This was my shuffle-ized playlist for the morning ride and cooldown. There isn’t a radio station on the planet (satellite or terrestrial) that would have put a playlist like this together.
![Morning Playlist - 2007/06/08](http://www.darcynorman.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/morningplaylist.png)
It looks pretty eclectic, but the tracks all worked amazingly well against each other.
I’m pretty hooked on the new games for the iPod. I’ve already bought 4 of them, and am trying to hold back from buying the rest. (I know – I should have bought the bundle, but I didn’t think I’d want them all…)
They’re really great implementations, most are likely better than their desktop counterparts due to being better suited to a circular controller. I’m addicted to Zuma. Like a junkie.
But… The games seem to suck the soul out of the battery even faster than playing a video does. I played a game on the bus ride home tonight (it was raining, and I wussed out and left the bike at home) and it killed about half of the battery. That makes about an hour of gameplay on a fully charged battery? That can’t be right.
I’m hoping it’s just a battery life calibration issue, rather than an actual drain. I can always pack an extra long extension cord so I can get my fix of Zuma…
I’m pretty hooked on the new games for the iPod. I’ve already bought 4 of them, and am trying to hold back from buying the rest. (I know – I should have bought the bundle, but I didn’t think I’d want them all…)
They’re really great implementations, most are likely better than their desktop counterparts due to being better suited to a circular controller. I’m addicted to Zuma. Like a junkie.
But… The games seem to suck the soul out of the battery even faster than playing a video does. I played a game on the bus ride home tonight (it was raining, and I wussed out and left the bike at home) and it killed about half of the battery. That makes about an hour of gameplay on a fully charged battery? That can’t be right.
I’m hoping it’s just a battery life calibration issue, rather than an actual drain. I can always pack an extra long extension cord so I can get my fix of Zuma…
I’ve already bought three games for my iPod: Bejeweled, Vortex and Zuma. I’m installing the update now so I can copy them over to the iPod to play.
BUT… there are some glaring omissions from the iPod-friendly game list. How about:
- Tempest
- Asteroids
- Space Castle
- Doom/Quake
- Pitfall!
- just about any Intellivision game (same controller, basically)
I’ve already bought three games for my iPod: Bejeweled, Vortex and Zuma. I’m installing the update now so I can copy them over to the iPod to play.
BUT… there are some glaring omissions from the iPod-friendly game list. How about:
- Tempest
- Asteroids
- Space Castle
- Doom/Quake
- Pitfall!
- just about any Intellivision game (same controller, basically)
Well, this just came over the wires, so I guess it’s official. Looks like The University of Calgary is about to do podcasting in a big way.
The University of Calgary will be the first university in the country to introduce podcasting on a large scale when it launches four courses in the summer and fall featuring portable MP3 technology as a teaching tool.
and
The U of C will introduce podcasting in four courses that involve about 700 students: iCOMS 201, Introduction to Communications Studies, summer 06; iENGL 231, Introduction to Fiction, winter 07; iCHEM 351, Organic Chemistry I, Fall 06; and iSOCI 201, Introduction to Sociology, Fall 06.
I guess I’m going to have to get around to putting on those podcasting workshops I was promising. Topics like “how to record/publish a podcast” and “how to make a podcast that doesn’t suck” and “podcasting isn’t just recording the whole damned lecture” etc…
Does this mean I can put in for a new iPod to show the video stuff, and a Big Microphone to demo recording? We’re putting the little “i” in front of the cool new courses, too…
Update: Just did a search of the UCalgary domain to see what kind of stuff we’re doing with podcasting. The only results that came up were from my blog, and the wiki page I started 🙂
Well, this just came over the wires, so I guess it’s official. Looks like The University of Calgary is about to do podcasting in a big way.
The University of Calgary will be the first university in the country to introduce podcasting on a large scale when it launches four courses in the summer and fall featuring portable MP3 technology as a teaching tool.
and
The U of C will introduce podcasting in four courses that involve about 700 students: iCOMS 201, Introduction to Communications Studies, summer 06; iENGL 231, Introduction to Fiction, winter 07; iCHEM 351, Organic Chemistry I, Fall 06; and iSOCI 201, Introduction to Sociology, Fall 06.
