Listen to the low quality version now
Listen now with the below audio embedded low quality version or click HERE to go to iTunes to get it or subscribe

[audio:http://www.montpillard.com/wp-content/uploads/ep5.mp3]

Episode 3 podcast covers

• Why the delay
• Waiting for quotes
• A book recommendation

and much more of me getting stressed at the whole situation

Listen now with the below audio embedded low quality version or click HERE to go to iTunes to get it or subscribe

[audio:http://www.montpillard.com/wp-content/uploads/podcast_episode3_stream.mp3]

What we’ve done is now made an mp3 streaming version available at the end of each post (example below). This mp3 stream will play straight from your browser just click the play icon.

[audio:http://www.montpillard.com/wp-content/uploads/slogger1.mp3]

At present these streams are only available to listen to online and not available for download but these will be available soon for you to add to your Zune, MP3 player, phone etc etc for you non iTunes users. It’s also noting that the iTunes podcasts are “enhanced” with artwork, links and chapters which isn’t available on the embedded version.

Also you’ll now notice that the “AUDIO” page at the top of the blog now has been populated. This is going to be a consolidation area for our audio streams, so if you think you’ve missed something or just want a 1 stop page to get to all our audio then THIS PAGE is it.

It’s London Marathon day in London so we did what all sensible Londoners do and that’s LEAVE LONDON

So we used the time in the quiet countryside to record episode 2 of the Montpillard.com Podcast where we talk about our process of finding and buying the house.

This Podcast is a little longer at 15 minutes but there is a fair bit to cover. We are getting the hang of this and the quality is improving and there are less “errrms” than before but we are still working on it.

Episode #2 is now live in iTunes, so either subscribe HERE (iTunes link), or go direct to the current episode HERE

We discussed the websites we used and the mortgage options very briefly in this episode and those links will appear here shortly and Dawn will be doing a full write-up of the mortgages we looked at.

Embedded Low Quality Online Version
[audio:http://www.montpillard.com/wp-content/uploads/podcast_episode2_stream.mp3]

Enjoy.

WE DID IT!

Episode #1 is now available in iTunes (link) for you to download and it’s already getting downloaded at  rate i just had to “top up” on bandwidth with our current ISP

So being episode 1 it’ll be a little rough around the edges and this one really just introduces ourselves, the house, the area and why we purchased where we did. The Podcast is 10 minutes long and this is the maximum time we want to keep these at as the idea is not to have some long 45 minute rambling Podcast but some quick, concise & info packed Podcasts for you.

As for now we have no show notes for you but going forward when we talk about products, suppliers or services we’ll be detailing them in the post related to the Epispode. The episodes will be coming thick and fast over the next few weeks so make sure you hit the subscribe button in iTunes.

LISTEN NOW – Online lower quality version.
[audio:http://www.montpillard.com/wp-content/uploads/podcast_episode1_stream.mp3]

Enjoy

Misc Info
Recorded on Zoom H4N
Processed in GarageBand

Now we already know that a lot of the old mortar here has aged very badly and part of the renovation is to re-mortar and point everything to strengthen the house and give it a nicer finish but little did I know just how bad some places were. The above video shows just how easy the stones come apart from each other as the lime mortar is now just powder.

Don’t worry these stunning stones aren’t going to waste, we be rebuilding the outbuilding using new materials & bonding however the stones are going to be placed on the outside of the new structure so it keeps the original look.

Update 1 : Gallery now online HERE
Update 2 : Video update below

Evernote

Imagine having at your finger tips all your scanned ideas, photos, notes, articles etc etc all the time no matter where you are,  well with Evernote you do but with a little extra.

What Evernote does is actually look at the items you have uploaded and then OCR’s it so you can then search within the picture for words so you are not just sorting mindlessly through all your documents .

Example

We have scanned in many ideas, photos and pages that we have seen that we would like to incorporate into our house. Most of these are showers or pumps at the moment and when I’m out and about I cant remember what I’ve seen so i just type into Evernote “shower” and it brings me up all my documents ( photos and written ) with the word “shower” in them

Evernote syncs between as many Macs, iPhones or PC’s you have it on so no matter where you upload your document from it’ll find it’s way to your phone when you search its amazing. While I’m out looking for idea’s Dawn is constantly adding stuff that i can see on the fly.

The Cost?
As with everything else we are going to try and bring you it’s fantastic value at the starting cost of FREE ! Yep FREE, now for that you get 50Mb a month upload however like us you can end up paying $45 for a year and get 500Mb a month and priority OCR over the free users. We are adding so much content to our Evernote account it’s great as Dawn can do it from work and that gets synced with my iPhone and my dad is even uploading from the web.

You can grab it from the iTunes store for your phone HERE or go to Http://www.Evernote.com for desktop and other phones.

Here’s a video that’ll explain it better than i can:

To that end Dawn & I are going to be giving podcasting a go shortly to bring you bang up to date with everything that happened before we started the blog so you get to understand how and why we started this blog.

The main things that’ll be in Episode 1 will be how we found this house (our 2nd choice) and the explanation of the somewhat lengthy process of getting a mortgage from both a French and English source.

Upcoming episode to be expected are:

• Solar – is it really worth it?
• Understanding French planning regulations
• Meet the architect
• Have Wind?

So you can see we’ve got a lot of bits planned it’s just finding time to put them together while doing the day job and the renovation.

It’s going to take us a short while to put it together but we are looking for this to be a regular release to compliment the site.

Keep tuned

______________________________________________________________________
Ad Click Reminder : Help us build our house and keep this blog running.
Please click one of the relevant ads show to the right or directly below this post.