Dabbling in Linux Live CDs

I've been trying some out on my old laptop, sling in the CD and run Linux off it. So far I am liking
Kate OS

a lightweight fast distro, looks nice and runs fast. With XFCE desktop environment. The snappiest of the CDs I've tried.

Wolvix

is also feature packed and looks good (choose between window managers XFCE and Fluxbox, which are my current faves (appearance and design-wise)). Though they are both based on Slackware and not sure I'm ready for escaping the ease of Ubuntu yet. It comes with multimedia apps like MPlayer, Kino and Audacity and Internet apps like WiFi Radar and XChat. It comes in two variations Cub, which is a small edition designed to fit on a flash drive (256 MB) and Hunter, the one I tested, the HD version.

I've briefly (very briefly) tried FreeSbie which i s a FreeBSD distro, which took ages to load, but looks very deep. It features xffm, a window manager I had not come across before with many features, but looks complex. I'll be checking FreeSbie out in more depth later.

I still have more CD flavours to taste.

RAW Developer

I hooked up my camera today and realised that OS X (10.4.11) can now read those Olympus Evolt E510 RAW files, which it previously could not. This means that iPhoto can read them too, but this isn't so great for me as I don't use iPhoto. Alas Photoshop CS still no open, and Olympus haven't released a plug in, and I guess won't. So there are alternatives for RAW work. I could try Aperture or Lightroom, or upgrade to CS3, but I doubt I'll do any of those things. There is a program called RAW Developer which costs about £65 and lets you do all kinds of wonderful to all kinds of RAW images. I like, but am felling cheap and have not bought it yet. You can alter the white balance, RGB and LAB curves both on the same image, adjust highlights, shadows, saturation, sharpness, it's all great, but I feel I can't stretch to it quite yet, though am more likely to buy RAW Developer than Aperture (need faster puter) or Lightroom/Photoshop CS3 (That damned product activation seriously puts me off).


You can try out the prog in a demo mode where your photos are exported with some text printed on them (and are probably digitally watermarked or summink too).

Videocasts I Am Watching

All these are Internet/Web/ModernLife videocasts.
EpicFu, formerly known Jetset is fast snappy and full of creativeness, art, music, fandom, featuring news and stuff of YouTube, work sent in by viewers, and general coolness from da Interwebs. Lovely communityness.


They have this Fu of the week (is it weekly, I'm not quite sure) which features people doing things (distributing music, making clothes, whatever) in new creative ways or in ways that are more in keeping with the ethos of the web, DIY and word of mouth and all that goodness. It's hosted by the wonderful Zadi Diaz.

Mobuzz is a more newsy cast the blue/green screen backdrop feature the RSS, Drupal and podacst icons. This short daily cast from Spain is more about this world of the Internet and mobile communications, social newtorking and modern life. And being produced in Spain often reports on things that you might not hear about from the US centred casts. The host Olivia is entertaining and there's always something on the cast to keep one interested.

Textra, has been going for a while but I only recently found out about it, now I hear that the host Natali Del Conte is leaving soon and the videocast probably will be no more. Another person moving to CNET. This is cast is again newy, the host standing behind a desk with a monitor in the background, giving you daily tales from the Web. Natali has this rather jarring transition between news anchor stylee to giving you her own opinion which I quite like. It's like one moment news reader mode, then wham she changes attitude. She covers many web apps and new tech things. Like everyone recently she covered the Kindle.

Geekbrief, of course. Gadget lovin' Cali Lewis show us her new tech and the tech she drools over, along with news from the Webs, much giggling, gadget fun and teh GoDaddy pimping.

All videocasts hosted by women who hoo. There seem to be way more women in videocasting than in audio podcasting. I have heard people saying things like female presenters are "easy on the eye". Hopefully people will realise that the hosts/writers/producres/creators aren't just talking head eye candy. Though perhaps not cos, after all they're only girrrlzzz.

The Bugle

I've been listening to Sherlock Holmes on BBC 7 recently, it suits the chill autumn air.

Also I just have to say I'm really enjoying the Bugle, the Times relatively new podcast featuring comedic geniuses John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman. John Oliver reports from the U.S. where I think he is working on John Stewart's The Daily show. Zaltzman is in London. Giving you the news with all the wry observation that you'd expect from them, interacting with people's e-mails, waiting for the American, for their "Ask an American" feature to finally be free (after illness, moving house and being away from Thanksgiving). It's all very good. Good good.

And unexpected, such lefty leaning sentiments from the Times?

Another Site Bites the Dust?

No, No, not Demonoid!

Internet

I still love the Internet. I still marvel at it brilliance. I'm still in awe at how it has affected my life. Remembering Before Internet, the world seemed so much harder, things were difficult to find out, you needed sets of encyclopedia, huge books of "stuff you oughta know" things like that.

Oh, the amount I've managed to teach myself on the web and how easy it is to get hold of stuff that I never could have got my beak on Before Internet.

If you wanted to read French newspapers, or listen to Spanish radio you had to do a lot more than do a few searches.

Amazing new ways to perceive and interact with the world, yourself, your friends.

