BACK TO BOSTON TOMORROW 

Until Saturday, I'll be in Boston for some more very interesting meetings. Gee, I hope I can talk about all this soon! Argh!

I don't know how much spare time I'll have but I might see who else is around - be good to hook up with a few people I know are out there - Steve Garfield etc ;)

ARCHOS PODCATCHER? 

I wonder if anyone has written an RSS reader - enclosure downloader ('podcatcher') for the Archos PMA - which has networking (embedded Linux)? This *should* be pretty simple with the right tools and libraries, I would have thought. Though, I don't know how to go about this. And like all thinigs like this - I would if I could, but I can't.

UPDATE: Wow: seek and ye shall find! CORSAIR - A Qtopia RSS/Podcast Aggregator.

Check this from the README:

Add some feeds:

Click top button on left hand toolbar

Automatically pastes text from clipboard - use Opera (or browser of your choice) to copy RSS feed URL to clipboard, then switch to Corsair and click add

-OR:

Put feeds you want in $(HOME)/Documents/corsair/feeds.opml

Standard OPML file from any RSS aggregator should work. Let me know if it doesn't. This file will be overwritten when you add or delete feeds.

COOL!

|

A LETTER FROM DAN TO THE BAYOSPHERE 

This is a really interesting letter from Dan Gillmor about the trials and tribultions of his efforts in the 'Bayosphere' .

He says:

"Though not so much a lesson -- we were very clear on this going in -- it bears repeating that a business model can't say, "You do all the work and we'll take all the money, thank you very much." There must be clear incentives for participation, and genuine incentives require resources."

BEARDS 

Stories about growing beards. Heh!

beards.org!

:-#

OPML COMMUNITY SERVER PROGRESS? 

When are we going to get this business with the OPML Community Server fixed?

I got a TWO-SERVER version running with the OPML app on a Windows box at home, which saved OPML files to local folder which was actually an FTP mounted folder. (Avoiding the need for two IP addresses

I tried the SINGLE IP/BOX setup and had Frontier errors saying that I had to allow directory listings (I'll find the post about that later to link to) - when I changed this setting, all I could see were the OPML files - ie: not rendered.

I hate it when things don't work. Especially when we feel so close to the solution. Ie: It was 'working' but not rendering the OPML files for the blog(s).

User registraton, folder creation and whatnot were all working fine.

Could somebody who is on speaking terms with the developer(s) of this - or anyone who is a Frontier guru look into this - or simply ask what th score is? It's like having a Ferrari in the front yard, but someone walked away with the steeing wheel.

Word of advice: don't treat people who HELP you like an asshole, or you will be the one who ends up looking like one. This also goes for times when someone is showing respect : don't try to make them look like an idiot - or you'll be the one who looks like one. And then you'll get no more respect. Ever.

GOOGLE NEWS 'LAUNCHED' 

It appears the Google News is no longer in Beta. Has anything changed/improved? Did they listen to users/beta testers?

A DOWNLOADER. OOO. And Hmmmmm... 

So, Dave has 'the podcatcher of his dreams' - Jeeez : Lord know what his nightmares must be like. (This is a JOKE, btw folks - not a 'diss')

For feedback/market research sake: I for one, turn off my computer at night (along with my mobile phone) though I do tend to leave it on when I leave for the office, or leave the country, so I can remote control it from wherever I am. I don't know many people that leave their home PC on all night - maybe at work people do.

My concern is that I wonder what 'housekeeping' this RSS enclosure downloader does of the files it downloads. This is why I didn;t want to build one of these. My questions are about the OPML Editor podcatcher : Does it resume? Does it have progress bars (FileSizeDownloaded/FileSizeTotal)*100 ? How do I know that I have the complete file? I expect someone could write all this in, as this looks like the simplest of podcatchers. It's not too difficult to make this kind of thing work.

By the way, I've had a desktop enclosure downloader built for quite a while now - very much like the now defunct Odeo Syncr, which simply downloaded stuff to a specified folder (OK, but without an OPML page of results) - it was so incredibly simple to build that I never considered releasing it - as I was head down and deep building an app to send files the other way - a podBAT (geddit?) Also, I didn't pursue this as many other people had made it their business to concentrate solely on Podcatching software - ie: iPodder, Juice, Nimiq etc. Then iTunes had it, and I'd be shocked if the next Windows Media Player didn't have an RSS aggregator/downloader built-in. (Or possibly in a next verson of Outlook).

When I built the 'Bluggcaster' - an OPML-powered podcast player - in Flash, there were alot of people (including Uncle Rottweiler) who loved the 'eye candy' - "Never underestimate the power of having aliens bouncing around in your app" was something I was told by an old, old, stubborn aquaintance.

Feh. (btw: if anyone takes this post too seriously - or to heart - then please do get a life!)

To REiterate : This is not a personal digg/diss/whatever - I just don't see anything really new going on here. And MY opinion is that I LIKE bouncy aliens and 'flashy graphics'

SO THERE! :P

This is FEEEEEDBACK. Stick it.

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