Other podcatchers than iTunes (1)

Here is a field I have only just begun to explore: alternatives to iTunes for obtaining your podcasts. So, let me start to solicit any advice you readers can give. What catcher do you use, what catcher have you discarded? What should a catcher have in order to appeal to you?

Ever since I began listening to podcasts I have been using iTunes, but now I have begun to try out two other clients: Juice and gPodder. Juice was the first one I tried, since it was the first one I'd hear about when alternatives to iTunes were discussed. Yet, I prefer gPodder as it is more easy to use. I didn't have to search for elementary functions such as adding subscriptions and initiating download. I also very much appreciated what happened upon importing an OPML file with loads of subscriptions: gPodder allowed me to check which podcasts on the list I wished to add. Note that gPodder also knows to communicate (in principle) with iPod.

What neither client offers and is also sorely missing (for me) in iTunes is the possibility to categorize podcasts and stick them in folders. This is basic functionality that general rss readers offer and thus allow to be subscribed to a very large number of feeds and stay organized. I'll have to study more catchers, maybe with the help of this Podcatcher Matrix

Another option for podcatching is to go on-line. In stead of having a local client, one can setup a personal page with your podcasts. This allows you to access the same podcast collection from different computers, which would be ideal for users who use more than one computer to connect their player to. Such service is given at Odeo and Podnova. At Odeo I set up an account and found the site ot be slow and the procedure faulty and bothersome. The whole idea of having to manage yet another profile (in addition to Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, StumbleUpon, The Podcast Parlor etc etc etc) bothers ma and I was charmed by the fast, simple and anonymous solution at Podtopia: just enter the feed and there you go. But then: how much better is that than just directly downloading from the feed or the podcast's website?

More instructions:
Useful tools for podcast listeners,
Devising your own podcast feed - Huffduffer,
Suggestion for the advanced podcast listener,
What is RSS - Read Anne is a Man automatically.

The earliest history - A Story of India (1)

My ongoing plea for more podcasts on the history on India resulted in a reference to the BBC series The Story of India by Michael Wood that was broadcast 2 years ago and can be viewed on Google Videos. Here is part one, with the earliest history.



The items that are touched here are the pre-Indus Valley time and a point is made about humanity spreading from India which was entirely new to me. The idea is that man first came out of Africa to South India and from there spread all over the world. The next item is of course the Indus Valley civilization. Next is the Aryan invasion and then the Mahabharata.

As much as this is truly exquisite material and beautifully brought, it has the romanticism and superficiality of video all over it. If you reduce this material to its audio it is a very shallow podcast and it contains grand statements about India that demand further elaboration, from the Out of India thesis to the ancient roots and meaning of the Vedic texts. I understand why my reader prefers this series over the UCLA lectures by Vinay Lal, because it refrains from the ongoing politicization of India's history. Yet, Lal's course has made me aware once again of the fact that historical narrative can be political and it makes me wonder about the one-liners in this BBC series.

More History of India:
History of India - the search goes on,
8 podcasts I listened to,
History of India or Europe?
History of India.

The Byzantine Empire - UCSD lecture podcast

Even if you are more than casually interested in history and trying to get the general narrative of western history right, you run the risk of missing out on a hugely important player The Byzantine Empire. Historian Gibbon wrote off Byzantium as the eastern remnant of the Roman empire and left the idea that it was eternally in decline. One thousand years of decline - 476 to 1453 CE. Yet, even if it were eternally in decline, The Byzantine Empire was the bridge for backward Europe to the East and the buffer between vulnerable Europe and the Muslim expansion.

In the world of podcast the sole broadcaster of Byzantine history was podcasting veteran Lars Brownworth with the legendary 12 Byzantine Rulers. A formidable new addition, will be now UCSD's history lecture series by Matthew Herbst HIEU 104 - Byzantine Empire (feed). So far, three lectures have been added to the series and they look very good. Herbst uses his own style in retelling the story of Byzantium, covering the same material as Brownworth. In comparison, Brownworth is shorter, delivering a pleasantly crafted monologue; Herbst is obviously lecturing, but also more extensive. Herbst gives more explanation for example on the complicated theological issues that color the political landscape of Byzantium, such as Arianism and Nestorianism.

In the end, as the fate of UCSD lectures is, the podcast will last until the end of the semester and then be cast away - be sure to download them all before the end. Also, the lectures suffer from the usual UCSD automatic recordings, they quit before the end and they might start too early, too late and have silences. In addition the lectures are recorded at a very low volume. Use MP3gain to increase the level. (The level is around 77db and I have cranked it up to 100db which gave a bit of distortion. Next time I'll try 90dB).