I'm still in love and in awe.

On Podcast Overload

I've been listening to and watching podcasts. I am being overwhelmed by podcasts. The iTunes podcast list is dizzying and is actually quite upsetting. There's so much stuff I have yet to listen to that I don't want to delete, but I don't want to immediately listen either. It's the podcast equivalent of bacn. There's about 220 feeds in iTunes right now. Some casts I want to mention here but the thought fills me with exhaustion. I've been checking out some ABC podcasts (Australian Broadcasting Corp.) and CBC podcasts, also the BBC is podcasting a few more programmes like the excellent Thinking Allowed (sociology, culture etc.) and their travel programme Excess Baggage. Find BBC podcasts info here.

There are many food and cooking casts out there, many of them video podcasts. Reading recipes is a lot more daunting than watching food being prepared and cooked - "They make it look so easy" 'n' all that. Also lots of tech/gadget video podcasts and how tos.

Too many gigabytes taken up with these things. I'm beginning to fear them.

Some Podcasts I Have Sampled - Eight

Munchcast - one of the newer TWIT podcast devoted to junk food (or as they call it "geek food"). Very interesting, my favourite episodes so far are the ones on ice cream (Ice Cream, You Scream!) and the episode at Powell's Sweet Shoppe. They go into all variations on the foods they discuss and revel in the sugary fattiness of the foods the cover. It's an somewhat ambivalent revelling though, proud to eat junk but with an apologetic air. The Powell's Sweet Shoppe visit was preceded by Cammy Blackstone (the host along with Leo Laporte) telling us that she was eating a beet salad before she went on her sugar trip. The shop sounds like some kind of candy wonderland. I'm liking listening.

New York Times Video: Style | Dining & Wine is a Videocast usually featuring the New York Times columnist Mark Bittman who likes simple food. In one episode he says that he keeps telling people don't cook food, just eat it. But obviously there is cooking involved in these casts, but it's not elaborate, so I likey. Some of the outdoor cooking is done on a kind of terrace in front of a luscious green park/cemetery. Mark has a fairly deadpan humourous delivery which I appreciate. The link to the site I above seems only to work in some of my browsers, I'm not sure why, you can look for the cast on iTunes. The page on the website offers more videos than the RSS feed I'm subscribed to.


Frequencycast is a podcast on things digital media in the UK. They discuss things like Freeview, Sky Plus, BT Home Hub, DAB and things of that sort, though they are starting to diversify into other areas of tech. I'm not keen on the in-podcast banter the hosts do, but it's worth listening as it's a fountain of valuable information. New or changed digital TV channels? Find out here, I only wish the podcast was more frequent as the show is very interesting if you're into UK digital media.

Lumix DMCFZ5

Lumix DMCFZ5
Originally uploaded by KCanard.

Here is a photo, an example of my new camera, from Flickr. Photo is of my old camera, the Lumix.

Added del.icio.us cloud

At the bottom of the blog page there. Oh, I bought that Olympus camera I wrote about before, am very pleased with it. How does a duck use a camera? aaah-haa this is a secret.

I'm Trying out Flock

Flock the social Web, Firefox based browser again, so far so nice. I am posting this from Flock. It has integrated Photo, Video, blog type things. I'm seeing what it can do. I like the media stream that can display photos, videos etc. in a row along the top of the browser.

Olympus E-510

I'm getting quite excited about the Olympus E-510, after reading some reviews I'm considering buying it.




It is fairly small for an SLR, it's got a moderately usefully "Live view" that allows you to use the LCD screen as a viewfider if you want. There's a lens kit with two good lenses (so I've read).
a 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 ED Zuiko Digital Lens
and a 40-150mm f3.4-4.5 ED Zuiko Digital Lens
it also has dust removal thing and image stabilisation. The vibes are telling me to go for the Olympus E-510 rather than the Canon Digital Rebel XTi (or whatever name they're giving it in the UK) or the Nikon D40 or 80.

So I'm reading all about it like here and here and here. And deciding.

The 4400 Season 4 Episode 6 and Jesus Christ

Interesting that two series I'm currently watching (see previous post) deal with Christ like figures. Jordan Collier and John from Cincinnati, Both J.C. hmmmmm?

I said I was getting a bit bored by the 4400, but this latest episode has good things again. The reasons why I liked it are returning.

Will the series continue in this lovely uncertain way where you can be sure of nothing, where people can't even be sure who they are?

See, A film maker of hammy B-movie type flicks seems to have the ability to reveal all the worlds conspiracies, except he mysteriously gets snapped up by Hollywood and then recants all his earlier film making as made up fantasy.
A cabal of influential people including the Pope, this series' version of Bill Gates and perhaps one of our protagonists Tom the NTAC agent, are perhaps inhabited by forces from the future. The inhabitors leave behind a mark behind the ear, a result of surgical procedures.

So many questions. Is the head of NTAC one of the cabal set to "destroy" the 4400? How will Jordan bring paradise to Earth? Will Tom (as prophesied) end up taking promicin to counteract his having been interfered with? Who are these forces that took the 4400 in the first place? And who are those who have sent back this cabal to stop them, and what are they so afraid of? Is Jordan and starting to look like the good guy, is there coming a definite black and white in a show where everything was once grey?