I guess I’m going to have to get around to putting on those podcasting workshops I was promising. Topics like “how to record/publish a podcast” and “how to make a podcast that doesn’t suck” and “podcasting isn’t just recording the whole damned lecture” etc…
Does this mean I can put in for a new iPod to show the video stuff, and a Big Microphone to demo recording? We’re putting the little “i” in front of the cool new courses, too…
Update: Just did a search of the UCalgary domain to see what kind of stuff we’re doing with podcasting. The only results that came up were from my blog, and the wiki page I started 🙂
There are lots of people (Gardner, Brian, Tama, some /. trolls) posting interesting and thoughtful responses to the iTunes University service. It seems like the (online) consensus is something like “It sucks as a concept – forcing universities to lock content behind walled gardens, restricting access and requiring proprietary playback mechanisms.”
This is a valid point, worth consideration. However, at the risk of appearing to be an Apple apologist, I’d suggest that the alternatives be considered.
- Don’t publish the content (status quo). This somehow feels like a tighter lock-down than publishing into iTMS.
- Publish on your own. People are doing this. It’s hard to scale, though. Apple’s offering infrastructure and systems that would be hard to replicate. It is possible, of course, as shown by MIT OpenCourseWare.
- Create a new iTunes + iTMS clone, perhaps open source, that could be used. Technically possible. Is it worth the effort and resources to do this, though? I’m not sure.
And, I haven’t seen anything requiring exclusive distribution “rights” being granted to Apple. The content remains property of the university, who is of course free to repackage and republish to their heart’s content. Don’t like iTunes? Write your own client. Don’t like AAC? Convert a copy to MP3 or Ogg Vorbis or Real or WMA or whatever. Don’t want the only online copy of the file to be served from Cupertino? Stick a copy on your own server, and provide some kind of service to let people access it.
From what I see, and I have no insider info (so I could of course be wrong), all the iTunes U. service offers is an option for publishing media easily, into the most popular (legal) online content distribution system on the planet.
I’m stepping out on a limb here, but if Apple provided a website front-end, and the option to use MP3 as the file format, would the objections remain? It’s not as simple as “Commercial/proprietary systems suck!” – the option, for many, is to not be able to effectively share content at all. Apple isn’t intending to restrict, they’re attempting to enable.
Update: I just talked with someone at Apple who would know – and iTunes U supports any file format that iTunes can grok – you can publish .mp3 (or .wav, or .aiff, or Apple Lossless) audio, .mp4 video, even .pdf files (that’s how album art is handled) as well as the “default” formats of .aac etc… This means there is no lock-in to having an iPod as portable playback device (and even the .aac files can be converted by iTunes to .mp3 now).
There are lots of people (Gardner, Brian, Tama, some /. trolls) posting interesting and thoughtful responses to the iTunes University service. It seems like the (online) consensus is something like “It sucks as a concept – forcing universities to lock content behind walled gardens, restricting access and requiring proprietary playback mechanisms.”
This is a valid point, worth consideration. However, at the risk of appearing to be an Apple apologist, I’d suggest that the alternatives be considered.
- Don’t publish the content (status quo). This somehow feels like a tighter lock-down than publishing into iTMS.
- Publish on your own. People are doing this. It’s hard to scale, though. Apple’s offering infrastructure and systems that would be hard to replicate. It is possible, of course, as shown by MIT OpenCourseWare.
- Create a new iTunes + iTMS clone, perhaps open source, that could be used. Technically possible. Is it worth the effort and resources to do this, though? I’m not sure.
And, I haven’t seen anything requiring exclusive distribution “rights” being granted to Apple. The content remains property of the university, who is of course free to repackage and republish to their heart’s content. Don’t like iTunes? Write your own client. Don’t like AAC? Convert a copy to MP3 or Ogg Vorbis or Real or WMA or whatever. Don’t want the only online copy of the file to be served from Cupertino? Stick a copy on your own server, and provide some kind of service to let people access it.
