iMatt :: The Blog of Matt Clare

What’s that great song from that Zellers start fresh for spring ad?

Answer: Birdsong, by The Golden Dogs from Everything in Three Parts.

“Birdsong can you lift me up from all of the wrong I’ve done?” is how it all starts and then that amazing guitar starts and sounds like, like, like a birdsong.

I first heard the song on the CBC and was unable to find it in the iTunes music store. This normally is the point at which I try to steal music through other services, but it can’t be found there either! I had to goto maplemusic.com which appears to be an excellent resource for MP3 downloads!

So there you are, you can listen this amazing song without Zellers getting a hand in your pocket.

This gentleman (rheauchyr) came home to a melted/corroded new MacBook Pro and Magsafe Power connector. He thinks that the cats saved his house from burning down by disconnecting the cable – the consensus on the internet (at least on digg.com) is that a bad power supply would melt, not corrode. These pictures look more like the effects of cat pee and Direct Current electricity.

WordPress is what powers this blog and is also what we used at work for The University Teaching Podcast WordPress can podcast right out of the box: codex.wordpress.org/Podcasting

What wordpress can’t do is include information podcast clients appreciate like an image for the podcast’s icon or the extensions iTunes added. In order accommodate this I choose to edit wordpress’ wp-rss2.php file in order to take advantage of the iTunes podcast standards and other podcast focused tags. The one thing these modifications don’t address are the and tags for each episode – all podcast clients we’ve come across can determine this information from the file once it arrives.

You will also notice the addition of the 60 tag — this Time To Live is not always honored by podcast clients, but if your podcast does experience popularity beyond your sever’s bandwidth, etc. this might make for a more graceful failure.

Here is The University Teaching Podcast ‘s current wp-rss2.php file. Please feel free top copy and paste this over your current file and make your revisions.

The source code is posted here: www.brocku.ca/~mclare/itunes_podcast_with_wordpress.php
It’s posted on my work webspace in order to take advantage of PHP’s ability to colour its own code.

UPDATE: A wordpress plugin called WP-iPodCAtter also addresses this issue, I have not tested this plugin.

I saw Dave Chappelle’s Block Party this weekend, I missed it at the Toronto International Film Festival, but it’s now in wide release. It was an excellent movie and I recommend it to any of his fans and anyone who is a fan of east coast hip hop acts like The Roots, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Dead Prez, Kanye West (who only has a small role), Common, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Cody Chesnutt and The Fugees (yes, all three of them). If you ask me that’s a short list of the greatest hip hop acts to release an album this millennium.

The movie is a concert movie, and not really a documentary. That said, you really get a genuine feeling for Brooklyn and a good feeling about the impact this simple event is having on the audience Dave brought together for this event. Most of all this is an amazing concert and if you don’t see the movie you should keep the soundtrack in your car for a long trip – I took both approaches.

This

is this

textorizer-ed with “Matt Clare” via textorizer.whatfettle.com.

Check it out with the URL from any web image (like the above http://mattclare.ca/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/IMG_2209.jpg or the flickr logo example.)