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October 06, 2004
iPodder: The Last Mile Solution for PODCasting
The other day, in a discussion of PODCasting, I mentioned iPodder, an application for downloading RSS feeds with enclosures. Today version 1.0 of iPodder was released and after a little initial testing, I'm very pleased.
Getting the MP3 from the Web site to your iPod is the last mile problem of PODCasting. Previously, I've subscribed to RSS feeds that told me about new content and then manually downloaded it and placed it in iTunes, which then syncs to my iPod. iPodder solves that problem. Its a simple application that checks a list of URLs on a scheduled basis and downloads and stores any MP3 (or ACC) files it finds on your computer. On the Mac, at least, it puts them right in iTunes in a place list named after the feed title. Very convenient.
iPodder is written in Python. The application is available for Mac and Windows platforms right now (Linux coming soon?) and despite the name, works with Windows Media Player as well as iTunes (although I've only tried it on the Mac with iTunes). BitTorrent support is built in, which makes it an important component in PODCasting for those of us with limited bandwidth budgets. On the Mac, make sure you open your account preferences and set iPodder to start automatically. That way, the scheduler will be able to run.
07:40 PM | Recommend This | Print This
RSS in Kwiki
After playing with JotSpot, my first thought was that getting RSS feeds in Kwiki wouldn't be that tough. In fact, I envisioned something along the lines of the Kwiki GoogleLink module that uses the following syntax:
{google: windley}
to create a google search link for google. I figured, I'd take the GoogleLink module, modify it a little and get something that you could type
{rss: http://www.windley.com/rss.xml}
on your page and get a nicely formatted link of the RSS feed from the URL on your page.
I grabbed the source, looked at it, realized it would be pretty easy to do, and then, like any lazy programmer, decided to take a look around to ensure someone hadn't already done it. Lo and behold, they have. Alexander Goller had almost exactly what I was looking for. Its called FetchRSS. I installed it on my lab wiki and it works like a champ. Here's a test page I created to see it in action.
Cool, huh? There are a few things I'd like to change. I would like to be able to specify the number of entries to display, for example, and have a summary of the entry (say first N words) specified. That shouldn't be too hard. Now, if I could just find a module that let's me email to a page the way that JotSpot can...
03:00 PM | Recommend This | Print This
JotSpot at Web 2.0
Jeremy Zawodny's doing a nice job of summarizing Web 2.0. One talk that interested me was Joe "not your father's company" Kraus demoing JotSpot, a "new generation Wiki that makes it easier to add structured data to the system in addition to pulling in external data via RSS, Web Services, and so on." Check out the advanced tour for a quick intro to what you can do with structured data in a wiki. Looks pretty darn cool.
02:07 PM | Recommend This | Print This
Enterprise Computing Laboratory Seminar
I hold a weekly seminar in the Enterprise Computing Laboratory. This semester the seminar is going through several important books (at least I think they're important, and hey, its my seminar!). For the last three weeks we've been going through and discussing selected essays from Paul Graham's Hackers and Painters. Tomorrow we start in on David Brin's Transparant Society. The full list of books I've picked out is available at Amazon. If you're in the area, you're welcome to come and attend the discussions. Let me know and I'll send you directions.