Schinckel.net

Occasionally, the ABC have items on their programs to which they don’t have the copyright for, and as such they cannot post an MP3 of the program, but will do a Real Audio stream. Meaning you have to use Real Audio to listen to it, and you cannot archive it. Or so it seems. Now, I refuse to use Real Audio: it’s nothing to do with commercial software or anything like that (there is after all a free version), but I just don’t like streaming. I find that on dialup it just doesn’t work well. And, the time I spend at the computer I am generally reading, so listening to anything other than music just doesn’t work well. I much rather listen to Podcasts while commuting. So, how do you get an item into your iTunes Podcast library? You’ll need mplayer. You can find it at the MPlayerOSX Website. Install it, and then add the following to your ~/.profile:

    function realdump
    {
        if test -f $1 ; then
            realdump `cat $1` 
        else
            export temp=${1/#*\//}
            export filename=${temp/.*/.wav}
            ~/bin/mplayer -cache 128 -vc dummy -vo null -ao pcm -aofile $filename $1
        fi
        if test $# -gt 1 ; then
        shift
        realdump $*
        fi
    }

You’ll also need something to encode in either MP3, or AAC format. faac is great for the latter, LAME for the former. I use faac, and have the following in my ~/.profile:

    function faac_podcast
    {
        faac -b 64 -w $1
    }

You’ll want something similar if you use LAME. The ABC has a placeholder MP3 file, that is usually just a short blurb saying they don’t have the ability to put the program up as an MP3. Download this, and then go to the website of the program in question. Find the Real Audio stream, and download the .ram file. Open this in a text editor, and use the Terminal to download the stream using: $ realdump rtsp://www.server.net/path/to/file.ra Then use the following command to encode the file: $ faac_podcast filename.wav This may take some time - although on my computer it was a bit faster than the previous step. In iTunes, ask the Finder to reveal the placeholder file (select it, then use ⌘R, or File - Show Song File). Give the replacement file exactly the same name, except keep the right extension, and copy this file to the same location. If they are the same file format, it will overwrite the placeholder, and you are finished. If not, you need to delete the placeholder file, but not the library entry. Moving the file is not enough, you must delete it! Then, to connect the entry to the replacement file, use ⌘I (Get Info…) and choose to select the file. Choose the replacement file. You can use iTunes to import and convert the file, but for me this was much slower. It requires copying the full WAV file to the library (slow, since mine is on a server), and then converting it to MP3/AAC (again, slow, as it needs to get all of the data back from the server, and then send the new stuff there).

I use a “Rating is no stars” playlist, but it seems to pick up the tracks rated 1-19 as well. I’m not surprised, in the light of my recent article on the relative play counts of various rated tracks.

OmniNerd - Articles: Extended iTunes Rating

iTunes has the ability to store ratings of a finer gradient than just the number of stars. Higher rated tracks should be played more, but is this always the case? I needed to know the answer to this.

This is the long-awaited article I wrote for OmniNerd, expanding on the results I obtained in my ratings research and experiment using iTunes. Well worth the read, if I do say so myself!

My biggest hate about iTunes is that if the download of a Podcast fails, it needs to restart the whole download, rather than just resume. This really sucks if you are 21Mb into a 22.5Mb download. Using the technique illustrated in Adding a Podcast to a Pre-Existing Subscription, it’s possible to download the files in another program, such as wget, which can handle resumes. It also tends not to drop out as much as iTunes does when the network is congested. Which it is automatically when three downloads are concurrently occurring. There are some changes that need to be made to the process, but these are really just simplifications. You need to know the URL of the file you want to get, which can be obtained using the following AppleScript:

    tell application "iTunes"
        set the clipboard to address of item 1 of selection
    end tell

Then, set up your http server, and create the same directory structure from your server root. Go to the relevant directory, and download the files you want to grab. Finally, go offline, and point the domain(s) at your own computer. Go back into iTunes, and use the GET button to grab the files from your own ‘server’. Don’t use the Update Podcasts button, or an error may occur. This removes the need to recreate the XML file, which is the most labour intensive part of the process illustrated in the previous post. It works a treat.

