Aehso’s Output

Dave Winer doesn’t like them much, nor does Ed Dumbill. It’s hard to understand why Apple didn’t get someone in the community to review this extension before publishing the namespace and the software that interprets it. Now they’ve got a bit of a mess on their hands.

On a related note, no facility to import/export OPML subscription lists in this iTunes release is a big omission – c’mon Apple , open up just a little bit!

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iTunes 4.9 is here. A new podcast directory that doesn’t work – it redirects to their music store. Hmmm. And why can’t I find a way to just add my own feeds? Hmmm. Methinks I’ll be using iPodder for a litte while longer…

aehso music

Woah I like this – never mind sales or unit shipment based charts Audioscrobbler plugs into your media player and builds up a profile of your musical tastes while you play. So what you might say – well they combine your play history with everyone elses and generate some very very useful charts, groups associations etc via a personalized web page. Very cool.

It is worth noting this as yet another fantastic example of near perfect REST protocol/service design – the client plugin only has to submit one handshake when started (to see how healthy the server is) and then multiple subsequent submissions, one for each song played (or half played). Sweet, it’s no wonder plugins are popping up for every major media player.

These guys could have gotten carried away and defined SOAP interfaces for querying/deleting/updating the back-end data but why do that when you can provide a more usable interface via a local servlet application. No doubt when this becomes more popular(and it definately will), people will start demanding fat client – there’s a lesson here that many a WS-stack-fascinated architect could do well to heed.

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A touching story, a man in psychriatic care in Kent since April – who has not communicated with his carers – has turned out to be a classical piano player, yet noone can identify him. The police may “get expert people working with him who are able to use his music and get his identity.”

What an interesting way to figure out who someone is!

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I didn’t hear what Adam Curry said in his first Sirius broadcast but it looks like he is taking the credit for inventing podcasting and gone and annoyed the hell out of Dave Winer

Of course you’ve got to wonder what Curry is doing in the first place – if podcasting is so great, why is he back broadcasting? Would it be because he can reach a broader audience? That whole “push” vs “pull” thing again, eh.

To quote Curry himself:

Podcasting is a lot more difficult than dashing off a post on a weblog. Podcasts take time. You have to record and create in real time, and invest more time editing. There are a lot of people who’d love to do this part time or full time, but that takes money.

Podcasting is a good idea because it enables timeshifted receipt of content, not because its an “ultimate network”(whatever that is supposed to be).
Another:

We really need more listeners to come in, to make podcasting in general more attractive for advertising.

Ah, so advertising is the driving concern. Now the move to Sirius makes sense.

And lastly:

…with podcasting, now there’s an opportunity for anyone to create (an) audio show and distribute it worldwide, efficiently

(Emphasis mine). Now see, traditional podcasting is inerently bandwidth inefficient for the content producer – you know, the geek in his home studio with a standard hosting service provider. If you’re looking for an efficient way to distribute podcast media maybe promote use of bittorrent, or some streaming protocol rather than downloading huge mp3s over plain old HTTP.

Meanwhile I’ll stick with my podcasts of real content that have no commercial concerns, but only when I’m stuck somewhere that a) there is noone to talk to and b) I have an hour to spare to listen to the whole program. I don’t have hours to spare to listen to people prattle on about how cool podcasting is.

aehso music

Sorry to hear you’re about to get hit with a storage tax. But hey, it’s the EU, it’s an open market – go buy your hardware in Germany, Belgium or Luxemburg. And never, ever buy a music in the Netherlands again – buy it from an online service elsewhere.

aehso music

I have scratched my head more than once and wondered how Sony initally missed the boat in the portable MP3 players market. On its own, it looks like they bet the wrong way but I found a fascinating Wired article about The Civil War Inside Sony that explains the internal conflicts this new market presents for Sony.

The shocker? This article was written in February 2003 – amazing how much has changed since then. Equally amazing, I’m sure, were the boardroom meetings between Sony Music and Sony Electronics over the past few years.

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It had to happen eventually – Sony have started to get their act together and are releasing some very nice flash based Mp3 players this NW-E507

Take note Apple, 50 hours battery live (3 hours after a 3 minute charge!), a 3 Line OLED display and an FM tuner – the three features missing from the iPod Shuffle.

Take note Sony, come up with some cute names for your models, nobody will remember “NW-E507″.

Side by side this kicks the iPod Shuffles ass but Apple won’t be too worried until Sony have a Music Store. Oh wait what’s this. Ah then, any minute now…

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I’m a big fan of getting away from it all by sticking a big set of cans on, especially at work when working close to an office with sales people in it, so this review of headphones (from ($15 to $500!) by PlaylistMag is one I’m bookmarking for when my current buds have gone past their best.

Unfortunately, the bad part of having great fones is that the background interference generated by the average laptop becomes more prominent, but for home theatre use, there are plenty of options there!

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