Lordy, I’m such a broadcast geek! I’m actually buzzing with excitement right now because I figured out how to do remote broadcasts with from laptop.

WARNING – BORING TECH STUFF FOLLOWS

The setup is this: Icebox Radio has a computer in my office that’s running 24/7, pumping audio drama out into the web-o-sphere via a program called Zararadio, a wonderful little shareware that automates our schedule, meaning I don’t have to watch it constantly. The broadcast is actually accomplished through a Winamp plugin called Shoutcast, which is how our audio is sent to our server which then sends it out to the world.

I’ve always wanted to do live remotes, meaning I wanted to sit somewhere with my laptop, connect with the station and do news, weather, live theater, whatever. Up until now, I’d been trying to do it using a shoutcast-like broadcast program on my laptop, but to use it, I had to shut down the Shoutcast in the office first. And that usually meant everyone who was listening online would be bumped off. Not good. Add to the fact that my means of controlling the office computer remotely were buggy at best (Windows Remote Desktop which was free, but copyright 2001) and I was left without a real remote solution.

Until today.

First, I realized that Skype had pretty good sound quality, and I could load it on the office computer to receive only calls from me on my laptop. Second, I discovered a website called LogMeIn.com with has a free feature allowing me to connect to the computer via the web, and it works far, far better than Remote Desktop.

So, this morning, I did it. I logged on via LogMeIn, started Skype on the office computer, set the Zararadio to stop at a particular time, opened a Skype call from my laptop and did live news and weather for the globe (Seoul, I-Falls, New York and London). I even recorded the file on the office computer for future use. And then I set everything back to normal with no apparent problems. The station is chugging right along as normal.

OMG, do you know what this means? I’m basically walking around with a radio station in my computer bag!

As I say. Geeking out. : >