[Playlist] Mobster

For those of you unfamiliar with the application, Mobster acts as a XSPF content resolver to build playlists out of the local music library. This means that if you get a XSPF with filled out metadata (), Mobster will look through your local iTunes library and recreate the playlist with any of the songs you have available.

Basically, XPSF is a playlist file that doesn’t store the track’s location, only title, artist and album. Thus, you can share playlists, and people that have (some or all of) the tracks can then listen to the playlist. I have done some exports of playlists from iTunes, and it is pretty good at matching them up if you re-import the playlist, so I’m not that sure this is that worthwhile.

Boing Boing: New Line’s XXX web game demands your gov’t. ID As pointed out, you can use G.W. Bush’s details. Or surely, you could use your parent’s ID details? Most kids know these details of their parents, don’t they?

In the latest issue of The Monthly, Gideon Haigh explains how having access to so much information, and in particular access in the way Google presents it, is making us less smart. There’s still lots to like about this magazine: it provides a new voice in Australian culture, having extended articles on interesting topics. I see it as similar in some ways to the Independent Weekly, a newspaper that’s new to Adelaide, but easier to handle in a couple of ways - firstly being a smaller format. It’s much easier to take with you, and therefore take your time reading it. The articles are a bit more national - although there are several international articles in the various editions I’ve read.

So, does Google make you dumber?

Google is a very new phenomenon. It wasn’t the first Search Engine on the Internet, but it is certainly the first one to become a household name. Everyone knows what Google is, and, as Haigh indicates, people think that Google has all of the answers. You can find virtually everything on Google, and I use it as a first place for finding information now. I guess the advantage I have over the next generation is that I have a background in finding information gathering - that is, I studied at University when libraries were the best source of information.

I also have a healthy level of skepticism; I try to think about the source of every article I read, and judge it for bias. Students who have only ever known Google and the Internet tend not to understand that some sources of information are more reliable than others. I think there is lots to like about Google, and the ease at which it finds information. The suggestion that sites that are popular tend to become more popular is made, and I concede that this appears to be the case. However, as a self-publisher, I find that my site has a fairly decent PageRank, just by actually writing lots of stuff that I know a bit about.

Generally, Google is very good at finding the best source of information on a topic. Whilst most people don’t go past the first page of hits, that’s because the rest of the information tends to be a little crap. There is lots of junk on the internet, but using the correct search terms means that it’s possible to find anything about anything, quickly and with little effort. The key here is knowing how to best use Google to search. Whilst Google has a great, simple interface, there is huge power underneath.

Students, especially post-secondary, must know how to search using some of the advanced methods, or even just using quotes to search for a phrase, rather than a list of words. And Google, at this time, is not the be-all and end-all of searching, especially for academic purposes. Things like Medline, and specific search engines (often not publicly available, or not free) provide full-text indexing of many academic journals. I look forward to the day when Google Scholar has all of this information, free. I haven’t done much with Google Scholar, as I’m not actively studying right now, but I suspect that there are indices that are not accessible through this interface. And having access to the titles of articles, and in some cases abstracts, isn’t enough. I want there to be full access to full text of journals. I don’t know how journals will manage the transition to free access, or even if they will, but it looks like a rosy future, when I don’t have to travel from University library to library to try and find a particular issue of a particular periodical. I often use the adage: I don’t know, but I know how to find it out, and this aspect of knowledge is taken into account by Haigh when she quotes Julian Sefton-Green (a lecturer from my old University, UniSA):

…It’s much more important that people know where to find out… it’s going to be much more important to be able to rank, order and interpret information than [to know] the information itself; to have the appropriate critical and analytical tools.

One of the Podcasts I subscribe to is Quirks and Quarks, from CBC, the Canadian Public Broadcaster. The latest episode has the main story about exercise, and ‘busts some myths’ related to exercise. There are a few different myths that are dealt with, but the one that affects me most is:

• Stretching before exercise doesn’t improve performance, or reduce injury; but actually impairs performance, and possibly increases the chance of injury.

