Audiom: A sound or sound effect that has an origin that may not be readily known to the person hearing it, but the meaning is clear. e.g.: cha-ching, a needle removed from a record

I’m proposing a new word. I had found a need for a new word recently. While listening to the radio I often hear sound effects. I know what the sound effect is and its origin. Even my kids know what the sound effect means, because of the context. However, I don’t think my kids have ever listened to a phonograph, yet know when they hear that noise on the radio what the advertiser is conveying. They have never heard a cash register go cha-ching but when they hear that sound, they know it means money. I can think of many examples. I imagine a time when my grand kids will have a whole slew of these “audioms” and will have no idea where it came from. Much like when we hear phrases like “rule of thumb” we usually don’t know the origin. ( I do know this one) Or how about “the elephant in the room”.

So in a conversation with a co-worker and friend Joe Harms, I explained the need for the word and he came up with audiom form the word idiom. I think it was genius. So this is the new word. ‘Audiom’, use it often.

While browsing a retail store the other night I noticed a product I had not seen before. It was called Pogoplug. The price was $49.95. The package said it plugs in to your home router and allows you to plug in any USB storage device and access it like a “personal cloud” device. A quick check on my iPhone revealed there were 3 models: Classic, Pogoplug, and Pogoplug Series 4. The Series 4 model allowed up to 2 USB 3.0 devices and had a slot to directly plug in a SATA drive in to, additionally you could add a 3rd USB 2.0 device and a SD card. Clearly I needed the Series 4 version.

As luck would have it, my anniversary was only a day away and one local Best Buy store had it in stock and for the same price that Amazon had it listed for. My wife bought it for me and when I opened it, it said it was a 60 second setup. In truth I’m not sure it even took that long. You plug it in to your router’s available ethernet port, plug in your USB drive and open a web browser. It has you set up an account when your first log in the pogoplug.com. It has a companion piece of software that can be loaded on your PC, Mac, or Linux device. Once loaded the drive becomes available as a local drive. You can also access your files via a web browser on any internet device and there is a free app available. I have it on my iPad and iPhone. I’m able to stream music or movies from home to work, and they stream well. Keep in mind I have fast internet at home and work. I think it may also have been a different story if I were using a USB 2.0 device.

The main reason I bought this device is so I could have all my cartoon related files available to me from anywhere. I had used a few different free cloud solutions,but I kept hitting a wall on storage. More recently I had been carrying a 1TB portable drive back and forth. I am very impressed with this device so far and recommend it highly. I’d recommend getting the latest version of the device, the Series 4. I got it for $79.99, but it usually retail for $99. If I had a complaint it would be that the homepage is a bit confusing. They also offer a service and it at first appeared I’d have to purchase this to make it work. After a bit of looking around I found the PC companion app and installed it. There are no fees for this device to keep using it.

One feature I had not paid much attention too, may be the biggest seller of them all for some of you. You have the ability to share individual files. You can send the link via email and that user alone will have access to that file. This could be great for sharing large files in the future and may be worth the purchase alone. You can also back up your home PCs using Pogoplug’s software. I really cannot recommend this device enough. I’m still learning about it as I’ve only had it for less than 24 hours, but I am impressed.

   Happy New Years to you all. I am not big on resolutions for myself but this is the 3rd  I’ve done for www.dontfeedthegeek.com Check out last year’s post here.

   Let’s take a look at how I did on 2010′s goals for DFTG:

Goals for 2010

1. Increase traffic. Duh. Success. With the exception of December every month was an increase in traffic. It looks like I almost tripled my traffic.

2. Participate more in the webcomic community and find new heroes to follow. Success. I met many new cartoonists and fans of webcomics. Some of the folks I “met” I only met virtually, but still made new friends and heroes.

3. Publish a book. I’m close to finishing this one. I just need to finish some original art that will only be available in the book. And then have the guts to spend the money to do it. The mock ups look decent so far I must say. I hired Krishna to do the cover and that looks fantastic. In this case I want people to judge a book by it’s cover. I was hesitant to have someone else to do the cover but I see many examples of far superior artists have someone else design the cover, I had the good sense to ask Krishna to do it. Success. My book is out at the beginning of the year. The reaction was decent just like the end product. I learned a lot for next time. Buy the book here.

