Long-time listeners of my podcasts are familiar with the original Tablet PC Show which I did with co-host Marc Orchant for The Podcast Network (TPN) for some months. A couple of months ago Marc and I decided to take the show off TPN and and relaunch it independently which has been very successful. A little over a week ago TPN released The Tablet PC Show with host Perry Reed and since it is still in my podcast feeds I gave it a listen. Perry is a great guy and a long-time mobile device fan on Pocket PC Thoughts and I was happy to see him give it a go with this new show.

Unfortunately, the show was released showing the hosts to be Marc Orchant and I which created confusion among listeners. I heard from several people who were confused as to our participation in the new show and wondering if Marc and I were not doing our OnTheRun with Tablet PCs podcast any longer. I immediately posted a comment to the TPN blog pointing out the host information was not correct and asked them to fix it for the next show. Perry indicated he needed help to fix it but it would happen. I told him it was the RSS enclosure tags that needed to be fixed.

TPN released a second show a couple of days ago and once again the podcast shows Marc and I to be the hosts, extending the confusion with listeners not to mention the fact that iTunes search is screwed up as a result. I posted a comment to this second show asking Perry and TPN to remove both shows until they get the host information corrected and then re-release the two shows. This would benefit both their listeners and ours and make sure that no search engines were returning incorrect information. I promptly received an email from Perry stating they were working on it and hoped to have a fix for it soon.

A check of the TPN site this morning shows that both podcasts are still being distributed with the improper information and my comment to Perry is not showing because they are not releasing it from moderation. This means only they can see my comment and not visitors to their blog. I don’t like being a bad guy but this is not cool and it looks like they are trying to keep this information from their listeners. Since my comment is not published as it should have been so at least I can inform their show listeners that Marc and I are not in fact hosting the show I have no recourse but to inform our listeners here on my blog. Once again, I am asking TPN publicly to take both shows down until they fix the information and then re-release them. Continuing to deliberately offer the shows for download shows a disrespect to my original two requests that they take it down and fix it. There is no need for them to continue to offer the shows for download and perpetuate the improper impression the error is giving to listeners.

TPN, please remove both shows until a fix is in place. Thank you.

I’ll let you in on a little not-so-well-kept secret– Tablet PC Show co-host Marc Orchant and I are big fans of MindManager.  It is simply the best mind mapping program on the planet, and when you throw in the outstanding ink support and Tablet PC interface magic it is easy to understand why.  We are very excited to announce we will be interviewing Mike Jetter, CTO of Mindjet,  for the next Tablet PC Show podcast.  Mindjet has just announced a new version of MindManager and this will be a great chance for listeners to hear all about the new goodies it brings.  In the meantime do you have any questions you’d like us to ask him?

In case you missed it, here’s a list of the new features in MindManager Pro 6:

• New Microsoft Excel integration: Embed spreadsheet information into maps
• New Microsoft Visio export: Quickly create flow charts, map out processes
• Improved Microsoft PowerPoint integration: Quickly create and preview slides
• New editable outline view: Switch from map mode to standard linear mode
• New “Add Attachments”: Add multiple documents, URLs to each map topic
• New Topic Alerts: Receive alarms for appointments created in your maps
• New Organizational Chart view: Create dynamic, data-rich org charts
• New Ink-enabled Notes: Adds new power to mapping on a Tablet PC
• Improved Map Formatting commands: Make maps look better than ever—fast!

Tracy Hooten has written another good article explaining how she has configured GoBinder to make all the textbooks she has scanned into the program easily available for use in the classroom.  Tracy routinely scans her textbooks into GoBinder for easy searching, annotating and reference and students will find it time well spent to have a look at this article.  BTW, a little birdie told me that Tracy may make an appearance on The Tablet PC Show very, very soon. 

In the current Tablet PC Show podcast Eric Rice mentioned the USB gooseneck microphone he uses for recording podcasts and I’ve already gotten several requests for more information.  The microphone is from DVForge and is the MicFlex, a USB microphone that draws all power from the USB port.  It works on both Macs and Windows PCs and the recommendation from Eric Rice (Mr. Audio) is a strong one.  Specs:

Max Height= 22"
Diameter= 4"
Freq. Response= 35Hz-18KHz
Sample Rate= 48KHz
Sample Depth= 16-bit
Power= USB bus powered
USB Cable Length= 5-feet
MSRP $39.99

The microphone part detaches from the weighted base for using in a mobile setting.