This weekend, during a trip to BestBuy, I found a solution. It’s called the D-Link DPH-50U Skype USB Phone Adapter.

With this little gadget, you can use your landline phone to make Skype calls. It’s really simple to connect. Just connect it to your computer via the USB cable provided with the adapter. Then connect your landline phone to the adapter. Finally, connect the adapter to your telephone wall socket. Before you do all that, of couse, you’ll need to install the driver that comes with the adapter.

Once you’ve completed all that, you can use Skype to call anywhere you want. And of course, all Skype calls are free in the US and Canada until the end of the year. After that, just use your regular Skypeout account.

You can also use your landline phone to call regular Skype contacts. All you do is assign a speed dial number to each of your contacts (in your Skype control panel), and when you pick up your landline phone, dial ##, then the speed dial number, then the * key. To make regular long distance calls via Skype, just dial ## 001 + area code + 7 digit phone number. If you were calling another country, instead of 001, you’d have to use the code for that country.

It’s that easy. The key, of course, is you must have your computer powered on and be logged into your Skype account.

CastingWords will take any audio file you provide and transcribe it for you at a rate of just $0.42 per minute of audio. To transcribe the 45 minute interview with Bob, I paid $18.90, and the turnaround time was about 36 hours. They provide you with three file format: html, text and RTF. I simply copied their transcript, pasted it into MS Word, then converted it to a PDF file. It’s pretty long, so I’m not posting the full transcript on this blog. If you want to read it, get the PDF file here.

As for CastingWords, I couldn’t be happier with it. You simply provide a link to the audio file, tell them how long the audio runs, then pay the fee. Very simple. Very easy. The only way it could be better is if it was free and faster, but 36 hours is pretty damn good in my book, and from what I’ve seen, their rates are below most of the transcription services out there. I’ve not yet checked the transcript thoroughly for typos, but it did pass a spell-check with flying colors. If you need some audio transcribed, definitely give it a look.

1. Reduced bandwidth costs. When you post a new podcast, the Fruitcast system picks it up from you RSS feed and creates a new file which they host on their server. So any time someone downloads a one of your podcasts through an aggregator like iTunes or iPodder, Fruitcast covers the bandwidth. If, however, folks download your podcast directly from your blog, you’re still on the hook for bandwidth.

2. Great service. James is great to work with. Each time I’ve had a question or problem, he’s been right there to address it within - at most - a few hours, and usually, immediately.

3. Revenue. As of the time of this writing, I’ve earned about $400.00 on about 8100 downloads since mid November. If my math is correct, that works out to just under 5 cents per download (my most recent downloads, however, were only bringing 2 cents per). Since most podcasters are used to having to pay to support their podcasting habit, this is obviously a plus.

4. Ease of use. Once you have your podcast set up through Fruitcast, there’s nothing else to do except keep podcasting and posting them to your blog. Fruitcast handles the rest.

Now, here are the current problems with Fruitcast in my book (I’ve covered all these with James):

1. Increased file size. When Fruitcast creates a new file from your original podcast, they increase the bit rate to 128 kbs. Although the sound quality is a bit better for the listener, it makes for a really big file. As an example, a 30 minute podcast at 64 kbs is about 15mb in size. At 128 kbs, your file size is doubled to 30mb, which makes for a longer time to download the file and more space consumed on a hard disk or mp3 player.

2. Modified ID3 Tags. ID3 tags provide information such as the title of the podcast and the podcaster’s name. They make it much easier to find stuff when you have more than a few different files on your mp3 player. When Fruitcast creates the new file, they replace the ID3 tags with just the file name. So instead of seeing this on your mp3 player: “SavvySoloCAST #28 - MicroISV: From Vision to Reality With Bob Walsh,” you see “ssc-ep28.”

3. File Clipping. This is the biggest problem I’ve experienced so far with Fruitcast. My last two podcasts have been cut short by the Fruitcast system, and I’ve had to repost them. As an example, the podcast I posted last night runs about 44 minutes, but when I downloaded it through iTunes this morning, it was cut off at about 10 minutes. Likewise, when I downloaded it through iPodder, it was cut off at about 28 minutes. I’m not sure why that’s happening, but it’s just too much of an inconvenience to my listeners no matter how much revenue it generates.

4. Stats tracking could be better. The fruitcast stats system provides:

• total downloads per podcast
• total ad runs per podcast and per month
• total revenue per podcast and per month
• top ten cities in which your listeners reside

That’s not bad, but I’d like to see something more extensive in a stats package. One crucial missing element is the downloads per month. I can tell you how many total downloads I’ve had since starting to use Fruitcast, but I can’t tell how many total donloads I had in December alone.

