Oops! I knew I should have double-checked everything! Fixed a problem with renko, and now renko v0.2.3 is available…
It’s an RSS enclosure aware aggregator written in Perl that should run (almost) anywhere…
(See Audio, Enclosures, renko, etc… for details.)
I’ve been very interested in what Adam Curry is doing lately, promoting the ‘iPod Platform’ as it’s being called, though I have no iPod, I still get involved here, as does Dave Slusher at evilgeniuschronicles.org
While these guys are both from the world of radio, I have very little radio experience, only appearing as a guest a few times many years ago. What I do have a background in is publishing - of all sorts - from print, to music, and stuff in-between, so while I’ve got a face for radio, and a voice for the written word, that’s not gonna stop me.
I’ve released renko, which is similar to Adam’s iPodder script, and Dave’s get_enclosures.pl script. I’ve been using similar scripts and cron jobs for almost a year to download some web-radio shows, and doing the RSS enclosure thing when it started happening. This is code that is slightly cleaned up and made fit for human consumption. (Or so I hope!) grab renko if you wish. You’ll need Perl, and if all goes right, you won’t have to install any modules. It’s a proof-of-concept rather than a finished application. It’s got many missing features, but it’s a start. Hopefully it’ll help kickstart this revolution.
(Honestly, I think NetNewsWire could kick butt in this area, it’s a Mac OS X application that could tie directly into iTunes quite easily, and Brent could do it all with a great interface… Brent, you listening?)
Oh, both Adam and Dave wondered about enclosures in Atom and assumed Atom must have something similar, but every time I ask, no one seems to have a good answer. Maybe this will help poke the Atom folks a bit.
I started doing some audio experiments, and if you wanna keep up to date, just subscribe to the feed at http://rasterweb.net/raster/feeds/rwaudio.rss with renko, or one of the other enclosure aware aggregators and see what happens. I used Audacity for the most recent version, and it’s improved a bit since I last used it. (Noise reduction helps quite a bit!) Audacity is open-source, so that helps lower the barrier to creating the audio, though I know it’s still not the software Adam is looking for…
Anyway, that’s it for now, must run!
Update: renko is here.
Ok, I’ve gone with the title “Brad joins Six Apart” instead of “Proprietary Software Company hires Open-Source Developer” but that won’t stop me from worrying… (I know, it’s a bit sensational, but so am I sometimes.)
What, me worry? Sure! Why not… Brad has written some nice code in the past. I’ve especially gotten good use out of his port of Textile to perl. The code had a liberal license, I’d call it an open-source license. (Though the OSI would have to check on that to be sure.)
My worry comes from the fact that while working for Six Apart, we won’t see any innovation from Brad that won’t be a part of Six Apart’s non-open-source code. Maybe I’m just being selfish, but I’d hate to see some of the best open-source developers go to work for non-open-source companies and have their contributions to the community disappear. I’m not saying this will happen in this case, or that it happens very often, maybe it does, and maybe the community deals with it well enough. I suppose since I’m unlikely to be in such a position, it’s easy for me to comment on it. (Job openings for “Hacker-type who hates Windows” are sparse right now…)
Anyway, good luck to Brad in his new endeavor! I know it would take the right offer (and then some) for me to uproot the family and move across the country. I hope it all works out.
Some web sites use a ‘captcha’ which is a dynamically generated image with some code that must be input for you to post a comment. It’s a great idea, but oh, the accessibility of it all! What of people who can’t read that image? I mean, come on, haven’t we all dove into accessibility by now?
I have a solution, in the form of Text::Banner, and it goes something like this:
####### ##### ##### # # # # # # # # # # # # # ##### # #### ##### # # # # # # ####### # # # # # # # ##### ##### #
There! An accessible captcha ‘image’ as it were… it should even work in Lynx!
But wait, don’t like horizontal, try vertical! That’ll trip up those pesky spambots!
#######
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# # #
# # #
# # #
### #
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# # #
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Urm… maybe not… I’ll work on it a bit more…
Inspired by the likes of Adam Curry, Dave Winer and others, I’ve started to experiment with the thingy known as “audio blogging” and you can now experience RasterWeb! in a whole new way…
First, you’ll want to add this feed to your enclosure capable aggregator: http://rasterweb.net/raster/feeds/rwaudio.rss
All set? Good… Then you will recieve the first transmission, aptly titled “RasterWeb! Audio 2004-08-18″ - and let me tell you, if you want aimless rambling, with poor production values, and crappy sound quality - in audio format - you’ve got it!
I used a handheld cassette recorder, and later transferred that to my Mac, and eventually converted it to an MP3. I used to do this stuff years ago, but for some reason I had all sorts of problems with this. It’s definitely something that’s not easy enough to do on a regular basis, unless I get a good process in place.
