Welcome to 'Transmitting to Earth'. I'm Charssun and I'll be your host. This blog and podcast is a byproduct of VoyagerRadio.com and is intended to provide the most timely information about this Internet radio station. It is also intended to be a fun and accessible electronic journal with commentary focusing on Internet radio, podcasting and webcasting issues and technologies, music, and some of my other interests. I also offer personal perspective about being an Internet radio broadcaster (and podcaster).
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My First Linux Installation[Warning: Geek Moment]
I've just completed my first installation of Linux, a task I can finally check off my checklist of Things I('ve) Want(ed) To Do. In fact, I'm currently making this post in Linux. I chose the Xandros Open Circulation Edition, a free operating system based on Xandros' Standard Edition, because of its apparent easy installation. And it was--easy to install, that is--even on an ages-old 233mHz AMB K6-2 system! I half-expected a long and arduous installation, especially after hearing about notorious difficulty of some Linux distribution's installations. And to think that just yesterday I was wrestling this machine to install an old copy of Windows 95 on her! Guess she knew better... I'm going to see what this baby can do. Maybe I'll be able to use it as a Shoutcast server or a web server. At the least, I'll be able to type up a new resume since Xandros comes with a copy of OpenOffice's word processing program. I can also install a program that would enable me to use Microsoft's Office suite, but I doubt my machine would be fast enough to run that. No matter--I'm already having fun with this. In fact, I just listened to some downtempo 'net radio on this system--that's right, I was able to tune into VoyagerRadio using Linux! I heard it was possible, but I hadn't seen it until now. It didn't require any additional installations, either. One last thing. At this moment, I have Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems all running at the same time. This is a moment in history for me, and may never occur again--though somehow I doubt it. [End of Geek Moment] Should I Add a Donation Button?For a long time now, I've been considering adding a Donation button to the VoyagerRadio website. Since I use Live365 to power my webcast, I couldn't include the button before; Live365 didn't allow the feature due to perceived RIAA sanctions. But now that Live365 has officially lifted the ban on donation buttons, I'm reconsidering adding the feature to the site.
The reason I'm telling you this before adding the feature, rather than simply adding a button and telling you about it, is because I'd like to hear your opinion before I make this move. I've been unemployed for some time and keeping my Internet radio station on the air has become expensive, what with the rising cost of streaming, webhosting and email hosting fees, and acquiring the very latest releases as soon as they hit the stores (rather than simply waiting forever for them to hit the filesharing networks). As it is, it looks like I'm going to have to be dropping the dialup stream. The dialup stream is only tuned in to by a few listeners, but still, if I could afford it I would like to keep everyone listener...well, listening. VoyagerRadio began as a dialup Internet radio station--I used to even used to broadcast live via a 33k dialup connection--so there's a part of me that's sad to see the dialup stream go. Yet without an income, I can no longer afford to offer the extra expense. Thankfully, the broadband stream is paid through 'til next year. I'd also like to introduce more items to VoyagerRadio, such as a VoyagerRadio T-Shirt and other swag, and services which require commercial software so I can offer a better newsletter and perhaps a discussion forum. All this also requires the time to learn, build, and implement--something I cannot afford to spend without some source of income to keep the lights turned on. I'm very low maintenance, but even so, it costs money to build the best Internet radio station in the universe. Let me know what you think; use the Comment feature or send me email. New Tool Aims To Quell Information OverloadA couple of weeks ago I introduced you to RSS and Atom, tools that enable you to have the information you are most interested in delivered right to your desktop, browser, or email inbox. Continuing along the lines of that discussion, today I want to introduce you to another tool currently being developed that hopes to help you further personalize your information gathering experience.
Today I listened to a recent IT Conversations discussion about a tool Technorati is developing, Attention.XML. The tool will attempt to save your time when browsing the web, reading news feeds and blog sites, and absorbing other Internet information by keeping tabs on the stuff you tend to respond to most often and by tailoring that information to your needs. In other words, now that we have the power, with tools such as RSS and Atom, to bombard ourselves with the information we really want to absorb, we find ourself having so much fun we now have less time to do the other things we need to do survive--such as eat, work, and sleep. Attention.XML, like RSS, aims at further focusing your attention on the information you want to be exposed to, reducing the white noise that permeates your life. Let's hope it works. HP Developing DJ-Style MP3 PlayerHP is developing a device called the DJammer which is described by the company as having "a personal DJ User Interface (UI), and a live digital session with one (or more) similar HP DJammer appliance enabling listeners to create music and digitally mix in real-time together (hence the term jamming)". Apparently the devices will communicate wirelessly to allow its users to jam with each other. HP Labs' site says the appliance "builds on top of current MP3 players", and engadget reports that the device will work with iPods.
