PodCheck Review [Inactive]

Show from Tue May 23 23:59:29 CDT 2006

PCR 2006-05-23 #026

Last program description:

Time for another Podcheck Review v3.0 and it’s a long one, weighing in at around 45 minutes. Today, we tell you about a Skype security vulnerability, dis’ Windows MediaPlayer 11, and give away the MP3 player.

Also, BIG apologies for the crunchy audio on my (Scott’s) side. I was monitoring the wrong patch, so I overdrove my side of the double-ender recording. That’s the trouble of not having a dedicated setup, and not having the attention to detail necessary to reproduce all of the settings required. I am a slacker unworthy of your devotion!

Complete show notes after the jump…

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10 out of ten!

Thanks to Aaron from The Big Show for asking me on his show. I went 10-for-10 on The Big Show’s “Dead or Alive” game! (clip). I also gave Charley Warady of Israelsisms a new sound bite to play in his show (clip).

Check out The Big Show at http://www.bigshowradio.com/

TryPodNetwork? has been swapping hosts throughout the month of May. Check them out at http://www.trypodnetwork.com/

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and a big shout out to Chad and his wife (otherwise known as “The Bean”) from the Me And the Bean podcast who are expecting a brand new bouncing baby very soon…

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SKYPE ALERT!!

From the SANS newsletter

–Skype Releases Updates to Fix URI Flaw
(22/19 May 2006)
Skype Ltd. has released an updated version of its VoIP software to address a flaw stemming from improper handling of Uniform Resource Indicator (URI) arguments that could be exploited to allow attackers to download files from vulnerable machines. Vulnerable versions of Skype include 2.0.x.104 and earlier and 2.5.x.0 through 2.5.x.78. Users are encouraged to upgrade to Skype 2.5 release 2.5.x.79 or later or Skype 2.0, release 2.0.x.105 or later.
www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9000662
http://news.com.com/2102-1002_3-6074640.html?tag=st.util.print
http://www.skype.com/security/skype-sb-2006-001.html

Dennis Duffner

Jeff: New Version of Skype PLUS now they are offering free calls within the US and Canada to all phones. (until the end of the year)

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From CNET newsSony settled the class-action lawsuit. - http://news.com.com/Sony+rootkit+settlement+gets+final+nod/2100-1030_3-6075370.html

I am SOOoooo done with mainstream record labels and the RIAA.

From Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2006/05/19/xm-will-vigorously-defend-innos-against-industry-suit/

The record industry is suing XM satellite radio for licensing fees for people to store, or time-shift music on the XM Inno device, a hard-disk audio recorder designed for the XM satellite radio service. The folks over at Sirius have already caved and are paying the RIAA a significant fee to avoid a similar lawsuit.

I am soooo… tired…. of the record industry. I hear stories about artists whose records sell oodles of copies, and then never see a dime, or sometimes even owe the record company money. I am soooo done with the RIAA that I haven’t purchased a CD in three years, have not downloaded any illegal music, and rarely ever listen to music on the radio. I have gone completely indepenedent and Podsafe, and I will never look back. Jeff: So do they just take the number of songs on all of XM’s stations and multiply it by $150,000? Per day? month? year? never? Look, everybody knows (including them I’m sure - it’s not like the RIAA intentionally hired non-insightful people) that the business and distribution models for the music business are changing rapidly. I suspect that while working with their clients on the business models of the future, the RIAA must feel that they are in a period of trying ‘keeping the lid tight’ and quickly chopping down these models as possible so that they can gain leverage and control on defining these new models. In other words, the RIAA (through it’s clients) are the ones that stand to gain from defining these models before others do. So the question is - is the bad press worth it? Can they really hold down the steady inertia that new technology and new venture capital bring to the table?

In fact, here’s a little ditty by Gecko 3 - Jazz Breakfast

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SanDisk’s “iDont.com” ad campaign

“break free of the iTatorship”

http://www.engadget.com/2006/05/22/sandisk-wants-you-to-say-idont-to-ipod/
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See the post about our first billboard advertisement in SecondLife!

