This list is inspired by Brett Terpstra’s Web Excursions. I’ll try to keep a journal of interesting things for future reference here.

• I enjoyed this episode of Pragmatic with Merlin Mann about procastination: I’ll Do The Procrastination Episode Tomorrow.
• NetNewsWire for iOS is in beta, check it out: NetNewsWire 5 for iOS Public TestFlight.
• I’m not good at reading books so I’m giving audio books another try. I started with Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.
• Rings is a simple iOS game that I play while listening to audio books and podcasts. I can’t remember where I found it.
• scanlime/fadecandy is an “easy to use open source hardware to drive WS2811 LEDs with high-quality color”. This can easily drive a matelight and many other cool RGB LED things.
• Secret playing jenga, Secret is an Australian Shepherd.

In this post, I will summarize a series of posts¹ on the german podcasting community Sendegate. The original author is Ralf Stockmann, he came up with this setup. For images and links to products head over to Sendegate.

I will explain how and why to use a cheap headset and USB audio interface to record podcasts. The total cost of this setup will be less than 100 € per person to record. This makes it a very affordable beginner level podcasting setup. It is also an option to record a guest on a show without adding too much cost. Since this setup includes a USB audio interface you can easily upgrade to a better microphone and headphones later.

Components

Headset with microphone: Superlux HMC 660 X

The Superlux HMC 660 X headset is a cheap knock-off of a much more expensive Beyerdynamic headset. It uses a very similar design. One downside of the cheap price: the audio quality of the headphones part is not comparable to any Byerdynamic headphones. Owning a pair of DT 770 Pros I can compare them. The Superlux headphones sound very dull and flat compared to the Beyerdynamics. But for simple input monitoring, they are fine. Also, the standard earpads are not as comfortable but you can upgrade those for under 10 €.

The microphone part is a bit tricky. Ralf discovered that the microphone does not work well with more than 15V of phantom power. Phantom power is usually provided by a microphone pre-amp. Most USB audio interface with XLR connectors provide phantom power with 48V. This makes the Superlux headset sound horrible. That is why Ralf recommends an audio interface with only 15V of phantom power. There are also two alternatives:

• using adapters to use the mic-in plug your computer
• soldering some resistors into a spare XLR cable to make the headset mic usable with 48V phantom power.

USB audio interface: Behringer XENYX 302 USB

As mentioned in the previous section, this is a USB audio interface that uses 15V phantom power. Using this interface will make you able to hear your voice while recording. Also, it makes the microphone sound much better than using direct input.

Optional: non-USB audio adapter solution

You need two adapters to use this headset with direct input. The kind of adapter cables depend on your device. Macs, iPhones and iPads use the TRRS standard for headsets. So you need a cable that has the combined input/output TRRS jack on one side and two standard 3,5 mm sockets on the other side. Additionally, you need an adapter from XLR socket to 3,5 mm audio jack.

Costs

• Headset 39 €
• Earpads: 8,90 €
• USB audio interface: 42 €
• optional XLR adapter: 8,90 €
• optional TRRS adapter: ~10 €

XENYX Settings

These settings describe the hardware knob positions:

• GAIN and MIC: 12 o’clock
• LINE/USB and PHONES: 10 o’clock
• MAIN MIX: off / 7 o’clock (not needed in this setup)
• LINE/USB switches FROM and TO enabled
• 2-TRACK switch disabled
• all eq-faders (LOW, HIGH, PAN, BAL) in neutral / middle position

On your computer select the XENYX interface as system input and output. For whatever reason, macOS displays the Behringer interface as “USB Audio CODEC”.

Audio Problems

Before recording with this setup do some test recordings. Check if everything sounds fine. Also check the noise-floor for unwanted interference sounds like ground loop humming. Generally, this should not happen since the XENYX 302 USB is USB powered.

Happy podcasting! 🎧🎙

¹ Links to Sendegate posts:

• Sendegate: Profi-Klang für alle! Das HMC660 Headset richtig einsetzen
• Weihnachts-Special: das HMC660X direkt anschließen

I have open sourced some personal projects today. Those little utilities help me at my job every day:

nions
> scriptable notifications for command-line interfaces

… currently only working with Rocket.Chat. Sends a notification with a custom message to a webhook. I am using this to get notified when log running commands finally finish.

open-addr
> quickly open addresses from macOS terminal applications

… to have a way to quickly open localhost:8080 in a browser from a terminal. open-addr :8080 opens [localhost](http://localhost:8080) in your default browser.

preprep-go
> a very simple Go source file pre-processor

… to use #ifdef in Go. This is probably not convenient for anyone else but me.

projects
> file base project overview for code projects

… show activity in project folders. Really only tested on macOS. Works for me™.

sleepy
> sleep with progress and formatted duration

… a more granular controllable sleep command with visual feedback. sleepy 1m36s sleeps for 1 minute and 36 seconds.

traefik-dashboard
> the missing links dashboard for traefik deployments

… to have clickable links for Traefik’s frontend domains. The Traefik maintainers do not want this functionality in the native Traefik dashboard, that’s why I have built this.

My favorite tunnel in my home city Bremen. 🌈

It is called “Friedenstunnel” (“Tunnel of Peace”) and it even has it’s own webpage because it is a charity project.

February is almost half over, so here is my unordered, unofficial list of side projects for this year.

Homepage and Personal Domain

My current homepage lacks some functionality. It is just a placeholder at the moment. My vision is to create subdomains for different features (e.g. see project “Location Checkins”) and tie it together via feeds on this microblog.
Also I would like to self host the HTML contents and services on a virtual server. That doesn’t really improve the homepage itself but I want to put the domain to better use.

Location Checkins

I’d like to have a personal location checkin service (Foursquare aka Swarm) with a history of checkins and embedded maps, maybe using MapKit JS.

Reading More Books

My shelf is filled with unread books and I have canceled my Netflix subscription, maybe now I can find some time to read more.

Mixing and Sampling Software

At least since 2012 I’ve been tracking the idea of a software, controlled by a command line interface, that can mix an arrange music samples. I have a rough concept but I don’t know how to implement such a project yet.

Podcasting

I would like to create a podcast, maybe a microcast. Not sure about the topic though. If you have suggestions or if you’re looking for a guest or co-host, let me know.

Custom Micro.blog Theme

Micro.blog has been updated to use Hugo for the hosted micro blogs. I’d like to create a custom theme for my micro blog.

Bonus: Leave WhatsApp

This is not really a side project, more like a goal that I wanted to write down somewhere. On the other hand it is a side project if you also want to transition other people to an alternative messenger.

I left Facebook and Instagram last year. I have never regretted this decision and I don’t miss these platforms. This year I would like to permanently delete WhatsApp from my phone. There are enough good and better alternatives. WhatsApp is staying big because no one is leaving so everybody is locked in. I just don’t feel comfortable using Facebook services anymore. I try to avoid using anything they produce, including their open source software.

I colorized some old family photos with colourise.sg. I’m fascinated by the difference in perception of a monochrome photo versus a color photo. The quality of colorization is not perfect but that doesn’t matter. I was able to recognize much more details in the color pictures compared to their black/white original. We still have a lot of old family photos that I would like to digitize. Being able to produce color version now gives me some incentive to scan even more photos. Seeing a an old photo come to live is an addictive experience. I would gladly pay for a batch processing feature.