Podcasting

So as of late, I have been restricting my inflow of illegally acquired mp3’s and been freeing some more disc-space for podcasts.

I have been looking for some new podcasts, seeing as though this way of downloading music is legal, and furhtermore, if the content of the podcasts arises from an illegal source, the podcaster is the offender. And another bonus is that generally (if you subscribe to the right podcasts) you are kept up to date on the latest releases by your favourite artists.
For example, I am subscribed to the hospital records podcast and just this morning I heard a track by Matrix & Futurebound – Universal Truth which pretty much floats my boat.

So my point is, podcasts are (for me anyway) the way of the future for LISTENING to music. I suspect dj’s to be up in arms saying, no no no no, we need individual tracks, and I agree. Of course you do you twats.

Another thing that boggles my mind is why on earth podcasts are not more popular under music lovers? I for one have been using podcasts for a couple of years now. Granted, I haven’t always had a sick subscription list, but I do now! Which I am going to share with you.

Here are my favourites;

1) BangGang
2) DNB Arena
3) Hospital Records
4) The New Sound Of Trash
5) Mad Decent World by Diplo.
6) Hope Is Emo is a videocast of a girl portraying a life of being emo.

Ok so there are a few, please let me know of what you guys are listening to.

ooooo

I Definitely want one of these!!

Via Impress

“When technology and design diverge, out slops this USB Skype keyboard from the yawning crevasse of consumer hell. Buffalo went and super-sized a standard 109 key keyboard, shrunk a ma bell handset, and married the two in a fit of craplastic under the beelzebublian monikered BKBU-SKJ109/SV. In addition to the 12 function keys you’ve never quite figured out how to map, Buffalo throws another 13 hot keys at ya plus volume control for external headphones, not the handset. And while you might assume it includes a speakerphone, it doesn’t, at least that capability isn’t in the specs, so prepare to be tethered to that keyboard on an apparently short leash. Yours if you must, starting October for ¥6,993 or about $60.”

How to cheat the airline.

At least in the US anyway. Recently on Schneier’s blog, he posted an article on the effectiveness of declaring a weapons as a means to and end. The end being, safe and untouched arrival of your luggage at destination B. (Presumably coming from destination A)

“A “weapons” is defined as a rifle, shotgun, pistol, airgun, and STARTER PISTOL. Yes, starter pistols – those little guns that fire blanks at track and swim meets – are considered weapons…and do NOT have to be registered in any state in the United States.”

They need not be registered in South Africa either. Can you get these at ‘Toys-R-Us’?

The even cooler aspect is that your luggage gets extra-tracked. Hence the reason for the safe arrival of your luggage.

“I have a starter pistol for all my cases. All I have to do upon check-in is tell the airline ticket agent that I have a weapon to declare…I’m given a little card to sign, the card is put in the case, the case is given to a TSA official who takes my key and locks the case, and gives my key back to me.”

So for those of you who are extra possessive over your belongings, I hope this helps you.

“That’s the procedure. The case is extra-tracked…TSA does not want to lose a weapons case. This reduces the chance of the case being lost to virtually zero.”

SOURCE

iTV.

Ok, so iTv has been on my mind for a while. It seems like its going to be an awesome device incorporating your pirated video’s into a very sleek piece of hardware. According to this article, iTV and google are talking about, what I understand to be a collaboration between Google Video and Apple.

I think the idea is feasible and probably good at that. I just don’t see this working to well in South Africa. Guess why? C’mon. Guess!
Yea, you guessed it. INTERNET being the keyword in the article that would pose the 1st problem in marketing this product in South Africa. Perhaps Apple should start developing their markets post product launch? I don’t know how big a market South Africa is to them, but i’m positive that it could be rather large if there was some drop in their exorbitant prices as well as a simultaneous drop in the Price of broadband.

I know there are a lot of issues that pertain to this kind of thing, but hey. Teamwork is after all beneficial to any industry.

iTunes & Mac stepping into the living room.

iTv! This is the newest addition to the Apple family. Itunes will now sell videos at below retail prices and it will also eliminate the requirement of a DVD/VHS player to view the movie. iTv will stream the movie directly to you TV from anywhere in the house.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage before a packed house here to reveal that the company’s market-leading iTunes Store will offer downloadable movies for $10 to $15. Complementing the movie announcement, Jobs offered a rare sneak peek of a $300 media box that will stream movies, music and TV shows from a nearby computer to the living room TV.

Not only is it going ease up the home entertainment experience, but it will give DVD picture quality a run for it’s money.

“These are probably the most gorgeous graphics you’ve ever seen on a big-screen TV,” joked Jobs, “and I’ve got a really big TV.

…Demonstrating iTV on a movie-theater-size screen, Jobs showed several movie clips at 640 x 480p — the new download resolution for Apple’s movies and TV shows — which Jobs said was “near-DVD quality.” The sneak peek left many questions unanswered, including the need for such a device at all, given that Apple aficionados have already been adapting the company’s $500 Mac mini product as a media server capable, with upgrades, of resolutions as high as 1080p.”

The other factor that makes it even more appealing is that the movie releases will be ready for download the same day as DVD releases. Making it even more likely to watch just what you want when you want.

Lets just hope that Telkom moves it’s ass and give us some cheap internet so that we too may enjoy this service.

Ok, so back to WordPress.

Seems like only iWeb (application) is cool and the actual blog feature sucks, It’s not possible to add a comment feature or have much interactivity on the site. Unless there is and I just never figured out how to enable it.

What I did like about the whole .Mac effort is the “iDisk” which is an online disc (50mb with the trial) and approximately 1GB with a subscription. Personally I think this is much better in functionality than a flash-drive. Seeing as it is accessible from any computer with an internet connection. It is more “durable” in the sense that the data wont easily get lost, or not as easy as with a flash-drive.

Anyway, head on over here to find out some more for yourself.