More:
Byzantine Culture on Entitled Opinions,
Sources (12 Byzantine Rulers),
Byzantine Conclusion (12 Byzantine Rulers),
The Byzantine Empire on Podcast (12 Byzantine Rulers),
Byzantine Podcast (12 Byzantine Rulers).

What is a feed?

In nearly every podcast review I write, I use the word 'feed', assuming you understand what that is and what you need it for. Here I want to briefly explain 'feed', just in case, for anyone who could use it.

The feed to a podcast is a link through which you can subscribe to the podcast. It is not the same as a link to the podcast's website or to the podcast's audio files. It is a link to an especially coded list of the audio files. The code of this list can be read by your reader (like Google Reader) or your podcatcher (like iTunes). This list is updated whenever a new episode of the podcast comes out. When you are subscribed, your podcatcher will download that new file for you, without you having to go and look for it. (For instructions how to subscribe read my instruction how to subscribe to podcasts.)

For this reason, whenever I write about a podcast I give the link to its website and between brackets to the (feed), in order to quickly allow you to copy that feed's link and subscribe. In case I did not give the feed's link, click through to the website and over there you will find the link to the feed. Or else, you could search with the name of the podcast in iTunes's directory and find it there.

The code that is used in the feed is called RSS. I have also written more extensively about RSS (What is RSS - Read Anne is a Man automatically), but in short it is this. RSS is a push technology that pushes new web content to anyone who has subscribed to it. It is used more widely than podcasts. Also websites such as my blog use RSS, but wherever RSS is used, it works always the same. The user takes a subscription by using the feed.

More basic instructions:
Listen on line,
Download audio files,
Get iTunes,
Put feeds in iTunes,
What is podcasting in 3 minutes,
Video explaining RSS.

The fourth part of the world - NBIH

The last episode of New Books In History treated the circumstances of the discovery of the Americas. From Columbus's idea to sail to the Indies by going westward to the first map that fully recognized the Americas as a separate continent. A fourth part of the world, named after Amerigo Vespucci.

To this end host Marshall Poe interviewed Toby Lester and he gave a thrilling account of how the Americas got shape in the concept of the world. In this respect one needs to immediately set aside the myth that people thought the world was flat. It was known the world was round and there was even relatively sound data about the extent of the Asian continent in addition to a fairly accurate idea of the circumference of the earth. On the basis of those data Columbus's journey was folly, considering the vast amount of ocean that needed to be crossed. An intermediate continent was not expected and Columbus just thought he'd found some islands along the way when he got onto Hispaniola. Like the Canary Islands and the Azores.

We all know Vespucci eventually sailed around and this is how the new continent got its name. And since the world had always been conceptually assumed to consist of three parts (Europe, Africa and Asia), this was the fourth. This we know quite well, but the really interesting part of the show is the description of how the idea of what was lying in the west got shape. Starting from the discovery of the Canary Islands, through Columbus's journey, the development of ideas and additional data from the likes of Vespucci. In this respect you should listen and pay special attention to the finer details around the Canary Islands - it has nothing to do with canaries, more with dogs. And: the islands were inhabited - I never knew that.

More NBIH:
How the Soviet system imploded,
Vietnam War perspectives,
1989 - Padraic Kenney,
The Ossie twilight,
The first day of LBJ.

Poetry on Podcast

There are several ways I have seen literature (in the widest sense) find its way to podcast. The most straightforward is the audio book on podcast. I have reviewed several of the productions by Librivox which have an enormous amount of books from the public domain read by volunteers and supplied on free podcasts. A little bit more can be found in the example of Julie Davis on her podcast Forgotten Classics who reads the books and accompanies them with comments that amount to a literature lesson. An example that I recommend wholeheartedly is the Uncle Tom's Cabin reading she did.

Other examples are podcasts that perform the literature, either through audio-drama (I have reviewed a couple of Dutch examples) or the author giving a reading performance of his work as Dave P. does on Namaste Stories.

One can also talk about literature, as does George Miller on Podularity. Right now I am listening to his interview with Hillary Mantel about her book Wolf Hall which is a fictional account of the life of Thomas Cromwell. Another podcast that talked about literature just recently was Open Source where Christopher Lydon spoke with poet Rick Benjamin.

Now there is the literary genre that I have hardly run into on podcast and which, if you think about it, demands podcast: poetry. I have done one amateur podcast that was named Irving Poetry Podcast and there is poetry performance (though with a tongue in cheek) on the Dutch Ronflonflon. What is there other than that? There should be a world of poetry on podcast.

Dear readers, do you know of any you can recommend?