It's all feeling very X-Filesian.

Though I still find the pace of the show too fast for its story, I am enjoying it again. Well, this episode at least.

Cog 0.06 and John From Cincinnati

New Cog has a shiny new user interface, Last.fm scrobbling support, gapless playback, a new drawer from which to browse a folder (configurable), configurable shortcuts that work when you don't even have Cog in focus and Front row remote controller support. And there are other things too. It's just fantastic. I have wanted something like this. a lightweight player for a few tracks, as an alternative for times when you don't want to use the behemoth that iTunes has become (it's taking up like 100+ MB of my RAM now).

As an aside, have been watching and enjoying John from Cincinnati. A New HBO series featuring a surfing community and superstar surfer family, an intriguing stranger who seems to be able to give other people abilities (e.g. healing, levitation), humour, a cast a ponderous characters, a very definite sense of place a feeling that something is happening - is building. I am interested.

Review here from LA weekly.

Miro Video Player

I have been using the new incarnation of Democracy Player, Miro. I've been watching French video, among other things like GeekBrief TV, there is a lot of French stuff on DailyMotion. I never really got into Democracy player, but I'm getting on better with Miro. Don't know why. It now also does audio podcasts feeds (dunno if it did before) as well as video ones, and it also does bittorrent, but I haven't tried that out yet.

I like it.

Wot I been up to while away.

So I've been away for some time now, over a month. Haven't been feeling well. But am somewhat better now. Have been listening to many podcasts, Perhaps I might write about them. New ones I have found, that I like are KCRW's Good Food, been listening again to StarshipSofa (Sci-Fi authors/fandom podcast/fanzine type thing.), Mark Kermode's Film Reviews (I remember Kermode from those old Mark Radcliffe Graveyard Shift Radio 1 days), and of course all the usual (including of course Buzz Out Loud and the TWIT casts).

Too many brackets, alas. Anyway been listening to a lot of Angelo Badalamenti (especially soundtracks to Mulholland Drive, Twin Peaks and Lost Highway), hrm, been watching Twin Peaks too, erm Still reading Bonjour Tristesse in translation (with help).

I'm somewhat disappointed with the new series of The 4400, but I am still watching. It all seems to be about some impending Armageddon/police state/rapture and I'm not so big on these impeding doom/exaltation type things, and it's lost that subtlety that I thought it used to have (now it seems to scream drama loudly all the time - "promicin is is the road to heaven or perdition?") ; but anyway it's holding my attention enough to keep watching.

Still on Hiatus

Foxgloves
Originally uploaded by KCanard.

Here's one of my desktop images.

Foxgloves

Not Dead, (je ne suis pas morte)

Only sleeping.
Anyway, here is my latest Flickr offering to tide over...



I will be back soon. I'm having a rest and watching stuff on TV links, I've started watching Chris Carter's Millenium, and have only just finished a stint of Medium, the 4400, Monk and The Twilight Zone. I'm also revivng my french learninig and trying to read "Bonjour Tristesse" by Françoise Sagan, even though my French isn't that good, but I am getting there, and I have the book in English translation too for when I get confused.
Also listening to french streaming radio online like those found at Radio France (also podcasts!) and RSR (radio Suisse Romade, a (French) Swiss network) also watching videos of TV shows at tsr.tv (another Swiss thing). Arte radio is an interesting mélange of bits and pieces all under creative commons no less. Yes as if by magic one day command of the French language will be mine. Perhaps.

TV on the Internet

A good link - TV links.
I've been not surfing these past few days and instead have been watching TV shows online with the help of this aggregator. Some of the episodes are disappearing fast, especially the ones on the Daily Motion servers. The stuff on Veoh seems to be working OK so far for me.

Sliders is something I've been watching and is more enjoyable than I remember it. The tenets of the Sliders gang (in its various permutations) seem to be that Friendship and "being there" for your mates is the most important thing in life, as well as the oft repeated "there's more to life than happiness and contentment" idea. And it is interesting how often Wade (one of the characters from the first few series) needs rescuing. Also there are more non-white characters in Sliders than in any TV series (US) that I've seen before; characters who are black or chinese not because their race is part of the plot, their race is incidental, it's refreshing. (In the episode in which America is ruled by monarchy, the king and queen of The USA are Black.)

A Little Interest in YouTube

So now my Animal Crossing fixation is waning and I am on to other things. I've never really got into YouTube, but recently I have begun spending time watching more than the one off clip. Today I watched some Prodigy videos (live stuff and music videos) and then watched some Courtney Love stuff, and from there on to some general stuff people have been putting up. It's interesting to see some of the old Prodigy stuff (like Out of Space), how they have evolved, video speaking, and in their mode of dress, nice to see dancing Keith Flint with long hair.

Suspense!