5. Limited number of advertisers. Since I began using Fruitcast in mid November, I’ve had about 20,000 podcast downloads. However, only 8100 of them have had ads inserted, which can only mean there are not enough advertisers to use up all the inventory. This, of course, has less to do with Fruitcast and more to do with the young age of podcast advertising, but it’s something to take into account if you’re considering using Fruitcast.

Going forward, podcast advertising is going to happen one way or another. And although there are several benefits to using Fruitcast, you have to weigh them against the possibility that you may alienate your listeners due to the current problems with the Fruitcast system. From my dealings with James, I suspect he’ll eventually get these problems ironed out, but until then, Fruitcast is off the table as an option for me and my listeners.

Here’s what I really loved about it:

• You can compare and find the best prices for health insurance
  - all you do is enter some basic information, and they provide a list of the leading health insurance providers for your needs. You can also compare the specific policies against each other in language that’s easy to understand.

• I trust them - although I didn’t research it too thoroughly, they’re apparently the largest health insurance broker in the U.S.

• They give plenty of choices - it’s not like they give you just 2 or 3 options. When I did it, they gave me about 2 dozen options, and then you can pick several from that list that you’d like to compare in more detail.

• No commitment to search and compare - most of the online services I looked at wanted some personal information before they’d let you have any information. All they ask for on this site is your zip code, date of birth and whether you’ve used tobacco or not. No health questions and no insurance agent asking you what diseases you may have had in the last 5 years.

• You can apply right then and there if you want.
  - I’m into immediate gratification, so that one is near and dear to my heart.

• Best of all, it’s free - the search and comparison is free. If you do buy insurance through them, obviously you’ll have to pay for that, but they receive a commission from the health insurance company. Not you.

And it’s not only health insurance they offer. Here’s a run-down of the full line that’s available through them:

• Individual and Family Health Insurance Plans
• Small Business/Group Health Insurance Plans
• Short-Term Health Insurance Plans
• Student Health Insurance Plans
• Dental Insurance Plans
• Health Savings Accounts

I was hoping they offered life insurance too, but I guess you can’t have everything. All-in-all, it’s really an invaluable service for the self-sufficient, savvy solopreneur. Add eHealthInsurance to your list of bookmarks.

A little background on PDF converters for the uninitiated …

PDF stands for Portable Document Format. It’s pretty much become a standard in the micro-publishing world. Most ebooks are in PDF format, as well as many other documents. The reason it’s so popular is because the only thing you need to read PDF documents is Adobe’s Acrobat Reader, and most computer systems have it pre-installed when you buy the system.

So, if you’re a solopreneur who’s publishing any kind of documents (and I hope you are), you need to have a good PDF converter. You could buy the latest version of Adobe Acrobat, but it sells for about $270.00 on amazon. You could also go with one of the many free converters available (search Google). The problem with every one I tried, however, is they don’t convert embedded hyperlinks. In other words if you want to link some text, for example “this is my website,” the free converters I tried don’t carry the link over into the PDF documents. No big deal if you don’t have any links in your document, but that’s rare nowadays. In my Podcasting manual, I probably have a few dozen links, and I want my readers to be able to click on those links.

You could also use the free open source office suite called Open Office. This is a collection of programs almost identical to the Microsoft Office Suite. The word processor program in Open Office has a built-in PDF converter that does convert all hyperlinks. The drawback to this program is it’s a huge program that eats up quite a bit of disk space and memory. Again, no big deal if you don’t mind that, but there’s a more efficient solution, although not free.

As I said above, my final choice for a PDF converter is deskPDF Professional (aff link). Here’s how it works. I create my document in Microsoft Word and include any links I want to include. Then I select the print command in Word. When the print screen pops up I simply choose deskPDF as my printer (click image to right), because it’s known as a printer driver. It doesn’t actually print the page. It simply converts it to a PDF file while maintaining any and all embedded hyperlinks. Nice and easy.

The only flaw I was able to find with the program is this. If you create your original document in landscape format (11″ wide x 8.5″ tall), it doesn’t convert the links properly. It converts perfectly for the standard portrait format (8.5″wide x 11″ tall) though. The company’s representative, Brent Gaynor, informed me they’d correct the landscape problem in the next release of the program. In the meantime, it’s still the best little PDF converter I’ve been able to find, and at $29.95, it’s a bargain compared to Adobe Acrobat.