Jeffry Houser's Blog - TheFlexShow

Support The Flex Show in 2010

info@theflexshow.com (Jeffry Houser and John Wilker) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:06:00 -0400

Every once in a while on the Flextras Friday Lunch the conversation turns to business related topics. I talk about the difference between infinite digital goods and scarce goods. Digital goods can be easily copied and distributed. Scarce goods, such as services, are not easily replicated. The record industry has been hit hard by this market switch. It is easy to find the music of many bands for free out there on the Internet and this is eroding the business of selling music. Movies appear to be following the same path and I suspect software isn't too far behind. When the "cash cow" goes away, how do you make a salary?

Content Creators in the Digital Economy

One method for making a living is to find people who find value in their work, then give them a way and reason to support them. Many musicians have started giving away mp3s in order to sell other scarce goods. One such scarce good is the ability to create more music; many musical acts have connected with fans to fund the production of their next album. We've decided to try this approach with The Flex Show.

Support us, we'll give you stuff

About a week ago we launched a pledge drive, so our listeners can support The Flex Show in 2010. For as little as $5 we'll send you some stickers and thank you on the web site. For a bit more, we'll thank you in an episode. We didn't stop there.

You can control aspects of the show. Do you want to replace our theme song? Would you like more screencasts? Do you want to join us for a recording and approve the final edit? Or perhaps you'd like to see us go weekly in 2010? All these things are possible. We even have a few fun options in there, such as getting together for lunch, or hanging out at the next 360|Flex conference.

Have you been listening to The Flex Show? We have over 110 episodes now.
Do you know of a better, free, educational resource out there for Flex Developers?
Would you like to see us keep going?

Then choose your option and show us you care. Thank you for the support.

Genuis or Hack?

info@theflexshow.com (Jeffry Houser and John Wilker) — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 12:31:00 -0400

I mentioned on The Flex Show podcast (episode 2) that I had 20 minutes of me doodling on the yet unheard theme for The Flex Show Podcast. I'm listening to the mixdown right now. Either I'm a musical genius or a complete hack. I can't figure it out. There are moments of brilliance surrounded by utter rubbish. Perhaps the difference between genius and hack is being able to tell the difference. Even Eddie Van Halen (or Slash, or whomever you prefer) has bad days. The joy of being talented is that his bad days are better than my good days. After my initial doodling and having a few people listen, I went ahead and re-recorded the guitar part. I have Lori coming in on Saturday to do vocals. Maybe I should have Tim come in to do some male vocal-isms. Ryan liked it as is. At times like this, I remember the many hours I spent recording and re-recording the guitar parts for Simple Melody in the living room of the condo. The take we eventually kept was done at about 3 in the morning during a bit of insomnia. My roommates didn't complain, but in retrospect that was not the best time to be playing guitar. I was very particular about guitar sound when recording Far Cry Fly's first album. I loosened up when we finally upgraded our equipment and I could move from two guitar tracks to 6+. We've been unable to make any traction on the call-in portion of our show, so the lyrics I wrote don't apply so much anymore. I re-worked them three times. But, Skype us anyway. Please!

The Flex Show Episodes 2 and 3

info@theflexshow.com (Jeffry Houser and John Wilker) — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 23:59:00 -0400

I just posted Episode 3 of the Flex Show. This is the second half of our interview with Simeon Bateman. The first half is here. We want to thank everyone for the support they've given us thus far. We really appreciate it. Let us know what topics you want to hear us talk about, if you want to be interviewed, want to hear someone interviewed, or just give us feedback on the show info _at_ theflexshow [dot] com

The Flex Show on iTunes and a training giveaway

info@theflexshow.com (Jeffry Houser and John Wilker) — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:25:00 -0400

Thanks to Sean Corfield, The Flex Show can now be found in iTunes. Additionally, Total Training has donated a copy of their Flex 2 training video to giveaway on the podcast. More details over here. To enter into the contest, just e-mail ( Or Skype ) us to tell us what you want topics you want covered, who you want interviewed, or what you want to hear from the Flex Show.

The Flex Show Flex Podcast

info@theflexshow.com (Jeffry Houser and John Wilker) — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 18:13:00 -0400

Ryan said it better than I. We started a Flex Podcast named The Flex Show. The first episode is available now.