I've been listening to this Old Time radio show called Suspense (the first lot of them on archive.org), recently. Suspense (brought to you by Roma wines that's R - O - M - A, Roma wines) sometimes cheesey, sometimes inadvertently funny, but sometimes rather good (I like the episode Cabin B13). There are hundreds of episodes on archive.org, and at the moment this is most of what I listen to. I also watched a crappy (but watchable) stream of The Man Who Knew Too Much on the same site. I'm having a 30s/40s bonanza. It will probably end soon. I have little stamina for prolonged immersion.

wiki details on Suspense here.

Some Podcasts I Have Sampled - Seven

Podcast update
Been listening to old US radio drama, they refer to it as it Old time radio (OTR) podcasts. Find some here Radio Detective Story Hour or radio stations Radio Nostalgia Network. There's a ton of stations out there, streams and stuff just google Old time radio and browse away. I find it helps me get to sleep, when the stories aren't too offensive, but usually it's historically and culturally interesting, and of course some of the stories aren't half bad. I like the detective stuff best though.

I'm also listening to MondoMovie and Cinemaslave podcasts, which is strange as I am not a big film fan, but both these podcasts recently discussed David Lynch, which was incentive for me to listen. Not much to say about these podcasts, as I said I'm not much of a movie one, but these are interesting, I like to hear people talk about film who are really into it, and who aren't arrogant arses (like so many film aficionados). MondoMovie is by two British guys Cinema slave is one (US? I'm guessing) guy.

So I'm, going to check out some of the podcasts on the IT Conversations website.

Animal Crossing : Wild World

Animal Crossing : Wild World
Originally uploaded by KCanard.

My promised picture. You can't see the continuous head bobbing that all the characters do.

No Posts... Animal Crossing (and inertia)

Life has been very uneventful for me, Web speaking this past week. I have been playing much Animal Crossing Wild World.

Here are two things that go a little way to explaining the attraction of Animal crossing
on Terranova (referring to the GameCube version)
from the Guardian by Aleks Krotoski.

I love the real time aspect of it, and the sense of place (which is what those two links lead to wrtitings about) the morning, pink late afternoon sky, the seasons, the way trees take time to grow, the sending of letters. I might talk more about the reasons for its appeal when I am not so immersed in it.

Here's links to some useful Animal Crossing Wild World guides I've been using.


Both these are excellent places to find information on every aspect of Animal Crossing.

Animal Crossing Ahead This site covers the Original and the Wild World versions.
Animal Crossing DS Beginner's Tips and Tactics Guide by Freyashawk, this one is text only, but is so full of informtaion, it's overwhelming.

There's a lot of other AC sites out there, but these are the ones I keep returning to (many of the sites out there consist of almost identical information, reformatted).

Haven't taken a pic of my character yet tho.

My Occupation : Animal Crossing

I've been initiating myself into the world of Animal Crossing Wild World (wiki link or official page) over the past few days. I am coming to know its mysteries and to enjoy and be irritated by the "personalities" of the animal characters. Though I am annoyed I can't get the WiFi to work, it should work (with my iMac rebroadcasting my network connection via the Airport card) but for some reason Animal Crossing is one of the games it doesn't work on. Alas. So either I give up on that idea (wireless fun) or I get myself a wireless thingummy. Well anyway I'll post a pic in a while (of my character in my town). I've been mulling over buying this game for a few months, as I didn't even have a DS, so I bought a Nintendo DS soley in order to play this game, so far I'm not disappointed.

Dark Pigmented Mallard

Dark Pigmented Mallard
Originally uploaded by KCanard.

A New Duck makes a splash at my local pond. He had all the attention. The drakes envied his dark sleek feathers.

Some Podcasts I Have Sampled - Six

How to Succeed in Evil is a podcast I have been listening to recently. It is the fun tale of an evil advisor who is exasperated at the ineptitude of this clients - evil geniuses who are to big headed to realise their own shortcomings. It is also available in comic form here. One of the podcasts sees Edwin (the evil expert) dealing with zombie workers run amok, that episode features music by Jonathan Coulton.

I've listened to a few episodes of Typeradio which is supposed to be all about typography, but it's not so heavy on the typography. There are interviews with font creators (where the question "how many illegal fonts have you got?" is asked, among others) and such - have to do some more listening but it sounds (after hearing three 'casts) interesting.

Not categorically a podcast (ah, my mistake yes it is! Here is the RSS feed link) but there is audio from South By Southwest Interactive presentations and discussions (more files being added as they get around to it). There's one called Web Typography Sucks which I have heard about and have yet to listen to - It was just put up today.
Also there is audio and video from the Free Software and Open Source Symposium (talks on open sourceness, linux, wikis collaboration etc.).

Links for 13th March 2007

The Tumbleist is a list of some tumblelogs (brief, immediate, mixed media post blog (ooh - post-blog?)) around on the web. Snippets from a life is the main way they are being used. What is so exciting about the net is that things don't stay uniform for long.

I read tell of Duck stand up on bash.org.

Firefox 3.0 news - ComputerWorld says -
"Firefox 3.0 will also have a small, embedded database -- SQL Lite -- that will eventually be used for full-text indexing of the browser's "history." ".
Useful - but will it slow the browser down? Hope not, sound's interesting.

