The Seven Phases Of Owning an iPod
Hehehehe. This is funny. A cute cartoon strip following the seven trials and tribulations of the iPod owner. LOL!
Latest Posts
Dave’s Hiring
Looks like Dave needs a developer.
I do alot of what he needs, but a) I’m busy at podcast.com b) I’m in the UK and c) I’m probably not the ‘professional type’ he wants. :p Heh. Maybe you are?
I’m glad it sounds like Dave is getting back into (publicly saying that he is) developing *something* – as the theme of posts recently haven’t been as interesting as usual for me. Sounds like he’s getting back in to one of his ‘modes’ of operation. That’s usually good news for us all.
Alot of people think I don’t like Dave anymore. That’s just not true. On the contrary – I miss him and all the funny, innovative and insightful conversations we used to have a while ago, into the wee hours here in the UK. He knows what it’s like to sit home alone all day and night coding too 🙂
Judging by the recent issues he’s had with computers, I imagine he’s not in Second Life. This would be a shame, as we could meet up there – virtually – and if I did anything wrong, he could bop me on the noggin with a cartoon anvil, if he wanted. Who knows – it might be cathartic. Heheh.
He could also have a looksie at the blogHUD – there’s alot going to happen with that which I just know would float his skybox 🙂
Libsyn Bought By Wizzard
Wow! Congratulations to Libsyn!!! According to this, they have been bought by a company called Wizzard Software. (who I havent heard of – they do voice tech stuff- they also bought switchpod recently too?)
This must be great news for mah good buddies Dave, Dave and Marty!! Those guys have such great mojo and smarts and are a hoot to hang out with!! 🙂
Well done!!! You deserve it! 🙂
Nokia N91 as a mobile podcatcher
Recently, I have been playing with the Nokia N91 – with Wifi built-in and a 4gb hard disk on board too – to test some podcast stuff I have been building. I have to say I really like it – especially as they let me plug standard headphones into the jack.
They have a neat little podcasting application on there by default, which makes it very easy to enter an OPML file url (or locally open one from the handset) for a podcast directory, or an RSS for a direct podcast subscription. I’ll do a full report on this soon.
But one very odd thing I found is that while the handset has no problems whatsoever in playing an AAC+ (.m4a) file which I copied over on the device, when I try to subscribe it to an RSS feed with .m4a audio enclosures ( audio/x-m4a ) the application tells me that the device will not play this format.
Ermm…hello??
Also, a quick note to say that this app is apparently called ‘mPodder‘ in the apps folder of the device. Hmmmm…
Take It Or Leave It
According to blogHUD user Dedric Mauriac, a version of the TV show ‘Deal Or No Deal’ has hit the metaverse, called ‘Take It Or Leave It’
Great idea!!
Dedric is also building a Wheel of Fortune (I think 😉 ) in SL too!
Live From Second Life
I can’t promise this will be on all the time, as it was a quick test idea that I have thought about for a few months and got round to doing once I got more memory for the MacMini (running Windows).
Let’s see how this holds up – this blog doesn’t get many readers, so off you go! All ten eleven of ya 😉
Linden ATM?
I was just looking at a list of virtual worlds and games out there and was looking at Entropia Universe‘s site. It seems like they have a real world debit card available which lets their users withdraw their in world currency as real world cold hard cash from any ATM!
I think that’s a great idea and one which I think Linden Lab should look at doing with their own Linden Dollar in Second Life. How cool would that be!? 🙂 “yeah.. put in on my PrimCard” 😉
Now that’s what I call a flexi friend 😉
The Descendants of Ruth flock in
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2sxcW-lxHA]
On the day that Second Life reached the 1 million residents mark, the interest has apparently seen around 50,000 new signups already today! I decided to get an alt and record the arrivals on one of the Orientation islands. This one is island number 32 for arrivals!
As you can see, everyone starts off as a female! People also see this strange (sometimes gender-bending) transition from a plain female avatar to their own customised version (it can be quite amusing).
The name of this avatar is ‘Ruth’. She is an early basic model from Fractal Designs’ Curious Labs’ e-frontier’s 3d character designing and animating software called Poser, which many people use to create the .bvh animation files which get embedded into ‘poseballs’ in Second Life. She is the basic form of every avatar in SL.
So, welcome!! ‘Descendants Of Ruth’!
I think that could be a great name for a band in Second Life. 😉
Virtual ‘3D’ Podcasting Expo
I just read about an expo billed as a ‘Virtual International Podcasting Expo’. The details are here.
When I read this, I thought ‘ooo, in Second Life?’ – but apparently not. The site seems extremely vague about the hows and whatnot of this ‘3-D Virtual Expo’ but looking at one of the pages here, it looks like a web-based habbo hotel-type thing.
They appear to have a pretty good (and long!) lineup of speakers. It will be interesting to see what happens and how it all works.
There could be all sorts of reasons why they do not choose Second Life to do this, but I think they could do it there too, to an extent. I get the feeling it’s jumping on the bandwagon a bit, but if it’s good for podcasting and it helps people learn, then that’s good enough for me. 😉
Yahoo!’s Tech Mom Looks at Second Life
Dory Devlin, Yahoo! Tech’s ‘The Mom’ has a post here about Second Life, since hearing of ‘Adam Reuters’ (Adam Pasick) being ’embedded’ as a journalist in Second Life for Reuters – they have a dedicated site at http://secondlife.reuters.com. There’s a hearty discussion thread building on Dory’s post! Lots of ‘I don’t get it’ posts and lots of ‘I make money!’ posts.
Recently, Adam posted a story that the US Congress are launching a probe into the virtual economy that exists within Second Life (and a follow-up here). Many people make quite alot of money in this virtual world. Some even more than the employees of Linden Lab, the creators and curators of this new ‘metanation’ which I inhabit.
It’s an interesting discussion – and one which will have to be addressed soon, whether we like it or not. I heard about a year or so ago of someone who was trying to go through his taxes and wanted to deal with the money he was being paid to look after someone’s character in a different game. His accountant and the taxman had no idea what to do, so shrugged and ignored it.
I think it’s bound to change. But I wonder how the various global tax offices decide to deal with it. There will probably be virtual tax havens you could log in from, to avoid paying. We’ll see. What about if Linden move all their servers offshore? How about Sealand? That’s a ‘very Second Life’ place 😉
In the next week or so, we’ll hit the 1 million users mark in Second Life. (Currently stands at 983,621) That will be a big day which will no doubt garner headlines all over the world – then more users will come – and more money will be exchanged – etc, etc… 😉
Doctoe Schnook and I (Koz Farina) hope to start a podcast purely about Second Life soon. Stay tuned! 😉