A week ago David Ciccarelli the CEO and Co-Founder of Voices.com (probably one of the most successful Canadian companies in the voiceover business globally) contacted me about reviewing a new free service they were offering the Voiceover community called “Voices.com Answers“.
David and I have spoken on several occasions about updates for the voices.com website and I have tried to help when I could mainly because I figure that if they implement my suggestions then it would make for a better all around experience for both the voiceover professionals and for the voice seekers.
If any of you have been following my blog in the past you would know that every once in a while I come up with an idea to help the community and I talk about it on my blog. I’m not going to use this article to promote those services but I just wanted to say that I believe that giving away a few services for free is a great way to benefit people and yourself because it becomes a good resource for your peers and helps promote your brand.
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Kevin Powe
A little while back Taji wrote a great followup article on getting the most out of Twitter after asking for information on how people use it. I’ve been tweaking Twitter myself over the last week or so after making a very helpful connection there, and that put me in mind of the article. So I thought I’d jot a few things down.
First of all, this comes with a huge caveat – these are just suggestions. Like architecture or sex, beyond a few universal principles there is no ‘Right Way’ to use Twitter. Now, before I talk about these suggestions, it might be worth spending a moment talking about why it’s worth using Twitter. It’s become an almost self-fulfilling assumption that you should be on it because everyone’s on it, right? But apart from keeping pace with the rest of the flock, why actually sign up? Read More
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On April 11th 2011 and pretty unceremoniously Adobe Systems Inc. decided to release the long awaited upgrade to the Adobe Audition line going from Cs3 to Cs5.5
Version 3 was released 8 November 2007 so its been nearly 4 full years since any upgrade to the application has been made. In the middle Adobe decided to dumb the application down and release it as Adobe Sound Booth an application that at best gave you 50% of audition’s full capabilities.
So why is the article called Game changer? and what’s so special about this Audition release?
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Living in Egypt has its advantages and disadvantages.
Gasoline is cheap, Advantage.
Family is near, Advantage.
Weather is Sunny, Advantage.
Voiceover Equipment hard to come by, DisAdvantage.
Yes I type funny and I uppercase letters that don’t need it. But I try to write the way I speak so if you’ve ever heard me talk (there are a few podcasts and interviews you can listen to with me on them) then you would know why I type the way I do.
Anyway I digress. So back to our story. Living in Egypt has its occasional pros and cons. I can’t say that without mentioning the revolution the country (and myself) just went through. But I’m of the opinion that the revolution will change things and allow more products and consumer goods reach the general public here.
One of the biggest obstacles I have had to overcome through the years with regards to being an independent voiceover professional has been the ability to put together a decent studio.
Almost every single piece of equipment I have as part of my audio arsenal (with the exception of my mic stands) where purchased from abroad. Either the US or England.
My microphones had to be brought back to me from the US by friends visiting North America, My reflection or reflexion filter was brought back by a couple visiting family in the UK. Trying to find an Auralex supplier in Egypt has been an ongoing nightmare.
I’ve tried to be as cost effective as I possibly can but in the end the issue is as simple as … this item is not sold here… you will have to order it from abroad.
And buying anything from abroad means shipping and customs.
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At the end of December of every year I Audit my Voiceover Business and review all the earnings.
In the first few years the process was very amateurish. I would not put expenditures into account and so my main focus was on how much I made as opposed to the proper review of what is coming in vs. what is going out.
To make matters worse I was only auditing my earnings through PayPal. Not the payments made via bank transfer or via western union.
So obviously I needed to come up with a better way of tracking everything.
Working In The Cloud
The Cloud is an IT catch phrase that means storage on the Internet. But it doesn’t just mean storage as in keeping documents out there. It also includes the use of applications that are web based and therefore accessible from any computer with a browser anywhere in the world with an internet connection.
That makes internet based email clients like Gmail and hotmail part of the “Cloud” since you can access them and all the emails that they store from your browser.
That also makes twitter a part of the cloud since all your tweets are archived on their server.
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