Netvibes.com is a very cool page you customize with the contents of RSS feeds, weather, etc. It’s programmed using AJAX (if you don’t understand, don’t worry) and it does the absolutely coolest thing when you add a podcast’s RSS feed. Just try it, I won’t spoil the surprise. Since I listen to podcasts at work all day and nibble incessantly on news sites, Netvibes will be my browser’s new default start page.
Category: Cool Website
New Podcast & Videocast Directory
http://www.loomia.com/ Looks interesting. It compares your playlist to that of other users and recommends other pod/videocasts.
But its most compelling feature, of course, is that HFJ is fully indexed. Maybe that’ll encourage iTunes to get its act together.
A real Podcast/videocast coming soon
Last week I did a podcast/videocast at the new Apple Store in Shibuya. Had I not forgotten my iRiver at the office over the weekend, I would have put it up. I have the rest of this week off, so it’ll be up soon.
Two new and cool things to show ya’ll:
- A Google Map mashup that shows who has visited my site lately.
- The most awesome streaming video technology I have ever seen. Oh. My. God. Click that link, it’ll blow you away. I will play with VP7 as soon as I can. Like, as soon as I can park the kids in front of the PlayStation so I can shoot & encode some video. Unfortunately, it looks like you gotta pay to use Vividas’ Java applet that plays fullscreen video. Nevertheless, this is making my geek nipples so hard, they’re bleeding.
Testing YouTube.com video
YouTube.com allows you to upload and share video clips similar to how Flickr.com lets you share photos. I’ve been playing with it lately. It downgrades the quality of uploaded videos quite horribly, but for non-technical people on dialup accounts (i.e. parents and grandparents) it’s easy to use. The RSS feed isn’t iTunes compatible, but that hardly matters to Mom. All the videos I put there will be G-rated.
So yeah, I realize I’m all over the place. Like fungus. That’s how we spastic people with short attention spans work.
Public Service Announcement: iScoot extends Skype
It’s now possible to have incoming Skype calls forwarded to any phone, even your mobile phone. Holy-frikkin’-moley.
First, let’s assume that you use Skype on a PC and you already have purchased SkypeOut credit so that you can can make PC to phone calls. Next, download and install iScoot. Fire it up and enter your mobile phone’s number. Leave your PC connected to the net with Skype and iScoot running and go outside. (If you’re afraid to go outside, then just walk a few steps away from the computer. Don’t worry, your porn collection won’t evaporate.) When somebody Skypes you, iScoot will patch the incoming call to your phone via SkypeOut.
Now is that cool or what? I assume that if I use SkypeIn, someone could call my number in the US and it’ll be put through to my mobile.
A Public Service Announcement
There is a yet unknown podcast called The Real Happy Hour that made me laugh out loud over and over. I can’t listen to it in public. At this point, only people in the know are hip to it. For the love of all that is sacred, give it a listen.
If anyone out there is interested in vlogs
Here are a few URLs to get you started.
- Fireant is like iPodder but for video.
- How to vlog for free. And guess what, you can host a podcast for free in exactly the same way.
- VlogDir.com is like Podcast Alley for videoblogs.
Geoblogging: Mapping photos
I live for this stuff. Someone mashed together Google Maps, Flickr, Firefox, and Greasemonkey to make it incredibly easy to show exactly where a photo was taken.
Here’s an example. Click on the photo below to go to the photo’s page on flickr.com. On that page, click on the hyperlink “GeoTagged” below the photo. It’ll take you to the geoblogger.com site and show you on a map the exact location where it was taken.
If you’re willing to click one more time, click on the “satellite” link in the top right corner of the map to see the location on a satellite photo of Tokyo. Zoom all the way in and you’ll see Shinjuku Station.
This is so simple to do that I’ll definitely be tagging the photos that accompany soundseeing tours. If you have flickr account and are somewhat technically savvy, instructions are here.
Being attention deficient is a good personality trait for podcasters, isn’t it? (Except when having to edit hours and hours of audio.)
Apparently there’s also a way to import the data into Google Earth, but I’ll leave that for another day. It’s a great app to play with if you have a powerful enough PC and video card.
Here’s a fun activity: Learn how to zoom in on your house starting from all the way out in space. If you’re ever abducted and you manage to comandeer an alien dingy to make your escape, this skill surely will come in handy.
del.icio.us/iTunes 4.9 mashup
Lifehacker has a cool post on how to point iTunes 4.9 to del.icio.us RSS feeds of videos and MP3s. With no more bandwidth worries, I, of course, took advantage of this to promote HFJ guerilla-style.
How to find and add media to your iTunes library with del.icio.us
Our House is a Very Very Very Fine House.
Click and drag on the image to scroll around. If you’re saying, “What image?” then you need to install Java. Go ahead. It’s good for you.
That’s the back of our house. The house on the other side of the “street” with all the shrubbery in front of it is my father in law’s house.
I made this with very little effort and no practice. That’s why it’s kinda crappy. I simply stood in one spot and “painted” the scene with my Sony Clie’s 160×120 pixel video camera; no tripod, no nuthin’, I simply filmed everywhere. I downloaded the MPEG-4 movie to my PC and exported about three frames a second to JPEG using QuickTime. Then I pointed AutoStitch at the directory full of images. It did the rest.
There are ways to create higher quality panoramas, but they take lots of time, effort and an investment in hardware. But for what I want to do–take a quick immersive snapshot so listeners can get a clearer image of what they’re hearing–I’m happy with it. Take a look here for some stunningly beautiful hi-res panoramas of Japan.
You can see most of the path I took on the walk from the door to the rice field full of frogs. The door’s in front of you. Pan left. I walked up the alley then turned right. The rice field is right behind the white truck parked in the driveway of grandpa’s house.