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Others were annoyed. Glendale resident Ofelia Ayvazyan said Tuesday that Costco staff made her wait more than 20 minutes before letting her return a 42-inch flat-screen television she bought three years ago.

She said she would shop for electronics elsewhere from now on…

No, that is not a misprint. This lady is upset because she had to wait 20 minutes to return and get a full refund of $2,932.72 on her 3 year old TV. I about fell on the floor when I read that. This is from an article on Costco halting it’s liberal return policy on electronics. [LA Times]

I just noticed that Google is listed as an exhibitor for the upcoming Podcast and New Media Expo. (Yes I have a habit of checking occasionally to see who will be exhibiting.) Interestingly, the page they link to from the exhibitor list is Google Adsense for Audio. The linked page covers their radio product, but I don’t think one has to work to hard to figure out what is coming: Adsense for Podcasts. Now there is nothing new here, people have been speculating and discussing this for a while, but the fact that Google has signed on as an exhibitor at a “Podcast Expo” is a rather definitive statement for their plans.

This does bring up the entire question of what a product like this would look like. I have some thoughts on this as I don’t think it can work the way it does for text. Also the transition from radio to podcasts will be interesting. Radio has established formats and systems that are clearly understood by all. Sending an audio ad to a radio station and having them inject it into their automation program is no big deal. Systems like this do not exist in podcasting. For the most part, everyone is doing their own thing. Will this signal the need for structured production platforms for podcasts? Lots of thoughts and questions, perhaps I should do a podcast about it.

I have mentioned before how we are utilizing Amazon Web Services to build out the GigaVox Media platform. I was pleasantly surprised this morning to see that Werner Vogels, Amazon CTO, has been paying attention to our humble little application. Reports from the Future of Web Apps conference in London are that he used our application as an example of the power of Amazon Web Services. [Via Fred Destin & Nodalities] Good way to start the day…

While at Podcast Academy #5 I did a quick interview with Greg Cangialosi for his ROI Radio show. We discussed GigaVox, our podcast publishing platform and the Podcast Academy. Oh, we also mentioned a forthcoming series of Podcast Academy books. [Link]

Good news and an update to my previous Sprint ExpressCard EVDO post. Apple has just released software drivers for the EX720. I found this via EVDO Info. Now I get my signal strength bars back!

Finally, there is an ExpressCard available for Sprint EVDO, the Merlin™ EX720. The one problem I have had with upgrading to my MacBook Pro was the loss of my Sprint EVDO service. Verizon offered an ExpressCard to its users months ago, while those of us on Sprint had to wait patiently. I really felt the pain last week while travelling. However, yesterday I got my hands on the Sprint EX720, though the Sprint Rep said they were not supposed to be released until next week. Anyway, here is what it took to get it to work. I’m putting this here to hopefully save time for less technically savvy people like myself. (This took a lot longer than I expected.)

The main problem I had was the need for a Windows machine running XP that had an ExpressCard slot. If you have one of those – you are set. If not, then like me you need to find one. My solution involved using Parallels and an old copy of Virtual PC 6 to get the job done without spending any money. Here are the steps:

Read more…

Links from my Podcast Academy #5 Presentation.

Podcast Academy
Podcast Academy Forums
The Levelator
Podcast Release – WordPress plugin.

Curious for an in-depth discussion of how we are using Amazon Web Services at GigaVox? Check out the newest edition of Technometria on IT Conversations. Paul Figgiani has also put up an interesting post about how this particular episode was produced.