Oh, as long as we’re talking about audio experiments, Adam has been cooking up something called iPodder, which is an enclosure aware aggregator for Mac OS X. I’ve been using my own tools, which consist of some bits of Perl, and cron, and AppleScript to do much the same thing. As I mentioned there, the only thing I’m missing is the iPod. But you can help with that…
I know, I’m a bit late on this, but if anyone wants to help me get an iPod, just use this freeiPods referer link. (See this Engadget story for background on freeiPods.) You’ll need to sign up for an offer, which you can always cancel later on.
Come on, when’s the last time I asked you for something, hmmm? An iPod is something I definitely can’t fit into the budget anytime soon, but don’t worry, I’ll keep working on the whole audio thing, since I’ve still got the old Rio 500 to work with…
Channel 9 is some sort of broadcasting thingy for Microsoft right? Right…
Now, I rarely go to Channel 9, because I really don’t like Microsoft very much, but if something interesting comes along, I’ll take a peek. Following is my user experience with Channel 9, which may or may not be typical for most Mac users, I don’t know…
I followed a link to a video with Dean Hotchpotch the IE guy at Microsoft.
On the page was a screen shot of the video with a link to the video, but the link uses the protocol mms, of which I am not familiar with. I know http, ftp, scp, etc, but not mms.
I also notice the file extension of ‘wmv’ which I’m guessing is ‘Windows Media Video’ or something, I’m not sure.
Of course clicking on the link (which starts with mms://wm.microsoft.com/) gives me a ‘mms is not a registered protocol’ message from Firefox. Hmmm, I try changing ‘mms’ to ‘http’ which does download a file named ‘DeanH_Hottest_Seat_56K_110K_300K.wmv’ which seems to be a stub file pointing to the real video that should launch Windows Media Player.
It does not launch Windows Media Player, but that’s ok, I double click the file to launch it, and Windows Media Player tells me ‘Windows Media Player cannot play this file because the player does not support this codec’ which makes sense I guess because I’m using version 7.1.x and it seems that Windows Media Player 9 for Mac OS X is the most recent and probably has the right codex, but since I’ve wasted all this time just trying to see a freaking’ video clip about the guy in charge of Internet Explorer, I no longer care to waste anymore time on this so I give up.
Once again, I can’t help feeling that Microsoft just doesn’t know how to play well with others… If this is evangelizing their stuff, they’ve got a lot to learn.
Channel 9, signing off!
I started toying with class.jabber.php a bit, and am thinking about tying it into my hacked up version of Feed on Feeds to provide some notifications.
Jabber is like SVG, one of those really interesting technologies you keep wishing will move into the mainstream a little quicker, but you just keep waiting, and waiting…
There’s a lot of interesting projects at JabberStudio to dig into, and in the past I’ve messed with Perl and Net::Jabber, but sady enough, my old Perl code doesn’t seem to be working now, but the new PHP code using class.jabber.php is. Hurm…
So anyway, if I get into it, I’ll probably build some other notification apps, though there is one thing that has always bothered me about Jabber, and correct me if I’ve got it wrong, but you can’t seem to send from your own account to your own account. What I mean is, if I’ve got an account jabber@fubar.org and try to write code to log on, and send a message to jabber@fubar.org (myself) it doesn’t seem to work, which means I have to create another account. This seems silly. I mean, I can send myself an email, right? This might not be unique to Jabber, I think AIM has the same limitation. Still, it makes it just a bit more difficult for quick & dirty things…
I’m here to tell you why I think del.icio.us is neat.
Perception, baby! I go to del.icio.us and it’s simple. really simple. Too simple. Can it be this simple?
The del.icio.us About page has some disclaimer text:
This system is pre-pre-alpha; many features have yet to be added. Additionally, many, many bugs remain. Please be careful.
I reserve the right to take appropriate measures if you misbehave.
Is that it? It’s run by “some guy” and it’s “pre-pre-alpha” and it might go away at any second. That’s all ok though, really it is.
When I go to Furl (and even though it’s at .net and not .com) I see that it’s Copyright 2003-2004 Furl, LLC. So I start to wonder about the business model, and how they plan to move forward in the future, and if it’ll be free, or subscription based, or whatever… (See: Furl.net: Say farewell to Blogs and Bookmarks and get your Furl on for background info.) I know, Furl is not exactly the same as del.icio.us, but they share similar traits.
Ok, forget about Furl for a minute and go to Spurl. Hmmm, similar name (and another .net and not .com) and it looks really nice, and they have a privacy policy and terms of use that look ok, but they have this page about partners that mentions:
Spurl is building a group of strong partners to help us reach our goals.