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Some words about “Which comes first – Podfade or Profit…

May 5^th, 2006 - David Lawrence’s Personal Netcast

david_lawrence_20060504.mp3

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Installed the new Microsoft Media Player 11 Beta today. Big 22MB install just for the media player, then another somewhat large-ish install for URGE. (Are the days of dial-up access really gone? I have some relatives living in Fishtail, Montana certainly don’t have high-speed internet. I think their probably still running Windows 98. They don’t care. They are retired, tend to their garden in front of an incredibly sceneic view of the mountain range, and they go to Florida in the winter. They could give a crap about these stupid little things like “The latest Windows Media Player.”

My experience: It’s not quite ready for prime-time. Some of the default display settings are kind of lame, the way that the displayed columns are just big enough to show two words of the title, and the way that the pane borders are invisible, so you have to divine how to resize the panels through mere intuition and luck. Also, it apparently requires a reboot to fully activate all of the right-click explorer context menus (like “right-click, add to Windows Media playlist”), even though it did not suggest a reboot.

Worst of all… no mention about podcasting support anywhere in the application, nor on the Windows media 11 web site… *sigh*

A full review by the CNET folks is available at: http://reviews.cnet.com/Windows_Media_Player_11/4505-3669_7-31672645.html

The default installation include the Viacoms/MTV’s URGE music store. To me, it’s a lackluster yawnfest, but only due to my disappointment atthe lack of a podcast directory.

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Wild, irresponsible speculation: Is there some underlying legal barrier at Microsoft. Is it possible that Windows Media Player does not have podcasting support due to some undisclosed legal issue?

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Yes, WindowsMediaPlayer has other changes I hate – Now only three speeds - “Fast, Normal, and Slow” and “Fast” is at best, “kinda faster.” - Gone are the ultra-efficient 1x, 1.5x, and 2x, etc speeds. I guess the Microsoft team thought that they were giving us too many options and features… so they REMOVED a feature. Shame! Never remove a feature, especially one as simple as “variable playback speed.” I did a whole segment on how to use playback speed to listen to more podcasts, and Todd Maffin, Canadian podcaster/broadcaster extraordinaire relies on super-fast playback to listen to a zillion podcasts a day.

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Where is Transistr? Perfect timing for them if they can release their ~~iPodderX~~ Transistr application soon – August Trometer of Thunderstone Media - http://thunderstonemedia.com/name_change

http://transistr.com/update.html

I have a great picture of August and Laura Burstein

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MP3 player contest:

This is the really a horrible contest for which I, Scott, take full responsibility, and will surely be delivered unto hell for instigating. Oh well, its small price for comedy.

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Time to give away the MP3 Player!
…to TONY SAGER!!! -

http://www.youare1inamillion.com/

From Tony Sager at http://www.youare1inamillion.com/

T-shirt idea #1– “I can afford this shirt, you can afford their products.”
T-shirt idea #2 –“I used to be a sandwich man. This shirt is lighter.”
T-shirt idea #3 — “My other T-shirt is on display at Hard Rock Café”
T-shirt idea #4 — “Will code for food.”
T-shirt idea #5 — “podfader”

Dennis J. Duffner’s entry– “Im not a paranoid homeless guy and neither am I”

I might have license these slogans fromTony and add these shirts to the Podcheck Café Press store. http://www.cafepress.com/podcheck By the way, no one has ever purchased anything form the Podcheck café press store, so Tont doesn’t need to worry about were to put all of his licensing income.

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Listener E-Mails

episode 25 id3 tag correction anf fogview link.

Dear Mr. Fletcher,

I’ve been one of your lurking listener’s for some time now to this and your other podcasts, and just hopped by your site to followup on one of your links from a podcast ( I usually listen then check out the site only if I need any followup on something or when I need a link confirmed ).