That is not to say that warming up is a bad thing - some light exercise is actually beneficial, but stretching is not. For one thing, stretching causes miniscule tears in the muscles. This allows the muscles to move further, but actually impairs performance, as the muscles are not as strong as they were prior to stretching. This effect can be up to a 10% loss in strength. These micro-tears, which are the way the muscle can be improved in the long term, also increase the chance of further damage to the muscles. Think about how a small chip in a car windscreen can expand with just wind force, and you’ll get the idea. Forces can be focussed onto the weak point, causing catastrophic failure. This is not to say that stretching is _all _bad. In fact, a stretching session is great, even if you aren’t a sportsperson, as it increases the overall range of movement and flexibility. I may have to consider this as I run my training sessions this year for State. The other issue that was of some relevance, to me at least, was:

• Some people do not respond well to exercise, in the sense of building body mass, or improving fitness. Everyone improves health by exercise (although only regular exercise) but not everyone gets fit.

I was planning on running a beep test in the first weeks of my training schedule for the 15s this year, and then another in the final weeks, and see how much the girls improved. I think I’ll still do this, but it will be harder to berate them for not working hard enough if they don’t improve. Having said that, I suspect that the girls we select will be those that are genetically predisposed to improving with training, rather than the other way around.

Clean Up Australia Day was started years ago, it’s now expanded into Clean Up The World, or something similar. Apparently the first year was a huge success, and although the numbers of people involved now isn’t as high, it’s still pretty big. I’ve never been involved: it’s always right around the time of my birthday, and whilst I support it, I’m a bit apathetic at times. Anyway, the new Advertisement for it is on TV now, and it’s rather cool. It starts with a picture of Ayers Rock, sorry, Uluru, which when the light turns up is revealed to be a bag of garbage. Then, there is an image of the Olgas, which is really three cans of spray. Then we see the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which is a bicycle wheel and some other garbage. Finally we see the 12 Apostles, which are trash in the water. The clip ends with the phrase “Don’t let rubbish become part of the scenery.” I actually think it is an excellent Ad. It’s punchy, clever and hopefully will cause some support. Will I be involved. I doubt it. I’ve got a 30th birthday party to organise, after all.

Emma • Hot Chocolate • Their Greatest Hits ★★★★★

Under iTunes, Podcast handling is (mostly) an inspired technology. Podcasts _are handled slightly differently to normal audio, or _Music _files, and differently again to _AudioBooks, and Movies. All of which makes perfect sense, as all of these types of files have different purposes. For most people, a Podcast is something they might listen to once, and then discard. I’m not most people. I’m a hoarder, and thus I like to keep of the Podcasts I’ve downloaded. And I like them to be well organised. That means all properly tagged, with reasonable titles. I may want to listen to a particular Podcast again, such as the amazing 000 Emergency episode of Radio Eye (from Radio National), or burn it to a CD to play for students in a class. I’ve also found some MP3 files that are part of a particular Podcast, but have long since been removed from the RSS feed that tell iTunes what files are available. I’ve downloaded these, but needed to be able to get them into iTunes, and make sure they appear in the relevant Subscription. I’ve discovered a way to do this, but at this stage it is a manual process, and can become quite time consuming with many files. You will need the following things to be able to perform this trick nicely:

• All of the music files you intend to import.
• A copy of the XML file that is the basis of the subscription.
• The hostname and path of the subscription.
• An http server.
• The ability to change hostnames, so as to cause software to look in a particular place for a server, rather than using DNS.