4. Have a table at least 2 expos in 2010. Fail. In 2010 I still only made the one expo, DWEX in Plano Texas.

5. Get more mentions on other sites, positive mentions. 2009 was great as I “met” many great cartoonists who actually looked at my toons and some even had good things to say. Success. I was mentioned, did a guest comic for another site, got reviewed, and was mentioned on a blog.

Goals for 2011:

1. Create at least one comic book. My next book will be a more traditional comic book style. I found where I will have it printed. If it looks good a may do more than one with different themes.

2. Have a more successful comic expo. I did OK in the last expo, but I was too laid back. I need to self promote better. Hopefully, I’ll have more products to sell.

3. Double my web traffic.

4. Start a new B&W comic. I have some plans for a new strip I’m trying to develop. If I do it, it will be kept simple and will be more about the writing. I can tell you it will be more focused on family humor. I’m trying to secure the URL I want for it and it is available in January hopefully. So I won’t give the name just now. I want to keep it simple enough so I can produce it faster. Right now my full color DFTG toon takes 3 hours minimum and usually much longer. I will still be doing DFTG for those that actually read it now.

5. Master Manga Studio and step my comic’s style to a professional looking art. This is my most ambitious goal and the hardest to achieve. I’m getting closer but not sure I’m close.

Let’s get back together one year from now and see how I did again. happy New Year. I hope your coming year is your best and that God blesses you and your family. Thanks for reading this year.

     My first book has arrived. I ordered my book through www.instantpublisher.com and they had it to me within 10 days. I must say I’m very happy with the end product. The cover was done by my interweb buddy Krishna Sadasivam and it may be the best part of the book and really sets the tone. The book is B&W with some color pages and a total of 60 pages. The price of an all color book was greater than I was willing to pay. I think the B&W and color mix works well though. I was very worried of the quality of the final product so I did a short run. I had also not heard of any other cartoonist using Instant Publisher. So far everyone who has seen it has been very complimentary. I highly recommend Instant Publisher, they were great to work with. They have a great utility on their site to do a price quote that is fun to play with the variations. If you are considering a book at least check out the price generator.

   My plan is to sell these at the upcoming Dallas Web Comic Expo. I have not really put much thought into how to sell them on my webpage. I know I can create some options to use Pay-pal on my page but honestly have not investigated that much. I’m not sure if the demand will be high enough to put forth the needed effort. I suppose I could just deal with people who want a book one on one for now. Maybe have them put the money in Pay-pal and then I’d send the book? Again, I think I’ll wait and see what the demand is. I’ve actually sold several copies and had some readers “pre-order” the book so we will see how it goes. I hope they sell well enough that I have to make another order right away.

    Regardless, the process has been a lot of fun and I learned a lot. If I do another book, I’ll do a much better job. I hope this one does enough sales to justify the next book. The price of the book is $12 but I may sell it cheaper at DWEX as a promotional thing. The nice thing is my investment is not high so if I sell half of the books I can break even. I think considering my webcomic, breaking even is a lofty goal.

   Here are some pics, I’m wearing my “hacker” shirt for today’s photo:

     Matt Stout of the hilarious comic Big Sandy Gilmore sent out a call to some of his interweb cartoon buddies asking for some guest strips for his finals week coming up in May. I jumped at the chance and planned on doing one eventually. I guess I must have gotten inspired quickly because the next thing I knew I had the comic done well ahead of schedule. I sure wish I could do that for my own webcomic but oh well. It was fun to draw other folks cartoon characters. I did a guest strip a long while back for a guy in England to benefit Make a a Wish but I was new to the webcomic thing and it was not as good as I think I’m capable of.

     Matt was going to use my comic and others during finals but now has decided to spread them out. I know how it is, if you have a buffer of any kind it is hard not to go ahead and use it. So I guess Matt is on the hook to do some posts during final week now. Anyway find the comic I did for Matt here. It was fun and I hope it looks good enough for his usual fine work. I see web cartoonist ask for submissions for guests toons but I hesitant as I”m not sure my style fits theirs. It was cool that Matt asked me specifically, so in theory he knew more or less what to expect. I hope other cartoonists ask me for submissions in the future, it sure was fun.

    If you don’t read BSG regularly now, go ahead and bookmark or subscribe to his feed now. It’s worth it and  family safe and still manages to be a little edgy without getting vulgar as so many webcomics will do.