BlogAmp is a service that generates embeddable podcasts for your blog. BlogAmp calls them audiocasts, to include both streaming and downloadable 'casts, but we'll stick with "podcasts." Those were streaming too, last we heard. BlogAmp basically handles the generation of your podcast from start to finish: uploading, creating an embedded player, and creating an RSS feed.
BlogAmp's business model seems to be based on selling storage space. For a fee, you can upload your mp3 files -- support for other formats would be a plus! -- and avoid the need for other hosting. If you've already got plenty of storage space on another server (the server that hosts your blog, for example), you can use BlogAmp's other features for free. Some of these are cool: you can reskin the player a little bit and add download links for the individual mp3s in your list. Some of them are a little bit obnoxious: do we really want to make it easier to add "e-commerce" links to a podcast player?
If you know how to put together a podcast, but you're having trouble creating an RSS feed or finding a way to play it from your blog, BlogAmp could be a useful tool. For veterans of audio on the web, there's probably nothing here you can't already do yourself and customize more carefully.
Last time we told you about a science podcast that was all about getting to the truth, now let's look at a podcast that covers the other side of science. Escape Pod is a weekly short story podcast hosted by Stephen Eley released every Thursday. The three-year-old podcast will stretch your mind with all types of sci-fi including space, time, technology, hard science, and even weird psychological science fiction. Each episode features some of the best science fiction from the present and the past with some stories from the great digests being read as well as this years Hugo nominees.
All stories come with an introduction that helps guide the listener into the work and gives fair warning to parents about the content of the work. Each episode even carries a rating similar to movies (G to R) to help determine whether you want your kids to listen. This week's PG episode features a 2008 Hugo nominee that was published in Asimov's Science Fiction short story magazine last year. The story took our minds on an Outer Limits type journey that included a main character living out the end of his life and discovering someone who may have been the reincarnation of someone very close to him.
Escape Pod is part of a network of short story podcasts including the horror podcast, Pseudopod, and the fantasy podcast, PodCastle.
Download Pod is an occasional series about our favorite podcasts. If you have suggestions for podcasts you think we should check out, let us know in the comments or via our tips page.
We'd never, ever turn down a good ghost story. Aliens, even the abducting kind (especially the abducting kind!) are incredibly cool. Still, we are pretty sure that T. Rex existed and didn't use those huge incisors for gnashing hellaciously into cantaloupes and mangoes. And we have enough acquaintances who act a little too similarly to lower primates to believe Darwin was too terribly far off.
We really dig people who can talk about the Drake Equation. We dig people who can speak articulately about science, sound extra intelligent, and still be accessible enough that we are able to follow along.
Scientific podcasts are a funny thing. There are many out there that remind us way too much of our college days when we sat for two or three hours in a hot lecture hall listening to a professor full of even hotter air drone on about weather patterns. But there are gems like The Skeptic's Guide, which feel much more like you're sitting a table in a restaurant having a conversation with your smartest friends.
And these guys (and girls!) are smart. The host, Dr. Stephen Novella, is a neurologist teaching at Yale Medical School. Rebecca Watson is the resident Skepchick on the panel, and has the unique claim to fame that there's an asteroid named after her. Jay and Robert Novella are regular contributors and leaders in the New England Skeptical Society. And the weekly guest, James Randi, is the most interesting of the bunch: He's a magician. He's a world famous escape artist. And he's ready to expose, explain, and share with the layman the very scientific explanations for the magical things that go on in the paranormal and pseudoscientific world.
The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe is available from their site, or through iTunes.
The NPR Intelligence Squared US (IQ2US) audio podcast is a series of recordings of public debates held in New York focusing on hot-button issues (most specific to the U.S.) like immigration, affirmative action, and global warming. The debates are held in the Oxford-style meaning there are one motion (topic), one moderator, three speakers for the motion, and three speakers against the motion.
Prior to the start of the debate, visitors cast their votes for or against the motion. During the debate, the results of the initial vote are shown, and the visitors vote again at the end of the debate to decide which side "won."
The debates move quickly, and it's nice to learn things in the car on the way to work instead of listening to drunk 30-somethings talk about "news."
The IQ2US series holds five debates in the spring, and five debates in the fall, and is available from the iTunes Store or the NPR website.