I’ve done all of this on a Mac, and the instructions below will reflect this. It is possible to do all of this on other systems, but the steps may vary, especially redirecting the requests to your own server. A note will be made of this. The first thing to do is to ensure that your computer has a working Web Server. If your web browser will not report anything working when you try: http://imac/ (or whatever your computer is called), then you will need to enable the server. Under MacOS X, open System Prefences and choose the Sharing tab. Find Personal Web Sharing in the list, and turn it on. You may need to Authenticate as an administrator in order to do this. Now, you need to grab the XML file. Open iTunes, and select the Subscription you wish to add files to, and Ctrl-Click. Choose Show Description from the popup menu. Record the URL. Download a copy of this URL using, for example wget from the terminal. In my case, the command I used was: $ wget -c http://www.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/feeds/mind.xml The URL contains a fair chunk of the information we will need later, so I’ll explain what everything in the above example means:

• http:// - the protocol used. This will always be hypertext transfer protocol, as this is the only one that iTunes understands.
• www.abc.net.au - the name of the server. We will trick iTunes (and every other application, incidentally) into looking on our computer for this server later.
• /rn/podcast/feeds/ - the directory structure on the remote server.
• mind.xml - the name of the XML file that stores the suscription information.

We now need to set up the files in the right place. Find the root directory of your web server. For a Mac, this is likely to be /Library/Webserver/Documents/. Create a new directory within that one, in my case it was called rn. Then create a new directory inside that one, in this case podcast, and so on. Do not create a new directory with the name of the XML file, instead move the XML file into this last directory. Move the audio files into this directory also. Now, open up the XML file in a text editor, and examine it’s contents. You will need to change the values of a heap of stuff in the <item> section(s), ensuring all of the information is accurate. It’s fairly straightforward, but I’ll summarise them anyway.

• title - The _Title _as it will appear in iTunes. You can edit the title of a Podcast after it has been downloaded.
• description - This appears in the _Description _field of iTunes. There seem to be issues with extended characters of some sort. You seem to be able to have a longer description if you have it in the XML file than if you try to add it later using AppleScript.
• link - the URL of the file.
• pubDate - the Released Date. Make sure it is a valid date, and the correct one for the Podcast to ensure they appear in the right order within iTunes/iPod.
• enclosure -This one has three parts that must all be checked.
  • url - ensure it is the same as the value in link (above).
  • length - this must be the exact size of the file in bytes. This can be obtained on a Mac by using the Get Info command.
  • type - chances are this will already be correct, but if you aren’t using MP3 files, then ensure this reflects that.
• guid - appears to be the title + the pubDate. I assume that this field is used to see if files are the same. I haven’t experimented to see. I suspect it can really be any value, as long as it is unique within this subscription.
• itunes:author - The value to go into the iTunes Author field.
• itunes:summary - iTunes Comment value.
• itunes:duration - The duration in seconds. Again, available through the Get Info window.

Of these, really only enclosure, link, guid and duration are important for now: the remainder can be changed using iTunes later. However, if you have a long description, you might not be able to get it all to appear if you use AppleScript to change it later. I learned this the hard way, and now change the description in the XML file. Now we are up to the tricky part. You need to tell your computer not to look online for a particular server anymore, but to look at your own computer. On a Mac, this is done using NetInfo. Open the / domain, and find machines. Copy the entry localhost, and edit the name so that it reflects the domain name of the server the Podcasts normally live on. In my case, this was www.abc.net.au. If you are using a different OS, you may need to edit /etc/hosts, or the Windows Hosts file. Save your domain. To get the computer to use the new settings reliably, you need to be ‘offline’ - easy for me since I’m on dialup. You will also need to Restart Netinfo Domains after going offline. It may take some time to do the lookup (which has to fail before it looks in the local domain list - which seems to be contra to how I would expect it to work), but after this it will be speedy. Then, simply start up iTunes, and update the required Subscription. It should (very quickly) download all of the podcasts that are ‘new’ - although you may need to manually download them depending on your settings. Finally, reload NetInfo, and remove (or better, rename) the server name you entered before. Don’t use something like www2.abc.net.au, as this is still something that may be used by the company. Instead, put a 2 at the end, so it makes the domain name invalid. You may need to restart, I just connected to the internet, and the server in question worked perfectly again. You can now remove all of the files you no longer need - all of the MP3 files will have been copied to your iTunes library. You may wish to hang onto the XML file, incase you need to repeat this for future episodes.