Participation Clarification

You are welcome to join in our monthly, Thinking Out Loud discussions. The live discussions are held on the first Wednesday of each month at 7:00 PM US East Coast Time. To participate, you must contact me in advance to make arrangements. Email me at blogmaster*at*growingagain.com (replace the *at* with @).

You will need Skype installed on your computer to participate. Skype is free "Voice over Internet" software that lets you use your Internet connection like a telephone. You can download Skype from www.skype.com. In addition to the software, you will need a suitable microphone, preferably the headset variety, available at most computer and office supply stores, such as Staples or Office Depot.

In the past we were able to "broadcast" live, so that people could listen to the discussion in real time, even if they were not active participants. We did this using a beta feature of Skype called Skypecast. Unfortunately, Skypecast was very buggy and finally became totally unuseable. So now we just use the Skype conference call to connect with remote participants. Currently we do not have a way to broadcast the live discussion to nonparticipants in real time.

However, we do make the recorded discussion available as a podcast shortly after the live discussion. You can download the podcasts through iTunes and other free podcast distributors, as well as through this web page. If and when Skypecasting become functional again, we will resume the live broadcasting. In the meantime, I hope you will consider participating in the live Skype conference call (email me first) or, if you prefer, just enjoy the recorded podcasts when it becomes available a few days later.

Cheers

Steve Donaldson