Thank you for a very interesting an useful podcast.

This is not a nit-pick situation, I am the last person to discuss spelling or point out an error to show off, this was just a FYI and confirmation that one of your listeners actually pays attention to your program and wishes you success for what you have been sharing with us.

Now in the big scheme of things it is not a big thing, however I believe that your current Episode #25 link for “fogView” may need to be reviewed. “http://blog.podcheck.com/www.fogview.com” may actually be better presented as “http://www.fogview.com”. But I could be mistaken with your intent.

Second, is it possible to have the link to the movie trailer site listed? I realize that it is impossible to guess everything your listeners would like to know or find useful sometimes. Unfortunately the verbal moviepic and variation’s do not seem to work and it is not listed in your notes.

Again, Thank you for taking the time and effort to provide this entertaining information to people like myself.

Respectfully,
Brian Kohler

Thanks to everyone who pointed out that the FogView link was broken, incluiding Rick Stringer from the Variant Frequencies Podcast.http://www.variantfrequencies.com

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Regarding the missing link to the Nokia video site: Peter Marquardt, creator of the PodcastLogo at http://www.podcastlogo.com/

Yoho, Scott. This might be interesting for you:

I was at the international short film days in Oberhausen, Germany to meet some other Podcasters. One of them had the job to document the short film days for nokia with a nokia nseries phone in video and audio. The phone has the possibility to cut video and add intro and outro segments to it, spice it up with background music and so on… all in-phone.

http://www.nokia.de/nseriesCast/ if you’re interested. The video is kinda choppy for some unknown reason. Other than that it looks pretty good (when the phone is not in night-vision mode which essentially halves the frame rate to get longer exposures). The phone spits out mpeg4 video which is iTunes-ready.

Kind regards
– Peter

P.S.:
A few more things:
1) Thanks for mentioning the podcastlogo. It’s picking up popularity in germany really quickly.
2) I assume you haven’t received the mad magazine yet? Guess they need some time to ship it.
3) Holy crap, My podcast has more subscribers than podcheck review! That has to change, don’t you think?

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Peter Marquardt, amazing person that he is, goes on to say….

Scott, I want to support you and podcheck review.

Unfortunately I don’t have any spare money, but what I do have is a copy of Mad Magazine (the may issue), that I won but that can only be shipped to the US or Canada. I gave it some thought and decided I want you to have it, so if you give me a shipping address I can have it sent to you. Now don’t worry, there is no subscription attached to it.

If you rather don’t disclose your address or already have the may issue of Mad I can also pick somebody else, but you were the first one who came to my mind who’d be worthy

Cheers
– Peter Marquardt

p.s…. oh and have I mentioned that it’ll be signed by MAD’s Dick DeBartolo ? According to Wikipedia…

Dick DeBartolo is one of the most prolific writers of satire for Mad. He is occasionally referred to as “Mad’s Maddest Writer,” this being a follow-up to Don Martin’s former status as “Mad’s Maddest Artist.” DeBartolo is cited as a “Creative Consultant” on the magazine’s masthead.

und nun ein Podcast
lemotox - die Volksentdummung
http://www.lemotox.de/

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From Bill Mackewiezchzhzs

Hey there, congratulations on a great first show! I checked it out this morning on the way to work, and think the new format works quite well. You guys sound pretty comfortable with each other, the mix works, and it’s always good to get new PCR. Maybe even new PCWR, if I’m reading the blog correctly….

P.S. For Scott - thanks for the pointer to the Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd. My daughter loves the show, and we’ve already caught up on all of the episodes.

From the Blog comments, thanks to Peter Marquardt, as well as Christoph Marquardt, and YOU, if you left a valueable comments about the show on the Podcheck.com website.

Call our listener line at (206) 424-4763 - or send us an e-mail at show - at - podcheck.com

Thanks for listening, and thanks for staying subscribed!