OverDrive? No, wrong gear!

Nearly forgot about the other part of this activity, I went to take a look at the Overdrive Downloadable Media page, browsed through the catalogue and found a few language learning resources that I would have liked to 'borrow'. When I started to investigate what needed to be done, I found that the content uses copy protection only available on Windows computers. The explanatory note states: 

Our media titles, provided by OverDrive, Inc., use DRM (Digital Rights Management) protection technology from Microsoft Corporation. Unfortunately the iPod (and Mac) currently support neither DRM-protected Windows Media Audio (.wma) files nor Window Media Video (.wmv) files.

What it really should say is that OverDrive Inc have chosen a technology that is only supported by Microsoft on their own platform. If they had used iTunes for delivery then it would be available for both Windows and Mac users. This illustrates the problem with archiving content in a proprietary format that may not exist in the future.

OK, I'll get down off my soapbox now ;-)

eBooks, AudioBooks and more

Exploring this topic seems to have uncovered even more free content out there on the web that I was happily ignorant of before. Now I need to find even more hours in the day just to enjoy all of these excellent resources!

Project Gutenberg has been around for many years now, and is an archive I already knew about. It still has a rich and extensive catalogue, but I don't find the presentation compelling, it seems too hard to find content. I understand their choice of plain text formats for ensuring the greatest portability and future compatibility but it is not an appealing format to read. While being completely familiar and comfortable with the technology, I do prefer to sit (when I get that much free time) and read from a book that I can take anywhere, without all of the other distractions of being online. Where I think the collection of texts has great potential is as a source for various electronic book formats, whether they are on PDAs, smart phones, a laptop, or devices such as Amazon's Kindle e-book reader.

I took a look at the World eBook Fair site but it seems to be rather confused, trying to link in a multitude of other sites, which are better accessed directly as far as I can tell.

The LibriVox site is a different matter, it is well organised and harnesses the technology much better. When I look at Project Gutenberg, I think 'why would I want to read a lot of old books', but browsing the catalogue at LibriVox I recognise many classics that I have always thought I might read. Being able to listen to them in audiobook format is a better option for my busy lifestyle, using the time spent commuting productively.

One thing that might not be obvious immediately is that many of these sites archive other types of media in addition to books - treasures include sheet and recorded music, photos and film (the Apollo 11 lunar landing for example).

Another site worthy of mention is the Internet Archive, another excellent collection.

Something to provide a break from all of this reading, here's a slice of Australian cinema history. Found this at the Internet Archive, a 1920 version of 'Robbery Under Arms'.

The archive article can be found here.

A World of Podcasts

I've been following a few podcasts for a while, the one I listen to regularly is MacTalk Australia, which obviously covers the latest happenings in the Apple Macintosh world, with a good dose of iPhone news as well. Unfortunately my current job is on the other side of town which means far too much driving, so podcasts are a way of adding some variety to my listening whilst stuck in traffic. The only problem now seems to be deciding what to listen to next.

Being a Mac user with an iPod, I have iTunes installed anyway and find it the easiest way to access podcasts (more on this later).

For the purposes of this exercise, I went looking for a few more podcasts of a less technical nature (and thus probably of wider appeal).

Stephen Fry, the English actor, comedian, and author has a podcast on his web site, also accessible from the iTunes Store. Being someone who is a performer and public figure, he has a very relaxed, easy delivery which is a delight to listen to.

I also found a series of Philosophy lectures, which I have not had a chance to listen to yet, but having been introduced to some of the classical philosophers many years ago by way of an engaging work of fiction, Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder, this looks like a convenient way of learning some more about their ideas. Once again available through the iTunes Store, but also here as well.

Back to iTunes, it is an incredibly powerful and sophisticated tool to access not just podcasts, but other forms of multimedia as well. Although the primary justification for the existence of the iTunes Store is commercial, it collects and manages a wealth of free content, including music, video, university courses and of course the podcasts. It is an excellent example of a Web 2.0 application, adding value to the collected content with user reviews, recommendations and artist biographies.

