Now, I love Google Reader and I’m sure many of you do too… but I still want to be able to backup my blogroll. Does anyone know if Google offers an api or webcall to get your OPML file? My search skills have failed me, and as of right now, the only way I can seem to get OPML feed-listing is by logging in and using the “Export your subscriptions as an OPML file” link.
I need to revisit my previous post about OneNote and the MS Office blog integration…
Apparently, using lists screws things up to holy hell. There were tons of malformed <p> tags, a bunch of whitespace, as well as complete disregard for switching from numeric order lists to alpha ordered lists, when nesting lists. Manual intervention was needed to clean up the gobs of whitespace strewn about my last post on fatblogging.
So… needless to say, I wouldn’t recommend using OneNote/Office’s automatic blog posting feature for anything more than the simplest of posts.
I haven’t heard of this bug in Firefox before, but it sure is interesting. This comment was found in the source of the podcast feed for David Allen, author of “Getting Things Done”
This is 512 bytes of nonsense, since the Firefox 2 developers, in one of the strangest decisions ever, decided they would obsolete XML styles by overriding them without permission. Furthermore, the developers appear to be disinterested in fixing this. Therefore, we use the unofficial workaround, which includes filling up the first 512 bytes of a document so that the sniffer doesn’t encounter the RSS tag. I really enjoy using Firefox, but this particular behavior really annoys me! Anyway, since I’m almost at 512 characters, I’m going to ramble on for another minute in this comment, and then, without further ado, present you with a valid XML feed.
Also, Hi. It’s been a long time. Things have been good here.
Heard of 43things? It’s pretty damn cool. Heard of 43people.com? Nobody’s supposed to know what it is yet. But I figured it out.
Here’s proof.
I wonder if they’ll leave the link up…
Today is a better day than most to be Tor. Today’s Slashdot article about Tor, an onion anonymizing Internet protocol, made me giggle. The headline reads, “Tor - The Yin or the Yang?”
“Although Tor claims to improve safety and security, the article goes into detail on how Tor can be used as a anonymous attack platform.”
It’s all true, every last word.
Well, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the fact that iTunes now supports multimedia annotation and playback of audio files. On one hand, it’s great to see excellent support for this kind of feature in a prime-time application. On the other hand they’ve gone and implemented something which is pretty much in the same space as the w3 spec, SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language). Why re-invent the wheel? Initial signs point to market protection of iTunes, AAC, iPods, and Garageband software. While this new format isn’t proprietary, it seems like big companies like Apple or MS are supporting alternative niche “open” formats, to create market protection. Sure it’s open, but did they really need to make another competing format? In this case, Apple just gave the middle finger to all current SMIL supporting media players.
If it weren’t bad enough that they created a competing format, they only allow the spec to work with their proprietary format, AAC. The Voxmedia Wiki, the most comprehensive source for how to implement AAC multimedia markup, states that Garageband/Podcast Chapter Tool is only compatible with AAC files. Apple’s decision to only support this markup in their player for AAC files fucking sucks. I’m really, really mad about this. I see no reason why the annotations can’t be applied to other file formats, as it should be the player’s job to associate the timestamp in the XML file with the position of audio playback.
Maybe I don’t get this. I hope I don’t, and if I don’t, someone please set me straight. But from where I’m sitting, this new development is a mixed blessing. It’s too bad that the functionality that podcasters have been desiring is caught up in this GarageBand/iTunes/AAC quasi-open format bullshit.
Found by way of Scoble.
Update: It looks like Simon is a bit miffed too.
Lessig makes a case for municipal WiFi. Personally, I think we’ll realize one day that telecom infrastructure is just as important as roads are to our vitality as a sovereign state.
Recently, I’ve considered adding cigar, whiskey, beer, and wine reviews to this site. So many times I’m tempted to write any and every interesting thing here on brainscat and more often than not my first reaction is, “No.” I’m realizing more and more where that instinct is coming from…
Most of my favorite bloggers, (Robert Scoble, Joel Spolsky, Mark Cuban, Gabe and Tycho, Tim Bray, Iggy, and Tracy and Trev) besides being authoritative, all share a focus and consistency of content that makes their respective sites worthwhile. Their adherance to a topic is one of the key qualities that makes their respective sites valuable.
I’m sure Scoble is a well rounded individual and is interested in many things besides Microsoft and related technology, but I don’t care. I don’t read Ongoing because I think Tim Bray is a good person and I don’t read his site expecting to hear about his newest hobby. I read their blogs because they give me focused info on topics I’m interested in and I don’t have to wade through crap.
So many bloggers would do well to remember their audience when they are searching for what to make of their webspace. I’ll do my best to keep this from turning into this.
Update: Forget this. I may not read “shotgun” blogs that jump around from topic to topic, but I realize that shouldn’t have anything to do with how and why I blog. I write for my own sanity, to keep a record of interesting bits, and to hopefully help someone else out.
Update 2: Don’t forget this, just forgive me for being to rash in both previous revisions. I just don’t think strict adherance is what’s going to make my blog good. More accurately, I have a need to stray every now and then from regular technological writings to keep my own sanity. To be a useful resource though, I have to stay on target. The best place for myself and brainscat is somewhere in the middle. End of navel-gazing. I promise…. for now.
Lifehacker gives pilers a voice. I don’t understand the whole purpose of filing emails with an elaborate system of filters and folders. I don’t even understand tagging them with metadata by hand. As long as the search functionality is quick, I’m happy.
Get gmail invites at isnoop.net. I was sick at looking at all my available invites so I donated them over there. isnoop harvests the invites for other random people, and gives them to you upon request. Basically, I’m done with invite contests since demand is low.
I got this from Alex who got this from Scott, who blames it all on Simon. Clearly, this post is not my fault.
Results for brainscat.com follow…
Hey all, Card Club episode 9 is ready for download. Yours truly even has a bit part in the show. Download it via bittorrent, or directly.
Thanks to Hack-A-Day and Adam Curry for reminding me that I can put linux on my iPod. Normally, I would associate such ideas as nothing more than Slashdot karma whoring, but in this case it allows me to use the iPod hardware to record audio. Those of you who’ve heard my audio comments before know that my phone sucks, so I was hoping to turn things around here. It’s ridiculously simple to turn your 3G iPod into a hard drive based recorder.
1. Hook up your iPod.
2. Run the iPod-Linux Installer
3. Create a folder on the iPod called “Recordings”
4. Eject and reboot your iPod into linux (usually by holding the rewind button.)
5. Go to Extras->Recordings and start recording audio either with a microphone plugged in, or just shout into your headphones real loud. I’m not kidding, I did it, see below.
6. Remount iPod and edit your audio files in the “Recordings” directory you just made.
Listen to some very sad proof I recorded that this actually works. Be warned, though, I had to raise the volume in Audacity a bit. This works because basically microphones and speakers work on the same principle, magnets generating electricity by being vibrated, or magnets vibrating because of electricity passing by.
