dose

I tried to install Firefox 2.0, but it didn’t work on my Intel Mac. However, I did take the chance to update my plug-ins and added 4 great ones:

• SEO for Firefox (right-click to see a host of data about a site, including google pagerank, technorati links, delicious links etc. also displays this info on google and yahoo searches)
• Firefox Translator (opens page in a new tab, translated from English to other languages; from other languages to English; from other languages to other languages)
• Google Preview (thumbnail previews of websites from a google search results page)
• Tab Catalog (gives you thumbnails of all open tabs)

This adds to my already-installed plugins:

• DownloadThemAll! (choose to download all, or selected media from a page, with one click)
• Download Manager Tweak (does some stuff to make the download manager better)
• del.icio.us toolbar (one click adds links, with your tags, to your del.icio.us account)

And of course:

• Collectik This! (right click to add an RSS feed to your Collectik account)

I think Julien was planning to give us a mix for the week too, but here’s one from me, my Friday mix, with some old favourites, and a couple of new additions. To make your own mix, visit Collectik.net.

You can get the mix in various formats here:

Hugh’s Friday Mix - July 21

• Collectik Page (this lists all the shows, details and gives you links to the mp3s)
• Flashplayer (opens a stand-alone flashplayer, press play and listen … no downloading, no RSS no nuthin, just listen at your computer)
• iTunes 1-click (opens iTunes, and automatically “subscribes” to this mix … and then you can easily download the whole mix)
• RSS (plug this into Juice, or iTunes or any RSS reader, and you’ll get all the links to the mp3s automatically)

And here are some of the shows in the mix:

• KCRW’s Morning becomes eclectic, with a great show with Glasgow band Camera Obscura
• The Sniffer, in which Nora reveals her attraction to the “sleazy-guy look”, and Cathi complains the heat
• Radio Open Source looks at what’s going on behind the scenes in the Israel-Lebanon crisis
• Arthur Masters of Ottawa Local Podcast reflects on the lives of those affected in his neighbourhood
• Linda gives one of the best LibriVox readings I’ve ever heard
• Janine Benyus does a fascinating talk on bioimimicry, from IT Conversations
• Julian also complains about the heat on In Over Your Head, talks about elephants & tigers, sex & bicycles, tough guys in pink, and delivers the tunes as usual
• Mark of the Culinary Podcast Network and the ReMARKable Palate talks fish
• NACOcast examines the professional lives of concert musicians
• CBC Dispatches converses with James Lovelock who predicts the end of the world as we know it in the next 50 years
• Digital Detroit Radio turns 100
• John Updike bemoans the End of Books on The Book Show
• Shane and Tom just laugh, pretty much, on the Sqeezebox
• Scientific American’s Science Talk talks science
• Finally, Neal from the Gastrocast gives you some good summer eats.

The coolest new feature in Collectik is the Mixmaker, here’s a little demo:

Collectik Mixmaker overview

Another Audio/podcast Mix for anyone who wants it, built with Collectik.net’s mixmaker (you’ll have to register to play with the mixmaker, but it is fun).

And here is a re-post from the Collectik Blog:

Since we’ve got the great new mixmaker active and working, I thought we’d try something: “Friday Mixes.” I’m going to post my Friday mixes here, but ideally some of you Collectik users will give us a mix we can post here instead of me doing it. So let me know if you are interested in doing next week’s mix, you can post a comment here, or send us an email at collectik AT gmail DOT com.

Here is this week’s mix:

Hugh’s July 14 Mix

• Collectik page - July 14 Mix
• RSS - July 14 Mix
• itunes 1-click - July 14 Mix
• flashplayer - July 14 Mix

Included in the mix, among other public radio sorts of stuff, are:

• The Sniffer
• The Shuffle
• Digital Detroit Radio 2
• Jay Ingram’s Theatre of the Mind
• In Over Your Head
• Hedgehog.net
• Miette’s Bedtime Stories
• and an amazing mixtape thing by Buck65

Every Friday, I’m going to be put out an audio mix for you, using everyone’s favourite podcast manager, Collectik.net (which has a bunch of new features). This is a collection of some of my favourite audio podcast shows from the past week, organized in some kind of order which you can rearrange if you like. So here it is:

Hughs-Friday Mix-July 7

• July 7 mix - RSS
• July 7 mix - iTunes 1-click
• July 7 mix - Play it on a flashplayer
• and here is my Collectik playlist on Flash

And now, go check out Collectik.net and tell me what you think.