From what I see, and I have no insider info (so I could of course be wrong), all the iTunes U. service offers is an option for publishing media easily, into the most popular (legal) online content distribution system on the planet.
I’m stepping out on a limb here, but if Apple provided a website front-end, and the option to use MP3 as the file format, would the objections remain? It’s not as simple as “Commercial/proprietary systems suck!” – the option, for many, is to not be able to effectively share content at all. Apple isn’t intending to restrict, they’re attempting to enable.
Update: I just talked with someone at Apple who would know – and iTunes U supports any file format that iTunes can grok – you can publish .mp3 (or .wav, or .aiff, or Apple Lossless) audio, .mp4 video, even .pdf files (that’s how album art is handled) as well as the “default” formats of .aac etc… This means there is no lock-in to having an iPod as portable playback device (and even the .aac files can be converted by iTunes to .mp3 now).
I would have blogged this sooner, but was having The Day From Hell™ – regardless, this is pretty cool stuff. Apple has opened up the iTunes media warehouse for any campus to share audio and video via the iTMS interface. This will allow any campus to replicate something like the Stanford iTunes Experience relatively easily, with the possibility to hook into things like lecturecasting, alumni communication, community outreach, etc…
I’m going to be cheerleading and doing whatever I can to get the University of Calgary to take them up on this.
There are some issues, like the perceived lock-in to the iPod, and the need to have iTunes on the desktop. Both aspects have some very strong arguments both for and against, which I’m not going to rehash now (but am giving them a lot of thought, and Brian’s given it a go already).
One thing I’d like to know is how to integrate the iTMS as a part of a larger ecosystem – it can’t be an exclusive engagement, so there would be nothing preventing a campus from also producing .mp3 versions of appropriate files and hosting them in a non-iTMS solution for the non-iTunes-using, non-iPod-toting, or Linux-using crowds.
I would have blogged this sooner, but was having The Day From Hell™ – regardless, this is pretty cool stuff. Apple has opened up the iTunes media warehouse for any campus to share audio and video via the iTMS interface. This will allow any campus to replicate something like the Stanford iTunes Experience relatively easily, with the possibility to hook into things like lecturecasting, alumni communication, community outreach, etc…
I’m going to be cheerleading and doing whatever I can to get the University of Calgary to take them up on this.
There are some issues, like the perceived lock-in to the iPod, and the need to have iTunes on the desktop. Both aspects have some very strong arguments both for and against, which I’m not going to rehash now (but am giving them a lot of thought, and Brian’s given it a go already).
One thing I’d like to know is how to integrate the iTMS as a part of a larger ecosystem – it can’t be an exclusive engagement, so there would be nothing preventing a campus from also producing .mp3 versions of appropriate files and hosting them in a non-iTMS solution for the non-iTunes-using, non-iPod-toting, or Linux-using crowds.
Well, iDoom, anyway. Finally got around to installing iDoom on my 3G iPod, and man, it plays nice. Surprisingly, it’s about as snappy as the original game was on the smoking fast 486 DX 66 I played it on back at the Alberta Science Centre…
I was surprised that it doesn’t use the scrollwheel to control movement – seems like it would be perfect for steering the little Doomer…
I just checked out the videos of iDoom on various iPods, and man, I need to upgrade to a colour screen version 🙂
Well, iDoom, anyway. Finally got around to installing iDoom on my 3G iPod, and man, it plays nice. Surprisingly, it’s about as snappy as the original game was on the smoking fast 486 DX 66 I played it on back at the Alberta Science Centre…
I was surprised that it doesn’t use the scrollwheel to control movement – seems like it would be perfect for steering the little Doomer…
I just checked out the videos of iDoom on various iPods, and man, I need to upgrade to a colour screen version 🙂
I just dropped the latest version of iPodLinux on my iPod to test out recording at higher sample rates. I cranked it up to 44.1KHz, and the recording from the TuneTalk microphone sounded freaking amazing! I’ll have to do some more playing/testing to see how it works for longer recordings (how fast does it suck down the battery? does it still have the high-pitched whine in the background?)