Shiira Browser - Fast and Pretty

Shiira Browser 2.0b2 for OS X
Originally uploaded by KCanard.

Shiira 1.2.2 (Panther or later) is the stable build, but 2.0b2 (in the pic) is - in my reckoning - faster still, but alas buggy still. Nevertheless I am using this at present. I had tried Shiira before, but wasn't as blown away by it - don't know if it was more a change in the app or a change in me that makes me feel WOW. I can't wait to see the stable release of 2.0.

-
This is my first post from Flickr. I like this Flickr blog feature.

Links for 6th March 2007

Open Culture: The Podcast Portal has links to some good podcasts organised by topic (e.g. Arts+Culture, Technology) including good things like TWiT, Buzz Out Loud but also less well known shows are here.

Meomi is a lovely site full of pastel cute "critters" and such. They have some desktop images (link to one of my favourites) and icons, and a few game type things and they sell magnets and badges and cards, which are quite tempting.

Video from the past at Videojug
Video clips from the 30s onwards including things like Nixon in the USSR and model homes with built in fall out shelters and Farmer plays tune with hands from 1933 - (see, people were so much more sophisticated back then, how far we have fallen). There's lots of news items and the like.


Navigate the OS X Menu (File, Edit etc and the small apple) by Keyboard. - a Tip from Apple.

Some Podcasts I Have Sampled - Five

TED talks audio and video feed - Often compelling and sometimes inspiring lectures from the TED (Technology Entertainment Design) event TED ("is an event like no other. It brings together more than 1000 thought-leaders, movers and shakers... in Monterey, California every year... for four days of learning laughter and inspiration.")
A couple of the lectures that excited me were Cameron Sinclair (founder of Architecture for Humanity talking about Open Source Design and Architecture - and the DIY ethic) and Nicholas Negroponte (on One Laptop Per Child and how it will be done - and what it means for education). Other interesting casts were David Pogue and Arctic explorer Ben Saunders. I've got to listen to and watch more of this stuff. The site says "For best effect, plan to listen to at least three, start to finish. They have a cumulative effect." I agree - that's what I have just done. I am excited.

The Show with Ze Frank - is what I've been watching a lot of recently. (There's over a year to catch up on to) (And then a few days later I saw his thang mentioned on the 3rd episode of Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe BBCPage WikiPage (series 2)).
Watching Ze Frank is compulsive watching, it has echoes of Armando Iannucci's stuff... I'm trying to find a way to describe it (if you haven't watched it already)- a face to camera talking about "the knowledge", reading something from the comments, provoking viewer interaction rearranging his perceptual architecture...

And then there's TWIT. Which is all good. MacBreak Weekly, and TWIT are my favourite, due to the informal, looser and "rathole"-y nature of the show (they refer to their veering off topic moments as ratholes) and their reliable characters - Leo Laporte and his voices and accents, Merlin Mann and his joshing, John C. Dvorak the grumpy old man etc. net@nite is interesting cos it's has live listener interaction (people phone in) and I like the back and forth between Amber MacArthur and Leo Laporte.

I'm thinking of creating a deli.cio.us tag - podcasts I like - or something - can I be arsed? After listening to those TED talks with all those go ahead and do stuff people I feel incredibly lazy. But my reasoning is - I am a duck, ducks laze and doze a lot, I'm the only duck I know that can understand human language. But that's a very specious argument.

Some Podcasts I Have Sampled - Four

Sounds Good podcast "The podcast that makes you sound better"- Audio engineering and how to get sounding good podcast. It's an enhanced iTunes podcast. The images (of enhancement) explain how to achieve certain effects, there's advice, tips and tricks with visuals that make tricky things easier to understand. The host Hens Zimmerman has an intriguing (is it Belgian?) accent. Clearly he's an audio professional, very authoritative and the advice is detailed and fairly easy to follow if you take it bit by bit. He seems to be working on a Mac - this is an exciting podcast that I have to listen to more of. Lots of listener interaction too - which is fab.

Indiefeed - I discovered Mixel Pixel's Coming up Xs on this podcast. The site allows you to chose from different genres like Hip Hop or Blues or Electronica. Each little podcast contains a song and some information about the artist. The website has a page with flash players where you can listen to streams of various genres. Have to make more use of this too. - Oh there is also some spoken word on the site too - I have yet to check that out. The posts on each genre page have the feed link, some of the posts don't seem to - if you scroll down far enough you'll find the feed link somewhere.


So few Mac apps with the podcast download and play ability - or even better preview a podcast. I was trying out Juice but I found I don't give it much of a go, I have a knee jerk dislike of Java apps. I'd also had enough of Playpod which was buggy. So I'm now trying out new podcast feeds in Vienna to see if i like them - If I do I import them into iTunes. I don't like that iTunes doesn't allow you to copy the feed URL from within the app - but if you drag the podcast feed to the desktop it will create a .pcast file which you can then open in a text editor and copy the feed URL. Or I could open the exported OPML file, but my list is so huge it's faster to do the drag and open thing.

