Month: June 2007

Missionary Talks hits #3 at ChurchPodcasts.com!

I visit ChurchPodcasts.com occasionally. It is part of the Podcast Pickle empire.

I have been staying at 7th or 8th place for a few months. Today I checked it and I am in 3rd! I have asked the owner of the site for information on what makes one go up or down on that top 100 list. He has replied to other questions, but, though I have asked him twice, he has not answered that one. I don’t think he is avoiding the question, he just does not seem to be interested in answering it.

As much as I am excited about being towards the top of the list, I am not sure it is a “live” website. I think it just has code that is running and pulling info, but no one actually hangs around there. The forums have been broken for months. I told the owner and he responded with “thanks for letting me know.” But they are still broken. The most recent forum activity was 3 months ago.

The owner has ignored other requests I have made in the past concerning that site and the main Podcast Pickle site. Though he seems to really want to build his empire, he lets lots of little things slip through his fingers.

I am kind of hoping he will see this post and maybe something will be done to clean up the ChurchPodcasts site so that it is usable again. Direct messages to him have not worked.

[UPDATE]
He did see this post (as you can see in the comments) and we are working on getting things worked out so that the forums are up and running again. If you can’t be heard in one way, make noise in another. By the way, I am sure that he quickly knew about my post by way of RSS that was mentioned previously. Before RSS, the only way he would have seen this post is either stumbling by or someone pointing it out to him. That is the power of RSS.

Missionary Talks 27: Don Carney

Each episode of Missionary Talks has its own flavor and means something to me in a “behind the scenes” kind of way. Some of the missionaries I have interviewed have been people I have never met. Most of them, however, are friends of mine. Some of them are very good friends.

The interview with Don Carney is definitely in the category of good friends. Bro. Carney has become a great counselor to our family as well as providing just some good friendship. Though he and his wife are the age of my parents, we are able to see each other as peers. He comes to me for advice and opinion on some things, and I go to him A LOT for advice and help in issues that we deal with daily.

The Carneys have been in Mexico for 15 years and have had many experiences as missionaries. In this interview Don shares with us a tremendous story of how a man came to Christ by reading a Bible which was tossed in the garbage.

I don’t know exactly what will come of this, but after our conversation the other day, I told him I enjoyed it so much that I would like to record a conversation weekly and make a podcast out of it. He has no real clue as to what all that means, but he agreed to do it. Because we both will be traveling at different times over the next couple of months, I may record some with him and with other missionaries locally until we can get together on a weekly basis. Good times!

Google ads (II)

The last time I mentioned that the ads seemed to pick up on the paint story from my helmet painting post. Now it is picking up on a lot of podcasting comments and bankruptcy. Bankruptcy? I have not said anything about that. Where did that come from?

Also there have been a consistent stream of religious ads being fed to us.

At the bottom of the page is another ad box that I added (pun intended) which serves up more ads. If you can’t get a good laugh out of the ones to the left, try looking at the ones at the bottom.

Of course, whatever I mention here will end up being different by the time you read this post, but it is fun to see what the robots pick up on. Over time it will probably feed lots of podcasting, running and religious related ads.

More DRM news

I have been lax on updating you on the DRM/EMI/iTunes news. It happened! We are now able to buy EMI music on iTunes without DRM as of last week. I was holding off saying something about it because I wanted to buy some tunes first to show my support. I am in the process of getting an older Christopher Parkening CD that I don’t have, Simple Gifts. It is a CD that I have heard much about, but never have gotten to hear. There are a few others I would like to get my hands on.

There is some talk that they are doing “digital watermarking” on the tracks you download. What this means is that you can play the song on any player that plays that file type, but it has (if they are really doing this) your personal information tied to it. So if you share it out on the peer to peer downloading sites, they can track down that it came from you. I think that is fair and don’t personally mind it.

This is the first time I have bought a whole album off the web or iTunes. I have avoided buying music this way because of the DRM that is tied to it. If you are unfamiliar with DRM, have a listen to My Thought Spot podcast episode 1 or see some of my earlier posts about it.

How to use RSS

I have been wanting to do a post about RSS and explain this wonderful technology in a way that maybe my mom could understand. Until yesterday, I was not sure how to get going on this, but I saw a great video that explains the basics of RSS.

Watch the video and then continue reading to see how you can make RSS work for you.

Now that you know what it is, why would you use it? As was explained in the video, you can have your newspaper “feed” the information to you. If you like reading blogs, then using an RSS reader can really be a help in getting your information in one place instead of surfing to each blog. Then when you see a post that interests you and you want to comment on it, you can go to the blog to make your comments. This saves a lot of time and makes sure you don’t miss anything.

How does it save time? The reading software will constantly be checking for updates to the websites you are “subscribed” to. When you open your feed reader you will have all the latest news and blog posts. You don’t have to load up 6 different blogs and news sites. Also, you won’t be wasting time if the site has not been updated since your last visit. This is particularly helpful for sites which don’t update often. It is easy to just stop going to look for updates if there has not been one in a while.

It keeps you from missing anything because the reader will pull all the information together in one place. You are less likely to forget a site for a few days (which happens if you individually surf to sites) and miss something important. Again, especially true for sites which don’t update often.

You can get stand alone reader software for your computer, or you can use an on-line reader. I have accounts with Google Reader and Bloglines. Both are on-line readers, but I use neither. I have the accounts, but only occasionally visit the sites. That is because I primarily use one computer and have reader software installed on the computer. The software I use is small, streamlined and fast.

You may want to look at one of the on-line offerings if you move from computer to computer, or you have a good Internet connection negating the “slow as molasses” page loading problem that some of us experience.

There downside of using an RSS feed reader as opposed to visiting the site directly is that you are not exposed to all the ads that the blogger or news site imposes on you. Also, you don’t get “counted” as a page visit unless you actually go to the website. Neither of these issues is a problem for you as the reader, it only affects the page host.

If you want to use an on-line reader, I recommend both Bloglines or Google Reader. I have not used either enough to know which I like better, but they both work. For a stand alone solution, you will have to look around. I use Akregator, but that is only available for Linux. My wife used to use FeedReader when she was on Windows. I have not really searched for one on the Mac. When I am sitting at the Mac, I just use Google Reader. But, I only use the Mac when I am handcuffed and forced to watch a TV show since the Mac is in the TV room. My use of RSS on that machine has been limited.

Do you have a favorite reader that you use? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

I have not touched at all on how to subscribe to a site. Many sites will have a nice little button that will allow you to subscribe right into Bloglines or Google Reader. That makes those options more appealing.