Monday, November 15, 2004

Final Post Today So, I have been quite the good blogger today.  I really like making the switch to Radio Userland.  I think I will pay for it within the next week or so.  Very good piece of software, and once I get some more time I will play around with the layout of my site and add some more links and such.  There is one thing, though, that I need to continue to remind myself of when posting.  DO NOT open any web links!!!!  If the WYSIWYG editor is open, and you have content ready to go, the link will open up in the browser, and you will lose your content.  I know, I have done it twice already.  ;-) I am off to make a phonecall, watch a tiny bit of Monday Night Football, and then sleepy-time.  Until tomorrow.  9:25:03 PM    comment []  trackback []

Getting Podcasts onto a Dell DJ I spent some time about 6 weeks ago figuring out how to get the new hotness of podcasts onto my MP3 player, a Dell DJ.  I took some time figuring out which podcast retrieval software to use, and then I figured out how to get the podcasts onto my player.  After looking at iPodder and some other alternatives, I decided to use Doppler.  Doppler had some features that at the time iPodder did not: "drag and drop" subscribing to feeds minimize to the system tray specification of a directory for downloaded feeds iPodder has since added some of these features.  One of the caveats about Doppler, though, is that it will require the Microsoft .NET Framework, Version 1.1.  If you do not have that installed, you will be unable to see text on buttons and such (as I discovered on my PC at the office).  I realize that this is all merely an intermediate step until FeedDemon 1.5 is released with support for podcasts (thanks for teasing me with that feature, Nick). So, now you can subscribe to all the feeds you want and tell Doppler when to get them and where to put them.  So, now how do you get all of this content onto your player?  In my case, the solution was simple.  Since the software Dell ships with the DJ sucks, I bought Red Chair Software's Dudebox Explorer.  If you do not have it, I suggest you go buy it.  It is well-worth the price.  Dudebox has a SpeedSync feature.  Essentially, you can specify a source location on your PC to use as the source for files that need to be on your player.  Once you select that, you will merely need to start a sync, and tell Dudebox to sync these files to your player.  Wait a few moments, and you will have new podcasts on your player.  The only problem I have is having to delete old podcasts out from the source folder.  It is slightly annoying, but I do not want to the old content on the DJ, and there is no point having that same content on my hard drive if I no longer need it.  According to what FeedDemon and Doppler will do in their future versions is to delete content that is older than x days.  I look forward to that.  9:05:03 PM    comment []  trackback []

Ranting on Microsoft Money 2005 So, I have been running the latest version of Microsoft Money 2005. I like what they have done with the product, and I have always appreciated how the product has gotten better with each year. This year, though, they apparently decided to remove the Money Express feature, claiming it was the source of many problems. For those of you who do not know, Money Express was the Money icon that lived in the system tray. It reminded you of bills due, allowed you to quickly enter transactions, and was another way to start Money. Well, I miss the reminder part for bills. In order for me to get any reminder, I need to have Money open. This is unacceptable. It appears that one can get reminders if they fully enable the "online experience" of Money. I am not about to do that. So, who can I complain to? Can I find someone on the Money team to grouse about this "feature" to? I should go pester Scoble on this one, since he has been quite adamant about people giving him feedback. Should I call his cell phone? ;-) 8:29:34 PM    comment []  trackback []

Surrendering to Non-working Scripts I have decided to give up importing my old blog entries. Why bother, as no one read them then, and the likelihood is high that no one will read them here (or even this post, for that matter). That said, my interest in listening to Podcasts has not dimmed. one of the podcasts I listen to regularly is Adam Curry's Daily Source Code. It is in that podcast that I knew the background behind the article on the front page of the Sunday Baltimore Sun yesterday. I even mentioned this to a friend, and threw Adam Curry's name and podcasting around. It was a geeky moment for me, but for Adam I think it is safe to say: "BOOOOOIIIIIINNNNNGGG!!!!" More entries later this evening. 4:59:39 PM    comment []  trackback []