Songbird Web Audio Player/Browser

Songbird is this media player/web browser thing. Windows, Mac, Linux.
Click for Gallery + Features. I've been playing around with for a couple of days. I'm trying to figure out what is is and can do. it seems to be a Firefox based browser with an iTunes type audio player integrated to allow it to play media on the web. It plays many different file types - and is extensionable (like Firefox). You can listen to web radio and streams. It's got built in Audioscrobbler, but I can't seem to get that to work properly.

So - if you go to a net label site (like this one) you can go to an artist or releases page and play and browse all playable media on that page as if you were in iTunes.


p.s.The Finder seems to be telling me that the app is 113 MB - what!?


It's a great idea, and the app looks interesting but it's only in 0.2.1 so is still awkward. I find it works best just using it for web playback and not importing my iTunes playlists + Library. I have downloaded one of the nightlies (0.2.5) and this works a load better than the release I used before.
Yeah -it's buggy but still promising.

Anyway - so still I am confused, but this is a interesting app. It's nice to visit a feed burner type podcast feed and preview the podcasts in the browser.

Right so - I'm still messing at the mo. Will tell more if I learn some astounding thing.

--

On a podcast note been listening to loooaads of TWIT podcasts. Really like net@nite and MacBreak Weekly, but others are good too. And you get some Merlin Mann in MacBreak - Mr Jocularity - always worth a listen.

Links for 18th February 2007

So a few links.

Charlie Brooker on the UK "I'm a Mac - I'm a PC" ads and the concept of personifying machines - stereotyping the people who use them. (He claims he hates macs - and as you can expect gets many replies)

Armando Iannucci on the value of comedy and the necessity for it when the "serious media" refuse to address important issues, saying that comedy is important and it does matter and it has a unique place in society.

Fine Water - Bottled Waters of the World. An epicurean view of bottled water - reviews of water from around the world (this for example is the Evian page), guides to different bottled waters and their "mouth feel" (different intesity of bubbles etc.), guides to different waters to drink with certain foods. Plus bottled water news. Yes, keep uptodate on water related newsy news.

Some Podcasts I Have Sampled - Three

The R U Sirius Show and NeoFiles - They have all the past shows up online - I've been listening to these over the past few days. R U Sirius's show covers things such as transhumanism, interviews with people such as Cory Doctorow or Jimmy Wales (Mr Wikipedia), or the author of "Mind Performance Hacks" . Lots to listen to - it's almost like a portal to discovering all kinds of stuff. The tag lines for each show are different (NeoFiles is "The hottest ideas in tech culture today", The R U Sirius Show is "Exploring weird memes and alternative cultures") but there is a lot of overlappage happening. These shows belong to the MondoGlobo network to which belongs other blogs and casts; one of these is destinyland (The happiest show on earth). I've listened to a two episodes of this so far. Oh yeah, and NeoFiles s a nice pun. Files from neophiles (is that a word? (Cocoa doesn't think so) lovers of the new)?

The Splendid Table podcast - with Lynne Rossetto Kasper is an American Public Media programme - all kinds of food related items the latest programme (that I listened to) included - Liquid nitrogen in the kitchen (great for making ice cream in seconds) - Using essential oils in cooking - a short thing on double decker sandwiches in Cincinnati - Talking with the head chef from one of NY's prestigious restaurants - And of course the essential listeners' Q and As with the host. A friend tells me she experiences "A salivation and desire for succulent things" when listening. One episode featured a phone interview with Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand on his new book on food. I assume she was talking about food. The host has a wealth of information about food at her fingertips, but doesn't come over as condescending - me likey.

Fair Game with Faith Salie - an amusing, magazine show with Faith Salie ("possibly the only Rhodes Scholar doing comedy today") as host. A recent epidsode featured an interview with Louis Theroux on his new book The Call of the Weird and on his documentaries, and about himself and his attraction to "weird". That was a welcome surprise. There are interviews with people in the news, or people with something to plug - you the kind of thing, and a musical interlude. I heard a great band called Best Fwends - short power pop/punk elecronica of the kind John Peel might have played. Click on the more button to listen to 30 second clips here at the Moshi Moshi Shop.
The programme is another one from US public radio. This time from Public Radio International.

OK this isn't very in-depth but the podcasts are out there, if you find anything here vaguely interesting have a listen for yourself, you don't need me quacking on.

There'll be more soon (that is, in my interpretation of the word soon - reading "when I can be rouse myself from lethargy")

So...

I've been listening to podcasts - some good ones. I will blog about them soon.

Some Podcasts I Have Sampled - Two

Coolness Roundup with Stephen Schleicher and Charlie White (Charlie White of Gizmodo). For tech, gadgets, things web and computer. There is a 2 minute daily - (is it daily?) show and a longer in depther show. The last podcast I heard by them (not the most recent) covered one of the hosts' refusal to use anti-virus products (seeing no need for them, he says he doesn't use them and has no virii) and his advice on how to go anti virus free "I think their (anti virus companies) applications are fraudulent" Charlie (I think it was he) says. Another feature on that show was search tips - stuff about Google and other engine searches that you may or may not know. In the glut of tech podcasts out there I still think this is worth a listen. Not heard loads about the Mac on there though.