But, while I had linux running on the iPod, I poked around at what else is offered. It’s got some new games, including a non-playable demo of TEMPEST! That is so cool! Apple, please include Tempest as a default game! That is SO perfect for the iPod controller… Oh, and it’s got a version of an Etch-A-Sketch program that is pretty cool. Yay, linux!
I just dropped the latest version of iPodLinux on my iPod to test out recording at higher sample rates. I cranked it up to 44.1KHz, and the recording from the TuneTalk microphone sounded freaking amazing! I’ll have to do some more playing/testing to see how it works for longer recordings (how fast does it suck down the battery? does it still have the high-pitched whine in the background?)
But, while I had linux running on the iPod, I poked around at what else is offered. It’s got some new games, including a non-playable demo of TEMPEST! That is so cool! Apple, please include Tempest as a default game! That is SO perfect for the iPod controller… Oh, and it’s got a version of an Etch-A-Sketch program that is pretty cool. Yay, linux!
This morning before the meeting started, I took a quick sprinting shopping spree through Macy’s and then to the Apple Store. Played with the new video iPods. Oh my f#cking god. How can they make something so obviously incredible? I must have one. Oh, yeah. Cash…
Where was I going with this? Oh, yeah. I also picked up a Belkin TuneTalk microphone for my iPod. Maybe Evan will give it to me for Christmas. Plugged it into my iPod and it pops up immediately with the “Record Now” screen. Cool. So, I record some sample stuff, and it doesn’t sound like crap. Actually, it sounds completely decent. With some massaging in Audacity or GarageBand, it might even sound good. I can even leave the iPod on my belt, with the microphone in place, and record myself talking while standing and walking around. Kind of like I do when I present something to a group. Hmmmm… Might have to experiment with recording my next presentation… It also seems like a pretty handy podcasting recording setup as well.
I’ll likely be playing with the microphone while I’m here. I shouldn’t record myself at the moment, as I have a little too much wine in me to want my words recorded and published to the inkernets. Tomorrow 🙂
Listening to a longish recording I made today during the “Welcome”meeting, and am noticing some, well, issues with loud speech while recording. It seems like when the audio being recorded maxes out, instead of just clipping the audio, it inserts static. Be careful not to max out audio levels. It’s also entertaining to hear the iPod hard drive spinning up in the recorded audio as the file is periodically spooled to disk.
This morning before the meeting started, I took a quick sprinting shopping spree through Macy’s and then to the Apple Store. Played with the new video iPods. Oh my f#cking god. How can they make something so obviously incredible? I must have one. Oh, yeah. Cash…
Where was I going with this? Oh, yeah. I also picked up a Belkin TuneTalk microphone for my iPod. Maybe Evan will give it to me for Christmas. Plugged it into my iPod and it pops up immediately with the “Record Now” screen. Cool. So, I record some sample stuff, and it doesn’t sound like crap. Actually, it sounds completely decent. With some massaging in Audacity or GarageBand, it might even sound good. I can even leave the iPod on my belt, with the microphone in place, and record myself talking while standing and walking around. Kind of like I do when I present something to a group. Hmmmm… Might have to experiment with recording my next presentation… It also seems like a pretty handy podcasting recording setup as well.
I’ll likely be playing with the microphone while I’m here. I shouldn’t record myself at the moment, as I have a little too much wine in me to want my words recorded and published to the inkernets. Tomorrow 🙂
Listening to a longish recording I made today during the “Welcome”meeting, and am noticing some, well, issues with loud speech while recording. It seems like when the audio being recorded maxes out, instead of just clipping the audio, it inserts static. Be careful not to max out audio levels. It’s also entertaining to hear the iPod hard drive spinning up in the recorded audio as the file is periodically spooled to disk.