Some of the great podcasts featured in this mix include:

• The Sniffer
• Digital Detroit Radio
• CBC Words at Large
• NACOcast
• In Over Your Head
• DicknJanes: Scarborough Dude
• Jay Ingram’s Theatre of the Mind
• IndieCan

And the best vidcast I’ve seen in a long while: Jim Dupree: Enthusiast.

in which a number of podcast items/episodes from my Collectik Playlist are arranged in the order I want them. Here is the RSS feed, and here is a BigContact Player with the items arranged in the correct order (i hope).

My First Collectik Mixlist (playing on a BigContact flash player).

Visit Collectik!

Check here for a very cool (i think) application of Collectik, using a BigContact Feed Player. Thanks to Tony C. of eggtea.com for tipping me off about Big Contact, and for using it with *his* collectik page.

For an explanation and a my Collectik player: CLICK HERE.

UPDATE (just testing something … ooh it works) … click on these to get a little pop-up player with playing various collectik playlists :

• Play Skinner’s Recommendations
• Play Jrowett’s Collectik Playlist
• Play DigitalDetroitRadio’s Collectik Playlist
• Play My (Mackinaw’s) Collectik Playlist

And go check out collectik.net!

two new video services have come to my attention recently:

* cbc video (vids from CBC archives and current shows)
and
* mediascrape (a collection of news snippets from around the world).

Both make their videos available through embedded windows media players, and neither has an RSS feed of new vids.

I suspect the reason is to force watchers to go to the webpage to watch, which allows the site owners to generate ad revenues on their web pages. But not having easily downloadable media files, and not having an RSS feed means people like me won’t spend much time watching these files… especially since almost all my media consumption now is generated through collectik. I don’t like to go to a web page to check if there is something interesting for me there - I want it to turn up in whatever RSS aggregator I use (say, ahem, collectik), so I can decide if I want to watch/listen or not.

Here’s a proposal for video makers who want ad revenues: find a way to stick banner ads on the bottom or side of a video image - embedded in the vid, so that if I want to watch the vid I have to watch the ad. Then do everything you can to get the video all over the internet - torrent, RSS, and get it in collectik.

finally … CBC has added a bunch of new podcasts. Some missing (where, oh where, is wiretap?, the best radio show in the world) … but Ideas is in there as is Words at Large (a booky show), among many others.

so thank you to Tod Maffin and the rest of the CBC for finally making this stuff available.

I’ve added a few CBC podcasts into my Collectik collection. If you’d like to see some other podcasts I recommend, see my whole collection here.

And to check out all the CBC stuff I listen to, here’s a search of my Collection, tagged CBC:

• mackinaw’s collection tagged CBC

and here is an RSS feed (generated by Collectik) of all the CBC podcasting I’m downloading:

• RSS: Hugh’s Collectik CBC Feed
• iTunes 1-click: Hugh’s Collectik CBC Feed

This will be udated automatically, so if you subscribe in iTunes, all the CBC stuff I decide to download, will go into your iTunes (if you want it to).

Finally, if you are interested in getting a feed of ALL the podcasts I listen to, here it is:

• RSS: Hugh’s Collectik Feed
• iTunes 1-click: Hugh’s Collectik Feed

You could also filter that and just subscribe to my feed of music, or politics podcasts.

The best thing though, would be if you go visit Collectik and sign up for an account; and you could add me as a Friend, and easily keep track of what I listen to.

If you are baffled at all by Collectik, please let me know & I’ll be happy to explain it in more detail.

UPDATE: I emailed CBC Podcast Team, and I actually got a response! And it’s the one I was hoping for!

Hugh:

Thanks so much for the encouragement - we are thrilled to be able to
offer so much of our CBC Radio content in podcast form.
Wiretap is a SUPER show and as we move into our next phase of podcast
roll-out, we hope that it will be added to the list. Stay tuned! We’ll
let you know when we have more to add!

Thanks again,

CBC Radio One Podcasting Team