Jason Byrne's Just Comedy (now defunct but a small archive is available) is one of the Times' podcasts. Each episode Jason interviews a comic (the ones I have heard so far have been Robin Ince, Mark Steel, Adam Hill and Jo Caulfield), beginning talking about their latest shows and progressing to talking about whatever things get on to. Funny and interesting. Jason Byrne now does a podcast called The Knowledge Podcast which is a what's on - music, films arts, entertainment etc. with other reporters on stuff. I'm not so keen on this one. I think more of Jason's comedy and charm was in the Comedy podcast. This one gives him little room to do more than read the stories. The comedy podacast would veer off in tangents unforeseen (as he remarked in the Adam Hill interview), but no chance for such interesting and amusing meanderings in this, and I'm not all that keen on what is left. But then again I'm not all that keen on entertainment news type programmes in general. Though I'll listen to a few more episodes to give a fair go - it's not execrable.


Science Weekly (Scroll down a bit on the linked page) on Guardian Unlimited hosted by Alok Jha. Yes, another Guardian podcast and yes it's interesting and fairly brief (half an hour or so) on the latest science news and just interesting science stuff. In a Guardian stylee.

All podcasting men this post. Most podcast hosts are male, or if there are women involved they are usually as some kind of sidekick (sometimes a female sidekick is there to laugh at all the hosts jokes). Though there are exceptions - Buzz out Loud Molly Wood and Veronica Belmont: Gadgettes Molly Wood and Kelly Morrison: Media Talk on Guardian Unlimited Emilyt Bell: The Chillcast with Anji Bee (Which I'll talk about another time when I've listened to a few more episodes) - there are other Podcasts but those are the first that spring to mind. It might seem from my quick list as though there are loads, but (in my reckoning anyway) men still waaaay outnumber women in the podosphere. If there is anyone out there reading (heh heh!) please instruct me to the contrary.

On silentmiaow And then Rambling on to Me

I have been noticing people noticing silentmiaow on YouTube. I first came across her blog Ballastexistenz on a link from Autism Diva (found on Mind Hacks blog). I then found silentmiaow from a link on Boing Boing. I also found a link to an MetaFilter thing on a link from submit response blog.

So some buzz. On MetaFilter especially. Some People responding to the opening post want to defend certain ways of comprehending, processing and understanding the world, valuing only certain ways and ignoring other ways. Though it is heartening to see there are many who are willing to open up to difference and that don't want to impose their limitaions upon everyone else's experience, and their right to their experiences.
Read Life's Infinite Riches (a post at ballastexistenz) to get a feel for what "other ways of being" I am talking about.

Here is a comment in reply to Life's Infinite Riches that I agree with. Or rather I read it in a way that it would agree with the things I have noticed. Namely that: the world around you and the stuff of the things around you (I mean like media, the objects around you, the things people say and the things they do) show you what you should do with your attention and, time and thoughts, tell you what is important and unimportant. If the way you are and the things that interest you are sanctioned/encouraged by society then this is fine, but if the way you are and your interests and things that you want to pursue are not sanctioned/encouraged by society then there is a whole part of yourself that, if you aren't aware, ends up atrophying. Otherwise why are we encouraged by those who make us realise that it is possible to do certain things, for a simple e.g. Edward de Bono and his concept of lateral thinking said that it's OK to spend you time doing these things and thinking in this way. I think that rather than having invented lateral thinking he made it more acceptable. If things can be shown to be useful to business then in our society that make it worthwhile, this is what he did/does with lateral thinking - Before it might be thought of as idle daydreaming, but now it could lead to money making so now there are people having meetings coming up with kerrzaay (!) ideas as part of a process. Anyway the point is not about de Bono it is about how we take our cues and we live our lives by what everthing around us tells us. And the things that tell us so by their shape (rather than explicitly) do so more powerfully.
Anyway this post is rambling along and now is about something else. All about me again.

New Style Blogger

I have upgraded my Blogger account to newly out of beta style Blogger. So we shall see how it goes.

edit: I haven't been able to get the template editing things going... so I'll add the label categories in the siedebar by hand. Later.

Some Podcasts I Have Sampled - One

Radio Times Podcast Guide can be found here - which has some good suggestions that I am currently trying out.

On my podcast quest I have found a few more good listens -

Guardian Media - On the UK media, often the BBC's doings, on TV, on "new media" (they don't like to use that term) about the newspapers hosted by Matt Wells and Emily Bell - (Emily Bell is the head of the Guardian's Online presence - Guardian Unlimited.)

Radio One's Best of Unsigned features some good bands - well the one I've listened to so far has anyway, I feel that I should be listening to more Radio One, for all the latest - Huw Williams and Rob da Bank and all, but I'm all netlabelled up at the moment - and podcasted.

The Naked Scientists is a long podcast - around about an hour - enjoyable, mildly amusing science talk, you know the kind of thing. Off BBC Local radio I think. I likey.