Though what those goals are, I’m not quite sure.
I’ll admit, I have not dug deep into Furl or Spurl (are there others in this space I don’t know about?) but the beauty of del.icio.us is in it’s simplicity and it’s elegance, as well as it’s depth. On the surface it’s really not that complex. From a front end view, a good programmer could write a clone of it for personal use in a few days time. (Of course part of the value of del.icio.us is in the “social” aspect of it all.) As for the API, that might take a bit more time, and if you wrote your own version, you might not even bother with it. But the API is where the action is, it’s what allows you to easily backup everything you’ve put into the system at any time, and you should do this regularly in case it does disappear one day. (There are many links to backing up your del.icio.us data, or pulling it into your own site, do some searching…)
del.icio.us almost begs you to do cool things with the data, and people do… Ok, here’s a few random links:
I really don’t go to arcades much, but was visiting some family from out of state and ended up at the Mineshaft and as we’re looking for games to play, I walk past one and see this penguin encased in plastic, pause, and say to myself “Hey, it’s Tux” and then a few seconds later realize it’s actually Tux Racer!
I’m not a big game player, but Tux Racer is a classic, and it’s available for Mac OS X as well as Linux and some other platforms. I remembered that there was supposed to be an arcade version coming at some point, and it looks like the folks at Roxor Games pulled it off.
Now here’s the funny part. I had just one game token, and I try to play it, but it requires two. Lo and behold, there’s a token sitting in the slot! So I play… Later, I convince Emma to play it, and then I find another token on the floor in front of the game! But wait… Later, when we’re almost ready to leave, I walk by and there’s a ticket hanging out of the front of the game!
Thank you, Tux Racer…
I’ve been thinking about Doc Searls IT Garage, which deals with DIY IT, where organizations take things into their own hands to provide the solutions they need by putting together various bits and pieces themselves rather than rely on vendors to do it all for them.
As someone who is a proponent of open-source, and a long time DIYer, it’s right up my alley. I’ve always tried to find my own solutions to problems in an organization rather that try to find someone I think can solve my problems with a boxed solution. It’s just the hacker mentality I guess.
But why do some people choose the vendor solution, or the in-a-box answer to problems? I think part of it might be social, and ego related. Years ago I used to deal with vendors, and vendors like to make you happy. They like to talk to you, and tell you things, and invite you to events, and give you gifts, and check in on you. For someone who wants an ego boost, or really likes that sort of interaction with people, it’s a great thing. Building a relationship with a vendor probably looks good in the corporate view of things.
Then there’s the other side, finding you own solution, dealing with developers of open-source projects on mailing lists and IRC, and compiling and installing things, and configuring them and getting them to work… Most of this is not glamorous, and no one is trying to “be your buddy” but in the end you get things to work and you solve a problem. No gifts, no “best friends” or “building relationships with a vendor” but in the end you get your solution. Problem solved. Your way. Probably for less money…
Vendors can also give you a support leg to stand on. Doesn’t work? Talk to the vendor! Work with the vendor to figure it out. It’s a failure? The vendor proposed the wrong solution! With the DIY method, you’re all on your own, with no one to blame. (Accountability!)
There will always be a need for vendors, and that’s fine, as long as they provide a real “value-added service” and that service is more than just boosting someone’s ego or making a new contact in your social network…
Most people are familiar with categories in web-based thingies. Look at Yahoo! or the Open Directory Project, or applications like Movable Type. They have hierarchical categories, where you create a category, then create categories within those categories, and so on. When you do it yourself in Movable Type, chances are you’re just guessing at how to best organize things based on your own experience and data, which is fine, it’s your view of things. In theory though, Yahoo! or the Open Directory Project have some sort of “well defined” categories created by experts, or some such thing. This is also fine… The problems come when you want to have a similar category set, so that what you call “Hardware” (Computers?) is what someone else calls “Hardware” (Hammers?) right? Syndic8 uses the Open Directory Project (DMOZ) categories, as well as some others.
Syndic8 uses multiple sets of categories, which is really more like taxonomies. At least by my understanding of taxonomies. I’ve always though of categories as sort of the “common” or “average” way to classify things, while taxonomies are more of the expert’s view, where more thought goes into it. That might not be the case, but I’ve viewed it that way. I think developing taxonomies as being more involved, since you can have multiple taxonomies that are completely separate from each other. For instance, you might have a taxonomy that works like your average category set, but them might have a taxonomy that works like a rating system, with G, PG, and NSFW categories. Taxonomies seem to allow another way to organize and classify data. (Drupal has a really nice taxonomy system.) I’ve often wished iTunes allowed for multiple taxonomies. I’d like to have a rating system for songs that had “kid-safe” and “explicit”, or perhaps “silly” and “serious”. Multiple classifications if you will… Perhaps TuneTags can provide that.
