Live-Blogging to Drive Up Interest in an Event/Organization

Check out my post, Live-Blogging to Drive Traffic, Interest to Organizational Events , on Open Source Catholic. From the post:

The Steubenville St. Louis Mid-America conference is attended by over 6,000 teens every year, and there are many parents, friends, and other teens who wish they could participate as well. We have always posted information after the conference, but in St. Louis, for the past two years, we've started live-blogging and posting to social networks


My Live-Blogging / Photography Gear

Watch it on YouTube ( shot with my iPhone 4, using an external Lavaliere microphone )


Why I'm Switching Back from Chrome to Safari 5.0

Chrome was great. It was Safari , with a little more speed, better tabs, and a cool status bar that would only show when it needed to.

But I'm switching back, for the following reasons:

  1. Safari 5.0 is just as fast as Chrome.
  2. Safari's tab system is nicer looking than Chrome. Not a biggie.
  3. Safari can read PDFs without opening up an external application, and without downloading it to your Downloads folder. I hate having to clear out my Downloads folder every day

Using a Lav Mic with the iPhone 4 - HD Video/Audio Recording!

Please read this article for background/more info: iPhone/iPad external microphones

Formula for success: iPhone 4 + iPhone TRRS Mono Mic Input Adapter + RadioShack Lav mic

Using this setup, I am able to record interviews on the go on my iPhone, without carrying around a mess of equipment. This rocks. Here's a picture of my entire on-the-go interview kit:

iPhone 4 - Portable HD Video/Audio Recording Studio

Read more about setting up an iPhone 4 with a Lav mic, or other line-level inputs and microphones . Also,


"Good Catholics Cannot be Pro-Choice" (by Archbishop Carlson)

From Archbishop Robert J. Carlson's "Before the Cross" article for the last Review edition :

Archbishop Robert J. Carlson - homily at Steubenville youth conference.

God's law in the Old Testament is clear and unambiguous: You shall not kill. Jesus is even more demanding: Every one who is angry is liable to judgment.

Sins against the Fifth Commandment are easy to commit. Any time we think, speak or act out of anger or hatred or jealousy or revenge, we abuse God's commandment that we respect His most precious gift, the gift of life


Live-Blogging at Steubenville 2010

The Bowl of Youth at Steubenville St. Louis Mid-America

This weekend and next I'll be live-blogging for the Office of Youth Ministry at Missouri State University, for the Steubenville St. Louis Mid-America youth conference. Check out the Live Blog here , and see photos from the first week of Steubenville on Flickr (I'll be updating all of these things as time goes on!).

(Above photo: Nikon D90 w/ 12-24mm f/4 lens).


Whoops! Always check the recipient...

SMS - Oops!

Always, always, always makes sure you check your text message's recipient before you hit 'Send' ;-)


Hope his camera had good weather seals... [Wedding Photography Fail]


My Workstation (at Work)

My New Workstation

Here's an older shot from my previous setup at home (much has changed since then... but most things are the same—in principle! The core tenets of a Geerling computer workstation are:

  1. Multiple Macs.
  2. One of the Macs must have at least a 24" display.
  3. Complexity (like messy cables) should be hidden as much as possible.
  4. Screen real estate trumps everything else.

External Microphones for iPhone 5s, 5, 4S, iPad and iPod Touch Audio input

iPhone 5 with Microphones and Input Adapters
A few of the many microphone options to make your mobile recordings better.

Note on iPhone 5 : Right now the only confirmed way to record stereo on the iPhone 5 is with the GuitarJack Model 2 and an Apple 30-pin to lightning adapter. All other headset-jack based solutions work as well as the iPhone 4/4S!

To dramatically increase the quality of the sound you record on your iOS device, you should use an external microphone or mixer, or a direct line input.

You can use