I'm trying to get away from podcasts that are driven by current media monoliths, but at the moment that seems to be my bag - Guardian, BBC, The Times (I'm checking them out at the moment), O'Reilly etc. And I'm keeping a wider eye open for UK and all non-US centered podcasts and I have a ton of US leaning podcasts and I want to get a range of perspectives on life the universe and everything. Though I haven't been actively searching for certain stuff (except podcasts in French in a perhaps futile - though I don't think so - attempt to improve my French by subliminal absorption) - just podcasts in general.

Boing Boing Boing feed is here. It's the Boing Boing podcast, featuring stories from the website and featuring web people, such as 43Folders's Merlin Mann and Matt Haughey of Metafilter.

More on Podcasts when I've listened to some more - I've got abut 90 or podcasts in iTunes right now, so I'm using PlayPod (which is now free) to put other feeds into as iTunes is getting overwhelmed - as am I.

Shuffle Saver (Flickr Screensaver)

One of my favourite Flickr related Things is the Flickr screensaver Shufflesaver.

Shufflesaver allows you to view a slideshow of Flickr photos from a person (or narrow down to that person's favourite photos), or you can look for photos specifying up to three tags. You can view photos from everyone's latest photos, or from everyone's interesting photos. You can also select photos from your iPhoto collection if Flickr doesn't appeal. There are various slide tramsitions to choose from and you can set the duration for slides to stay up.

There are also options that allow you to save the current slide to a folder on your hard drive, or iPhoto, or to open the photo's page in you web browser (this doesn't disturb the screensaver, it happens in the background).
A feature I would like is the ability to get photos from pools, or from one or more of a users sets - or perhaps from various sets of various users - then it all gets a bit complex, but at leat the ability to get photos from a pool - so I could see photos from the Fruit and Veg pool, for example.

Getting Into Flickr

I have at last decided to make use of my dormant Flickr account.
Here is my page - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kcanard/.

I'm finding Flickr very interesting.
Flickrbits lists many different Flickr Apps and development tools, extensions Web Apps etc. - some that I have been looking at are
Colour Picker (Colr Pickr). It's a web App colour wheel - pick a colour and you are shown Flickr pictures which consist mainly of that colour.
Flickr Leech Is very nice indeed shows a whole page of thumbnails of various Flickr htings, Interestingness (I do wonder how Flickr interestingness is calculated, gotta find out) by person, by group name, tag etc. Sometimes a page full of like 500 thumbnails. wowee zowee.

I also like looking at the food on Flickr - lots of Japanese, Singaporean and just food, food, food out there.
There's a ton of other stuff I shall be checking out.

p.s The Camera Finder is great way of checking out what kind of pics a certain camera can take and to see what kind of pics people have been taking with the model of camera you have. They have usage and popularity graphs as well.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Podcasts Time Again

I have been listening to and searching out some podcasts and podcast directory type stuff. I like the availability of Berkley things online, the one have been liking a lot is the Foundations of American Cyberculture Art 23, which talks about how modern technology has changed the culture in which we live and how we understand ourselves and our world. The nature of identity in the world of multiple identities that is the internet. You can find Berkley's podcast output on iTunes and some of them here.
Of course there are my favourites Buzz Out Loud (Tech news, Very Entertaining with a nice listener interaction thang going on) and Gadgettes from CNET.
Buzz Out Loud and Diggnation I heard about on Valleywag newsfeed, (though I rarely read it) and am so glad for having discovered them.
I haven't listened to WHYME (Worst Music You've Ever Heard) in a long time, but i have it listed in my links of note over there.
Adam and Joe is fabulous and funny as they always are.
BBC Podcasts are many and varied, (Find the BBC podcasts here) my favourites are - Digital Planet, In Our Time, The Now Show (when it's on), Start the Week and From Our Own Correspondant. Russel Brand was funny the couple of times I listened to the "best bits" Show.
Cory Doctorow's Craphound has some great sci-fi stories along with the odd talk gives by Cory, usually about Tech/DRM/CC type stuff.
There are other sci-fi story podcasts but I have yet to get down and listen to them. Escape Pod looks good.
The UK guardian also has podcasts, I have been listening to a few, they sound fairly interesting, though I have come across nothing mind blowing yet.

There are many directories, the big ones like iTunes, Odeo and Podcast.net and also Podcast Bunker. But I find that it's not so easy to find podcasts, maybe I'm missing some vital podcast portal or summink.

Links for 2nd Jan 2007

Ok I have links (if nothing else).

Semiotics for Beginners a book by Daniel Chandler is a link that I can honestly say is of the "It can change your life" variety. Info about the stuff of semiotics with enough information to get to grips with it, lots of examples very useful. For a while there reading one of the linked articles I really felt as though the world as I see it through my eyes is not inviolate reality as we take it for. Nothing has made me feel that way before. This makes me wonder if I should get around to reading John Berger's "Ways of Seeing" anytime soon.

The Andrea Dworkin Online Library has large excerpts from various Dworkin books, speeches, articles and can show you that Dworkin is not as you may have heard some crazed man-hater. See the "Lie Detector" link for a guide to "is this true about Dworkin" thang.