TuneTags seems to take the tags approach, like del.icio.us or flickr. Tags are a bit different, and somewhat like keywords, in fact they may be keywords, but in a simplified way, which makes them more powerful. Tags appear to be a single word, all lowercase, and you add multiple tags by just space separating them. This is brilliant in it’s simplicity, and can be powerful if presented properly. del.icio.us shows you the most active tags in the system, and while entering new data into the system, shows you all the tags you’ve previously used, with a count of usage. This seems like the fastest way of categorizing things, and with the ability to get a list of the most active tags, it’s easy to align your categorization with others, if you so desire. (John Udell is doing some interesting things using tags and del.icio.us.) flickr also provides a list of the most popular tags, which, just like del.icio.us, really moves the whole idea of “social software” forward, by making things easy and powerful. Those two extra things, providing a list of the most used/active/popular tags, and the display of your previously used tags are key to making things work - I’ve used systems where there is a field to enter keywords, but without those two things, it falls short of accomplishing what it really could accomplish.
This is all just off the top of my head, so if you think I got anything wrong, or missed something, let me know…
On LugRadio they sometimes talk about the role of a vendor/organization in creating Linux distributions. There’s Debian, Fedora, Mandrake, and others, and what sets them apart (to some degree) is what they include in their distribution.
Now, when it comes to Windows, Microsoft determines what goes into it, as it should be, but I think that while Microsoft is still suffering from the Not Invented Here syndrome, it’s nice to see Apple leave the Not Invented Here stuff in their past.
I know, there are plenty of things Apple sticks into Mac OS X that are invented at Apple, but those are often the good bits (iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie) that help define the “Mac experience.”
The most recent delightful (to me) outside thingy being added to Mac OS X is SQLite:
Another feature of Tiger is SQLite support, which incorporates the SQLite library into the system to provide an embeddable, zero-configuration SQL database engine for applications.
Developers who link their applications to this library can access SQL databases without running a separate relational database management system (RDBMS) process. The library can also be used to create local database files and manage the tables and records in that file.
Apple chose to incorporate a nice little application/framework that could potentially make some developers lives much easier. This seems to be something that keeps happening. While Apple is incrementally making small improvements, Microsoft continues to tout it’s master plan for a Brave New World of Windows codenamed Longhorn, that will completely revolutionize how you use a computer.
If you want to revolutionize how you use a computer, try some little bits of open-source here and there, and eventually, you’ll be all “revolutionized” and stuff.
Improvement can come in little steps, not just great leaps…
(I think we should start calling Longhorn “Copland ][” eh?)
I don’t have one of those fancy wireless wifi networks at home, but I do have a hub, and a router, and 4 (plugged in) computers in the basement, and 2 ethernet cables running through the house. So due to the fact that we had a small flood, and were forced to rebuild the office, we figured it was a good time to label each ethernet cable, just like the big guys do.
So now each cable has a sticker on each end, and on each side of the sticker is a number, so that we can easily trace the ethernet cable from the computer, to the hub (or router) and figure out what is or isn’t working…
Of course we really should have matched the numbers to the respective port numbers of the hub (or router) but for now some simple lookup chart taped to the wall should do. (It works for our DNS, I mean, host files…)
We also wrangled the power cords, USB cables, audio connections, and on and on…
If there’s another flood, we’re sure to be even more organized.
My contribution to the web today is to let people who do not have a copy of Adobe InDesign know that if someone is sending you an InDesign tagged text file, tell them to choose Unicode in the Tags Export Options dialog box when they do the export, and not ASCII, unless you can somehow guarantee that the text going back into InDesign will really be ASCII, which seems unlikely in many cases… (See every discussion on Unicode in the last year for background…)
Since I found myself trying to explain such concepts to someone who had a copy of InDesign, but no knowledge whatsoever of charatcer sets and the like, I’m just hoping this might help someone else… …And if not, at least it’s here for my own use! ;)
I have (almost) nothing useful to contribute today…
So I present uptime via Atom, which will tell you how long my Mac has been on.
It’s like, totally experimental, and may change, or go away. Or something. I dunno. I was just looking for an excuse to use Perl, DBI, SQLite, and `uptime 2>&1`, while experimenting with Atom.
Atom is harder than RSS, and that’s alright. It kind of forces you to do things right. That is, if you consider the way Atom does things as the “right way” of doing things…
Anyway, I’ve been cranking out code, not words, so that’s all I’ve got. Later!