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

Here's an interesting video I found, it shows some of the ideas behind the concept of 'Web 2.0'.

Comments on YouTube

I only play with YouTube from time to time, but whenever I do pay it a visit I am astounded by what I can find there. Being a great music fan it is always fun to track down obscure music videos from bands I like, as well as some live concert footage which is easily missed on TV. It was a unique experience last year getting home from the Pixies gig at the Palace to find clips from that very show already online. It is also a way of reliving some memorable 'pop culture' happenings, for example see the post below about Roy and H.G. Nelson's sports coverage.

I work at a secondary school and one of the issues we have is whether to allow free use of YouTube. The two problems are (a) some content is unsuitable for minors, and (b) the significant bandwidth that video consumes. Teachers would like to be able to use some useful relevant content on the web for teaching, but if we have a whole class trying to hit the same video the network will grind to a halt. Heavy use of bandwidth-intensive resources like this will also add to our internet service bill. Our compromise at the moment is to allow teachers to download the clips out of teaching hours to show during class times. Of course, the other thorny question is one of copyright, which we OR YouTube do not own.

Bomb Diving at the Sydney Olympics

Sitting here watching the women's diving with Melissa Wu making her bid for another medal here tonight, was reminded of the hilarious take on the diving with the AOC mascots that Roy and H.G. got up to. Of course, Fatso the wombat completely blitzed the competition.

Sure enough, it is on YouTube, how timely. Go you Good Thing!

Library Thing - working fine now

Got back on to LibraryThing today, and it is much more responsive now.

Here's my , about 30 books so far, mostly non-fiction as I haven't moved on to the lounge where the fiction books are.

There's a very cool app for the Mac called Delicious Library which is a personal library and cataloging tool. It has a very slick interface and lets you publish catalogues to your iPod or to web pages, but obviously doesn't give quite the sense of community that an online service like LibraryThing does. Other features include being able to scan barcodes with the computer's built-in webcam to save data entry, and it will catalogue other forms of media such as CDs, DVDs and video games.

I've added a screenshot at right to show just how polished the interface looks.

Library Thing - not quite there yet?

I thought I would try to set up my LibraryThing account tonight, but it seems that the site is really slow tonight. I notice that it has a 'beta' label slapped on it, so either they are doing some maintenance right now, or they aren't throwing enough resources at it just yet.

Anyway, will see how it goes over the next few days, hopefully performance picks up then.

Guitar Hero!

Here's a generated image. The photo is of a mate of mine who plays in a band called The Dishevelled Gentlemen, some great bluesy rock sounds. I took this at a gig with my D-SLR, a Pentax K-100D (1/45s, f5.6, 105mm equiv, ISO 3200!).

It's amazing how well this camera can work in low light like this, really like the warm glow, flash would totally kill a shot like this.

The photo generator site is FotoTrix, the template is already designed, just a matter of scaling and framing the image.

Nimis

Nimis
Originally uploaded by Stéphane Chivet

This is a really interesting place in southern Sweden where my girlfriend and I visited on our Europe trip. She has some distant relatives there who we were visiting, and we went to explore on our last day before heading off to Berlin.

Be sure to click on the photo above to see the full-size version, along with the description the photographer has added to it.

It was getting late in the afternoon but still plenty of light in the long Scandinavian summer days, and I was just taking a few more photos (this isn't one of mine of course, this is from flickr) and while rockhopping managed to slip and sprain my ankle. Managed to hobble back to the top of the hill where we got a lift from some German tourists. Next day we had to head into the big city, Helsingborg to the hospital. We didn't get to Berlin. We did however hire a car and end up exploring the famous Swedish glassworks which we would have missed otherwise. One day we will go to Berlin since I owe her that!

After a few more weeks of getting around on crutches, with my other half towing my backpack on a trolley, I was recovered. I think the fact that she put up with me for that trip might have had something to do with me deciding we should get married a few years later.