please do leave a comment if you have any constructive feedback about podcast length, frequency, potential topics or anything else that seems relevant!

Comments

4 responses to “Coalface Tech: a podcast produced by IT pros for IT pros”

  1. Alex avatar
    Alex

    Hi mate,

    You asked for feedback and here it is.

    Your accent-slippage we’ve already covered [in a previous e-mail]. However, I think it’s also worth pointing out that, contrary to your claim, no-one in this country “rags” on Vista. At least, not the natives ;) Also, your double pronunciation of “beta” grated and made you sound awkward and self-conscious, taking the focus from what you were saying and putting it on how you were saying it — very distracting.

    One factual error that I spotted: James makes the point that the upgrade to Firefox 3 maxed out his processor, but IIRC Firefox 2.x to 3.x was not an automatic upgrade as he claimed.

    The podcast itself was good for a pilot episode, I felt. The production values could do with tightening up; the levels were all over the place between the two of you and the intro/outtro music (which went on far too long).

    You both obviously know your subject — as, of course, you should — and you can talk about it clearly. Some of the segues were a little clunky and you both had a tendency to “um” and “er” a lot, sometimes in the silliest of places, but that’ll settle down as you gain experience and confidence.

    Obviously your subject matter will be of great interest to a lot of people. I’m not one of them, I’d be more interested in a consumer focused show, but people interested in servers, virtualisation and Hyper-V would almost certainly appreciate your comments and evaluations.

    I will check out the next episode without a doubt — when’s it expected? If I didn’t know you, I wouldn’t bother, but I’m not your target audience anyway, so don’t take it personally!

  2. Mark Wilson avatar
    Mark Wilson

    Thanks for this mate – mostly fair comment and it pretty much matches the feedback I got verbally from another trusted advisor – Garry.

    I’d have to dispute the opinion that no-one in the UK rags on Vista – have you read any IT publications recently (apart from .net or Mac Format!)?

    We’re planning to record another episode tomorrow… let’s see how that goes.

  3. Nick Thompson avatar
    Nick Thompson

    Just a note to say hi, having listened to the Pilot episode and now into ep.1 …. good to hear stuff for “real” pro’s who do this day-in-day-out. A nice complement for Windows Weekly which doesn’t go into enough depth.

  4. Mark Wilson avatar
    Mark Wilson

    Thanks Nick – that really is a compliment! James and I both listen to Windows Weekly but one thing Paul and Leo avoid is the enterprise stuff. As that’s our bread and butter that’s what James and I intend to focus on.

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