If you named your dog Spike, dream of vacationing in Sunnydale, and never quite got over what happened to Jenny Calendar, then you'll love the gem of a podcast we've uncovered for you. Buffy Between the Lines is original fan fic written and produced by a group of volunteers who probably know more about Xander, Willow, and Buffy than Joss Whedon himself.
Season One is, as they say, already in the can and all the episodes are available for download right from the site. All the usual suspects are featured, including some special appearances by Angel and his crew. The dialogue is snappy and spot-on, right down to the barbs Spike trades with, well, everyone.
Hurry up and get caught up with Season One. The cast is getting ready to start taping the second season and it should be available soon.
We spend a lot of time in front of our computers. But when we finally step away, you know what we like to do? Relax with a good book. No, just kidding! We download digital media from our computers and enjoy it on the go. With that in mind, today we're starting an occasional series bringing you reviews of some of our favorite audio and video podcasts.
We're going to try to avoid the big names at the top of the iTunes charts and bring you some of the more obscure podcasts we think are worth listening to. But that doesn't mean we won't don't love us some Science Friday from NPR or Diggnation. It just means that you're probably already well aware of them. We'd rather tell you about the Naked Scientists, Digital Planet, and Love & Radio.
If you have suggestions for podcasts you think we should check out, let us know in the comments. And stay tuned for our first irregularly scheduled review.
Podcast aggregator and search engine Odeo is beta testing a new web site, and from what we've seen so far, it's a vast improvement over Odeo's existing page. The first thing you'll notice (if you're invited to join the beta after signing up for an invite), is a new, cleaner look that makes it easier to find featured podcasts and browse by categories. But much more impressive is the new search feature. We didn't realize how poor the old search feature was until we tried searching for podcasts using the new search box and actually got accurate results immediately.
Here are a few other features of the new site:
Users can rate and comment on shows
Users can now submit feeds for podcasts that aren't included in the Odeo library
There's a pretty new Flash player
The beta page is still a work in progress and not every feature is available. For example, in order to get embed code for placing podcasts on your web site you have to click through to Odeo classic. But we're pretty excited at the direction Odeo is taking.
Thanks to the recent BitTorrent debacle, Comcast has been far from Comcastic for many of its customers. Throttling customers for using technologies they deem too data intensive is pretty nasty, and the company has had to acquiesce and change its practices, but what happens when they disconnect your service (and threaten to keep you shut-down for 12-months) for "excessive usage" -- yet refuse to issue that threat in writing or tell you what "excessive usage" really means?
Well, that is exactly the situation Dave Winer, tech analyst, pioneer and RSS God, has found himself in. Comcast has restored his service, but still says they will shut him down for up to 12 months if he doesn't alter his usage patterns. The kicker? They won't tell him what level he needs to adjust his usage patterns to in order to stay compliant.
Can they do this? Especially without issuing the warning in writing? And what exactly defines, "excessive" in Comcast's terms? Many of us here at Download Squad use Comcast and we DO love to download, so this issue bothers us both on principle and for practicality. Although Comcast has been more receptive via their @Comcastcares Twitter account than they were via phone, this whole situation makes us very, very uncomfortable.
We spoke to Dave earlier today (the podcast of our conversation is here) and this is what he had to say:
"I thought it was an outage and they said I had to call a special number and that I had been disconnected as a matter of policy."
ShellRunAs adds a "Run as Different User" option to the right-click context menu. This allows users, who prefer a GUI interface, from having to resort to using the command-line utility Runas, which accomplishes the same thing.
The program is compatible with Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Vista.
Aside from its practical uses, we should really think about how this software can best be used: framing pranks. Run a program (like a pr0n game) under someone else's account and then accuse them of running that program and show the records to whoever you wish to prove that they did it. Hilarious, I know, but on a more serious note, please be responsible.
Although there are a lot of different screencasting options out there for the Mac, in our opinion, none has had the power and features of Camtasia Studio (a Windows only app); until now.
ScreenFlow from Vara Software is, quite frankly, the best screencasting application for the Mac that we have seen to date -- and trust us, we've tried them all. Taking advantage of Core Animation (making this a Leopard only application), Quartz Composer and a custom 64-bit enabled compression system, ScreenFlow can capture DVD playback (see our screencast below for a demo), 3-D game playback and can also simultaneously capture from your screen and your iSight or DV camera -- meaning you can create a screencast that can show you as you speak.
