Froosh. Stuff.

I take exception to the mis-use of the term Podcast in the recent [redacted] issues.

If only you would actually follow up the link to Google you provide and use it to define Podcast, you would find this: “Podcasting, …, is a method of publishing files to the Internet, allowing users to subscribe to a feed and receive new files automatically by subscription, …”

And from Wikipedia: “Podcasting is an automatic mechanism by which multimedia computer files are transferred from a server to a client, which pulls down XML files containing the Internet addresses of the media files.”

What you have is not a podcast, it is a manual download of an audio file. I would gladly add an RSS feed to my podcatcher and listen regularly as new shows are automatically downloaded – like a real podcast. I will not regularly be registering all my details on a page before manually downloading the audio and manually causing it to be synchronised to my MP3 player. I’ve done it once and will not be doing it again, no matter how compelling the content.

Are you a fan of Jonathan Coulton? You should be.

Anyway, the esteemable (is that even a word?) Chris Miller of Unquiet Desperation has an interview with Jonathan, discussing his history, motivations, plans and how he managed to get the millionaire girlfriend and a wife. That last part isn’t really true though.

Now the bad news: Chocolate is cold comfort

A review of scientific studies has found that chocolate, long used as an emotional pick-me-up, more often prolongs a bad mood rather than helps it.

So what am I really saying here? Listen to Jonathan Coulton’s songs, and give him the money you would have spent on Chocolate!

I have been listening to podcasts for a while now and one of the very first podcasts I started listening to was Mur Lafferty’s Geek Fu Action Grip. I’m hooked and can’t get enough Mur goodness

1. Geek Fu Action Grip
2. I Should Be Writing (Very relevant to anyone writing anything, not just fiction. e.g. Software Developement)
3. Lessons From A Geek Fu Master
4. Voices: New Media Fiction

And of course, Mur appears as a feature on The Dragon Page every so often.

Mur: Thanks, and keep it up!

Apparently I didn’t shut up about pod-catching…

Tejas, I’ve dumped all my podcast feeds into a Podcast category list in my sidebar.

For general IT related feeds, IT Conversations has to be my favourite, with the Chris Pirillo Show in a close second. These are usually not podcasts in the ‘traditional’ sense - they’re more often recordings of various IT forums and conferences and offer the chance to hear some amazing speakers that I would never normally have a chance to hear.

One thing I’ve just noticed is that Wordpress‘ support for OPML is a bit skinny … Importing links from OPML required a bit of massaging afterwards, and I can’t seem to find a way to publish my link categories as an OPML feed (or even export them to an OPML file to manually upload). Might have to work on that when I have some spare time. (ha!)

It was an interesting night. I enjoyed it, and most others appeared to as well - I’ll be waiting for the next one.

For better or worse, there are photos (Thanks, Matt! You make us all look great! :grin:).

Oh. My. God.
OMG

Podcasts. I’ve been technically aware of them since they started mid last year, and impressed by the seemingly obvious extension of RSS and the subscription/syndication distribution model. Of course I say seemingly obvious, because everything is obvious in hindsight. Like the cat-flap.

I won’t innundate you with links on podcasting other than these two:
* iPodder application to automate the download of casts and insertion into your media player.
* iPodder web directory of a gazillion casts on just about any topic you like.

Since grabbing iPodder late on Friday night, I have subscribed to 18 feeds, listened to over 6 hours of various casts and have a few more to go…

I am actually surprised by the quality and quantity of Australian content out there already. In particular, I’m very happy to see the ABC getting into it. They offer three main areas at present (Radio National, dig Studio Sessions, triplej), and I can only hope they offer more soon.

I have been undecided on the merits of an MP3 player but I believe I have found my killer app for one. The lure of listening to just music was not enough for me. Listening to music I choose, quality podcasts from established broadcasters/radio journalists/etc, crappy (but improving) podcasts from complete nobodys, all the other casts that fit in between, and regular FM radio - that makes it worthwhile. Given that I spend anywhere from 1 - 4 hours a day commuting on public transport, this is something I can really see myself using now.

And no, I’m not going to do a podcast As revealed by my total invisibility in the blogosphere, I just don’t have enough interesting things to say.

Update: Apple has released iTunes 4.9 with integrated Podcast support. It’s not too bad, but I find iPodder’s integration to be more functional and usable (e.g. An iTunes podcast does not appear in your library and cannot be filtered with “smart” playlists. My favourite playlist so far is a very quick custom one - “Genre = Podcast && Play Count = 0″, better known as unplayed podcasts.) And if you’ve got no reason to actually use iTunes, iPodder integrates just fine with Windows Media Player. And iPodder can import/export/sync your subscription lists. And it’s free, open-source goodness.

Another Update: Oh, and when using iTunes podcasts you can’t burn them to a CD for non-iPod listening. Which of course you CAN do with iPodder