Source Sauce

It can be a real head ache trying to get a podcast to work. And it’s even worse when you are lookin for alittle more control than say getting someone to host your mp3 and someone else to host your feed, but not at the level where you need complete control over your rss feed. In my stumblings across the internet I have found a nice little cms of sorts for podcasting, Loudblog.
I’m not going to lie. I haven’t as of yet tried getting any other podcast program to work yet, but I did get this one up in running with minor set backs, all of which were solved by looking at the homepages forum.

So for indy producers looking to add an podcast to to their site, they may want to check this app. out. However I do believe technically programs such as Democracy Player can do the equavalent, haven’t tried that so don’t take my word for it. Either way this is a nice free app. that can actually be used in conjunction with Joomla, via alittle bot called loudbot. Using this you can fully integrate podcasting into your homepage, with relative ease.

I was reading over some news that is pouring out of Wizards of OS 4 and stumbled upon a debate about creative commons and truly free licensing. I think the debate has some warrant but just by glossing over it I think I’ve found my position on it. I think creative commons has the right idea. The original creator should have full control over what license his works falls under, and subsequentally what derivative works will fall under.

This seems to be more geared toward each individual community deciding what is right for their project. This would also in effect fragment the communities into smaller like minded groups. However I think it is important to not force communities into a certain set of rules. This could damage the growth of the “free” movement.

On the other hand if everyone could agree on the four free truths

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose;
• The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs;
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor;
• The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits;

perhaps more content could be created and circulated. The basic principle behind this side of the movement is clear definition. Instead of having to check which CC license something has, you would know exactly what can be done with the product. This side is spearheaded by folks like Benjamin Mako Hill you can check more on his side of the issue at standards of freedom.

Sometimes it seems like the majority of people don’t know or care about open source and the idea behind it. The fact of the matter is almost by definition open source is spread via internet word of mouth. So many people just don’t hear anything about it.
However some people over in Barcelona are takin a type of open source to the streets.

Burn stationsMuch like the green cart, is this still around?, or the oriental food stand that can be found around UT campus these inventive folks have setup a mobile burn station.

The station allows a public that may not be in tune with the creative commons, open source, copyleft movement to get a chance to experience the music side of the movement.

The burn station lets the passing audience hear music that if they choose can be burned to a cd.
Not only a cool idea its also a great way to get more people socially active in supporting local artists and ideas.

Definitely would be a sight to see someone attempt this at a university in the U.S. . . .

I’d also like to see something like this done for student or indie films. Even if just a sort of mobile television with laptops to burn dvds.

Hit the comment box to voice some ideas on where this could lead to or what problems could arise. Would this actually even get anyone interested?

So why both with these non corporate programs that could at any moment end support and leave you with RC 1, release candidate, and never make it to a final release version. Well for one thing they allow ideas that are just plain awesome and would never be thought of by the microsofts of the world, at least not with the same purpose, exist.

exihibit A, OS usb drive

Utilizing the Linux OS and more specifically the live cd linux distribution, this intriguing product. Some how I can’t imagine a world where you can carry a copy of windows around legally and hook up to any computer. In this day in age where identity theft seems to be a popular activity it may not be a bad idea for those wary of such things to try this device out.

Unless privvy to the alchemy known as web creation most web enthusiasts, if there be such a creature brave enough to claim that title, shy away from creating their own website. Not only the hassle of making the “physical” site but also maintaining and updating the site can be a daunting prospect for those not in the know.

The thought of endless strings of tags and while loops may leave novice coders before they begin. Not to mention frightened of attempting to code their own back end, which brings endless security risks to the surface.

Luckily there are some open source programs out there to help ease the burden of all of this. One said application is Joomla. Joomla provides the user with a great back end CMS, content manager system, that allows fully customizable templates, many of which are free, to be used in creating a highly advance website without any knowledge of code.

basically if you can use myspace, you can probably learn to use joomla. If you don’t plan to run the site you need to know even less.

Hopefully this will be my last review like post for awhile as I am still getting used to writing more thought and emotion based posts.

Anywho here is a link for joomla check it out its a great program.

joomla

be warned i may rant in the next post.

It seems at the moment that viral video sites such as youtube and google video are all the rage. However with these sites and their methods comes a great amount of control on their part. They rescrict the length, content, and most importantly quality of all videos shown on their site. These sites take every uploaded video and compress them into their own flash based player rendering most videos near unwatchable.

Now granted they have perfectly good reasons, limited server space, copyright reasons the list goes on, but it still comes down to having to either edit the content to fit into their world or create content specifically for these types of sites. Not a good compromise for those that want full control over their end product. Enter Open Source to offer some interesting alternatives.
So where is the serious video creator to go if he/she intends to have the final say in how
the final product looks and is presented? One option out right now is the completely open source Democracy Player.

Democracy player, DP, combines two other open source programs to allow users to distribute their videos to their audience, without having to host the entire file on their server. By mixing RSS feeds and Bit Torrent downloading DP allows users to create their own channel of sorts and let viewers download the file via Bit torrent. This is the simplified explanation but it gets the point across that basically video creators can have more control over what the end video looks like and what the audio sounds like, allowing them to choose a middle ground between quality and speed of download.

The user interface for DP is very user friendly, and looks much like a video on demand setup, viewers can choice what files to download, how long to keep the files ect. It also allows content publisher to create their own channel’s look and feel, and each RSS can have thumbnails and other extras to give viewers a glimpse into their program.

Democracy Player is far from being able to replace the easy to use and highly rigid viral video site however it is a great alternative for those looking for more self control. Given that Democracy player is open source it should be interesting to see what could spawn off of this initial program, or what sorts of add-on could be created in the future.

Pros:

uses well established open source codes to deliver self published content. RSS and Bit torrent are both extremely popular and for good reasons.
The front end has some really nice features, bookmarking of channels, time setting for keeping files, resembles video on demand programs.

 Cons:

Back end can be hard for new comers, takes time and knowledge.

Bit Torrent requires a server set up for bit torrent and that one seed always be on.

Still in early stage of dev, has some bugs and glitches to be worked out.

Audience is not nearly as big as viral video sites.
For more about Democracy player visit http://www.getdemocracy.com/

I’d like to take a second here to introduce the site.

As you may have noticed by the title of the site it has something to do with Source. And well let’s be honest there is really only one source worth talking about and its Open source.

If you don’t know Open Source, as will be discussed on this page, describes a piece of software that allows the code for the end product to be “free” and used to create new end products ect. ect. The software does not necessarily have to be free of charge, though in most cases it is. Usually this open source mentality fosters great communities around the product and can spawn some really great companion software or cool alternate version of the original software.

So with that said I am going to try to make this site “new user” friendly. I know that many tech sites can be dry and dense, so when I post about an topic or write a review I will do so from an end user side, meaning that I will talk less about the code and more about the uses of the software, and the community surrounding said open source product. This is where the sauce comes in. Meaning I hope to add some sauce to my rants, raves, and critiques of open source topics. Hopefully by doing so I can spread the word of open source like sauce on a burger, after you press down on the bun. So let the pressing of the bun begin.

Please feel free to post comments, rants, raves, and love letters. I myself love the letter X. A greatly under appreciated letter.