ScreenFlow's recording algorithms are great, truly, but what really made us excited were all the built-in post capture editing tools. It is very, very easy to add animations to a screen capture, highlighting one window, zooming in on part of the screen, isolating the mouse pointer (and adjusting the opacity of the non-isolated area), and more. Editing is where Camtasia absolutely owns any other screencasting application (regardless of platform), and while ScreenFlow might not be as advanced as Camtasia at this point in time -- it's only at version 1, and it already does the really big stuff.
ScreenFlow is $99.99 and a full functioning demo is available here, you can use all the features, your videos will just have a watermark on the top.
The company behind the popular WordPress blogging platform and WordPress.com, Automattic, has received a large influx of cash from investors. The company has drawn $29.5 million in financing from four companies, including the New York Times Company. After last weeks' news of MySQL being acquired by Sun Microsystems, it appears if you have a great idea and a good business structure, open source is a viable business model.
Matt Mullenweg, the man behind Automattic, has said the company will use the money to build infrastructure, expand product offerings such as Gravatar and spam protection service Akismet, and offer new hosted solutions.
Looking at some of the new traffic metrics, WordPress.com will need to strengthen it's infrastructure. According to GigaOm, In the last 30 days Quantcast reports that Wordpress.com attracted 42 million unique U.S. page views, 114 million global uniques, and 492 million page views overall. WordPress.com is a very attractive option for individuals and organizations who want a blog but don't want to stress about the necessary infrastructure required.
Like podcasting? Like sex? Like not being spoken to as if you're slightly more intelligent than a paramecium? If you answered "yes" to all three of those questions, here are some podcasts you might enjoy.
(Warning to readers. This column both acknowledges the existence of sex, and explores the ways sex and sexuality relate to and are enhanced by the internet. If you're offended by such content, don't take the jump.)
Whether you're recording a podcast, a Squadcast, or anything in between it can sometimes be difficult to remember what you were trying to say once a video camera starts rolling. CuePrompter is free online teleprompter service that allows you to turn your computers web browser into a teleprompter of sorts and keep yourself on track while you're recording your next masterpiece.
Using CuePrompter is pretty easy: all you need to do is copy and paste your script in a box on the site and then "Start Prompter." CuePrompter then launches in a new window with you text and you're a play button away from teleprompter bliss. You can customize CuePrompter for your needs by choosing between a small screen size (good if you're using your computers webcam) or a big screen size (good if you've got a camcorder set up across the room) as well as a small or big font size depending on your situation and eyesight capabilities. The prompter has nine different speeds, can be made full-screen, viewed in normal or mirrored mode, and can be played backwards.
Each prompter session is limited to 2000 characters and requires you to be running MS Internet Explorer 5.0 or above and MS Windows XP, 2000, or 2003 to work properly. We tested it out using Firefox on a Mac and only ran into problems using the mirror and full-screen mode. CuePrompter also seemed to have some minor issue translating apostrophes. One thing that definitely makes CuePrompter different than regular prompters however is you have no way to really control the prompter once its started beyond simple starting and stopping, so once you start CuePrompter you better be ready to go.
Podcasts are unruly things. There are millions of them out there, and only a small percentage interest you. An even smaller percentage are actually worth listening to. You've got to search them out, add them to your aggregator, or download them to your computer or device. Not particularly difficult, but not particularly convenient, either.
We've taken some time to play with the Mediafly podcast/vodcast search and delivery service. We'd describe Mediafly as part search engine, part social network, part delivery service, with a healthy dose of Amazon-esque recommendation thrown in. It's still in beta, and where there's definitely some work left to be done, it's shaping up to be a service with promise.
Describing Mediafly is hard. Using it is considerably easier.
Podcasting might not be easy, but it isn't as hard as you think. Christina and Grant catch up with Amber Rhea to talk about the benefits of starting your own podcast.
Not into this whole "creation of new media" thing? Only want to listen? We offer a few tips for getting started as a podcast listener, too!
The Squadcast's "The Five" this week features Download Squad's five favorite podcast tools, sites and tricks. Download this episode (mp4) (iPod, iPhone, Nano, AppleTV, Quicktime, VLC)
BlogAmp is a service that generates embeddable podcasts for your blog. BlogAmp calls them audiocasts, to include both streaming and downloadable 'casts, but we'll stick with "podcasts." Those were streaming too, last we heard. BlogAmp basically handles the generation of your podcast from start to finish: uploading, creating an embedded player, and creating an RSS feed. 
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