Monthly Archive for December, 2004

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Podcasten met Blogger en SmartCast

Published on December 12, 2004 in NL and podcast. Closed

(NL vertaling van How to podcast with Blogger and SmartCast)

Dit is een stap-voor-stap beschrijving van hoe je kan podcasten met Blogger and Feedburner SmartCast.

  1. Maak een nieuwe Blogger site aan op [jouw_podcast].blogpost.com (zie Getting Started en New Blogger Site voor details)
  2. Ga naar de Settings/Formatting pagina terwijl je ingelogd bent op Blogger.com
  3. Zet ‘Show Link Field’ op ‘Yes’
  4. Creeer een nieuw artikel (Posting/Create) en zet de link van de MP3 file in het ‘Link’ veld.
  5. Publiceer het artikel (‘Publish Post’) en bekijk je blog home pagina (‘View Blog’): de titel van je artikel zal aanklikbaar zijn en de link eronder is die van de MP3 file!
  6. Ga naar www.feedburner.com, geef daar de URL van je Blogger feed in (als je niks veranderd hebt aan je feed settings, staat ie op http://[jouw_podcast].blogpost.com/atom.xml) in het ‘Feed URL’ veld en klik op ‘Next’
  7. Klik de ‘SmartCast’ optie aan:
  8. Test het nu uit in je eigen podcatcher programma (Kijk op nl.wikipedia.org om te zien welke podcatcher softwares er bestaan; in het voorbeeld hier: Doppler). Voeg de nieuwe Feedburner URL er aan toe.
  9. Laat het programma de nieuwe podcasts afhalen (in Doppler: klik op “Retrieve Now”): je zou moeten zien dat jouw MP3 file van daarstraks afgehaald wordt
  10. Configureer je programma zo dat de nieuwe MP3 files automatisch verschijnen in iTunes of Windows Media Player (Het hangt af van welke podcatcher je gebruikt welke muziekbeheer programma’s ondersteund worden)

Ziezo, dat was het!

“Domain Registry of America” scam

Published on December 10, 2004 in spam. 72 Comments Tags: , , , .

UPDATE: I received a cease-or-desist from DRoA in March 2006 about this post.

UPDATE2: I received a cease-and-desist from a Belgian law office in November 2010 about this and other DROA posts.

Just received a letter in the post from ‘Domain Registry of America’ (DRoA), urging me to pay them for renewing my domain name. The paper, with a London address on the back, looks like a bill and tries to scare the reader with “Your registration will expire on May 10, 2005. Act today!”

The issue is: it’s a scam. There is no need for me to renew now, and certainly not with DRoA. I know exactly who manages my domains and I am quite happy with them. But I can imagine this trick works quite well with people who have no clue how DNS works, or in accounting departments of companies. These guys have been fooling people since at least 2002, as the Domain Registry of America, of Canada, of Europe and of Australia.
Who’s behind it?

Setting up a new Blogger site

Published on December 7, 2004 in Google. 1 Comment


So you want to blog? Blogger is by far the fastest and cheapest way to go. Here’s how to set up a full-fledged new blog in 10 steps (for a step-by-step tutorial with screenshots on how to do the basics, i.e. step 1 and 2, check out preetamrai.com or casweb.ou.edu):

  1. Pick a good blog name
    make sure the name is distinctive and/or representative. If you want to make a blog about football, you could call it ‘Football News’, but there are more than 80 million Google hits on ‘football’, and 1,4 million for ‘football-news’. Chances you ever end up in the first page is zero. If you choose ‘Funky Football’, there are only 550 hits in Google now. Watch out for words that are difficult to spell (‘phootbal’ has only 7 hits, but chances someone gets it right the first time he hears it are nil).
  2. Pick a good blogspot domain-name
    If you have some webspace with FTP access and flexible domainname management to your disposal, go ahead and publish on ‘whatever.mydomain.com’. But if you prefer a no-brainer, go for the ‘[whatever].blogspot.com’ hosting. Make sure the domain-name is also distinctive and/or representative. ‘football.blogspot.com’ might be free (it’s not, actually) but way too popular in Google. If you choose ‘funkyfootball.blogspot.com’ (still free, go for it!) – there are only 103 hits for ‘funkyfootball’ in Google now. There are actually no hits for ‘cxqqyh885pk’ in Google, but honestly, who would remember a blog URL like ‘cxqqyh885pk.blogspot.com’?
  3. Make an RSS feed
    Google does not have an RSS feed, only Atom (not compatible). Your Atom feed will be published on [whatever].blogspot.com/atom.xml. So you will want to convert this Atom feed with Feedburner and its ‘SmartFeed’ option (free). Choose the feed name as http://feeds.feedburner.com/[blogname] or something close (if the name you like is already taken). If you want to make a Podcast, use the Smartcast option.
  4. Get a page counter
    Get it from a service like NedStatBasic or BelStat (free). To be sure, take both (they each have their own PROs and CONs). Copy/paste the HTML for each counter into a text document you save on your PC, so you have it handy when you start editing your HTML template (see 9.).
  5. Updating content: music
    to have easily updateable music playlists in your blog, use Webjay (free). You can insert a playlist into your blog by adding some JavaScript to its HTML (see 9.), and you can then edit the actual playlist using Webjay.
  6. Updating content: photos
    if you are serious about using nice, fast picture albums in your blog, use Flickr (free), Smugmug ($30/year) or Pixagogo ($50/year). If you have a .blogspot.com domain, you cannot host your pictures on blogspot.com, you need an external service. They’re all different, pick the one you like most. You want:
    a) a URL to each of your albums (to be used in a <a href=…> tag),
    b) a URL for an individual picture (to be used in a <img src=…> tag)
    (disclaimer: I am one of the founders of HyperTrust, that runs Pixagogo).
  7. Updating content: links
    to insert a blogroll and/or link-list, use the services of del.icio.us (free), Furl (free) or BlogRolling (free). They allow inserting lists of links (your blog buddies, other football sites, …) via JavaScript.
  8. Decide on your copyright license
    if the stuff you will publish might at some point be somewhat creative (you post the storyline for a new movie, a recipe for duck-a-la-banana, a new name for a egg-shaped chair, …) decide on the license you want to apply on the content of the blog. Check Creative Commons for more details on the options you have.
  9. Edit the blog HTML template
    If you’re not familiar with HTML, you might wanna ask a friend who is. You edit the template through the Blogger ‘Template’ tab. You need to add the Feedburner feed chicklet, the web counter HTML, JavaScript/HTML for the music/photos/links and the Creative Commons license. You might want to decide to change/delete your Blogger Profile, add a disclaimer on the bottom, change the color of your bullets, …
  10. Get a publishing client
    for most platforms, you can get a Blogger client that allows you to create your post locally on your PC, and then publish it when it’s ready. Advantages: you do not need to be on-line to write your blog posts, only to publish them, and you do not lose your article if your network or the Blogger server crashes. On Windows, use w.bloggar.

The ideal podcast publisher: Webjay vs Blogger-Smartcast

Published on December 6, 2004 in podcast. 1 Comment

Webjay celebrates its victory over the evil forces of chaos and destructionI’ve already created some podcasts with Webjay and some with Blogger + Feedburner‘s SmartCast. Neither of both was originally made for podcast feeds.
Webjay (put back online by Lucas after a hacker break-in) is actually a great playlist creator tool, whose ‘RSS’ converter happens to be podcast compatible.
Blogger is the most used general-purpose blogging tool, and needs to be combined with Feedburner’s inventive Atom-to-RSS feed converter to allow audio enclosures.

If you compare creating a podcast with both:

Webjay (e.g. Smoothouse October List)
PRO: zero startup time / also provides M3U, SMIL, ASX playlist support (for playing in WinAmp, RealPlayer, WMP, …) / has a playlist importer (get all the MP3 links from a page and put them into a playlist
CON: no way to add meta-data / no way to modify look-and-feel
Blogger + SmartCast (e.g. Smoothpod Mashups / Backroomsounds podcast)
PRO: meta-data (playlist/transcription/related links) can be put in the blog post body / optimal results in Google/Technorati/Feedster / maximum flexibility for adapting look ‘n feel
CON: no that trivial to set up / no ‘play-it-all-now’ functionality except when added manually

This is what an ideal Podcast publishing tool would look like for me:

  • minimal set-up: no technical knowledge required – comparable with the setting up of a new Blogger blog
  • adding a new post should be easy – a wizard like ‘add-the-audio-file’ – ‘write-the-text’ – ‘publish!’.
  • use standard templates like
    one-person talk show (e.g. Daily Sourcecode)
    name of the host, list of topics, list of music (if any), some related links
    multi-person conversation (e.g. Gillmor Gang)
    name of participants, list of topics, related links
    music show (e.g. Coverville)
    host, playlist, guest DJ
    …
  • provide download statistics for the feed and the individual files
  • also provide a ‘play-now’ button for each audio file, and maybe a ‘play-complete-playlist-now’ functionality
  • be conscious about audio file types (like Webjay): .MP3 can be played by anything, .AAC is for iTunes/iPod, WMA for WMP, … so you could have a ‘subscribe to this podcast with iTunes/RealPlayer/Windows Media Player/…’ choice
  • automatic ping of audio.weglogs.com (and Ping-o-Matic)
  • take care of directory inclusion (ipodder OPML, …)
  • include tools like BlogTorrent or a point-and-click preconfigured FTP uploader for easy audio file upload
  • easy access to directories of RIAA-free music
  • easy access to feed validator
  • easy access to podcast delivery networks (with cheap bandwidth)

Anything I forgot?