This will be a fun device to see in action, should it ever go to market, and should it work the way advertised. At the very least, it will make a great party toy. Bonus Computer Content...On Vinyl(Warning: this is an historical item.)
One strategy artists or record companies employ to deter digital downloading is to include extra content on CDs, such as the animated artwork you find on The Cure's recent self-titled release pointing to the band's "Secret Site" (and in the process declaring "THIS IS AN AIFF RECORDING!" revealing the artist's preference for the Mac OS). You may think that digital content such as this can only be made available in the CD age (if we can still call it that), but back in the days of vinyl there was also content tagged to a number of LPs which was intended to be transferred to and used on personal computers. That's right--computer programs on records. This was primarily achieved through a series of audio tones on the LP which needed to be recorded to tape and then loaded into a computer (which was most often a Sinclair Spectrum). The procedure is summed up rather appropriately by Kempa.com: "This is totally insane, and totally great." Check out this list of recording artists who've included content from computer games to messages in their vinyl recordings. If you know of any other neat (and perhaps, hidden) content discovered in audio recordings, I'd be interested in hearing about them--just don't try telling me that Paul is dead 'cause I already heard that rumor. Getting Down vs. Getting MusicRealNetworks has begun selling $.49 music downloads as part of its Freedom of Choice campaign and in conjunction with the release of its Harmony software, which allows music purchased from RealPlayer's Music Store to play on Apple's iPod and other audio devices. The $.49 price will be offered for a limited time, but who knows--if Real sets off a price war because of this, we may see some serious digital music downloading--legal downloading, that is. And you thought Apple's 100 million downloads was something...
Free Record Shop Holding, a company in the Netherlands, also opened a music downloading store this week. The service will offer downloads from the five major labels and from independent labels, including music not licensed for sale at the iTunes Music Store. Unlike most existing music downloading stores, physical CDs will also be available for purchase. Prices currently range from $1.09 for a single song to $26.80 for a double album. My take on this is simple and certainly doesn't need to be said, since you already know it (though I'll say it anyway): the more competition there is between these stores, the better is it for us consumers. There may eventually even be a price point where it just doesn't make economic sense to use P2P apps to acquire your digital music. Forget about morality or ethics--I'm not about to start preaching to you--the time consumed (and time is money) searching for and obtaining that latest album via BitTorrent or eDonkey may prove better spent doing something else, like boning your significant other while you're listening to that sexy new single you just downloaded for a mere fifty cents. I've already found this to be the case with my downtempo Internet radio station. I'm often searching for the latest downtempo releases the day they hit the store shelves, and most often the quickest way to get that music to your listening ears is for me to buy the song at the iTunes Store rather than dig through SuprNova and elsewhere for the file (where it's not always immediately available). Though there isn't one digital download store where I can find all the music I'm searching for, there doesn't seem to be any single repository of those torrents, either, and I find my time better spent purchasing and her kissing than always searching, never f*cking. XForms: The Future of Mobile Browsing?I hope you were able to catch those Perseids last night. I didn't see a flicker of light from Los Angeles--too many clouds and too much city light. Oh well, there's always next year. Grrr...
Next up: mobile browsing. The Mozilla Foundation, makers of the world's best current web browsers (including Firefox and their namesake, Mozilla) has announced that they will be joining forces with IBM and Novell in implementing XForms. What are XForms? I don't really know either, but according to Mozilla they're the bees knees when it comes to mobile browsing: XForms is key to realizing the vision of a future where people can access information online on any device.Good deal--I'm hoping that includes streaming audio. I'll be watching the technology, as I do all web standards, to see how VoyagerRadio can best make use of it for you, our listener (our only listener, in fact!). If you know a thing or two about XForms, feel free to post a comment to edu-ma-cate me. Perseid Meteor Showers Peak Tonight and Early MornIt's that time of year again--the Perseid meteor shower--and this year's event has a chance at being spectacular. The Perseids were disappointing last year, barely visible (and totally invisible from my neck of the woods) due to the light interference of a full moon we had in conjunction with the annual showers. But tonight, as the showers peak throughout the next several hours, the moon will hardly be showing her face. So get outside, and to the desert if you can, or any other place away from the city where there's no light. The shooting stars should last until dawn, averaging once a minute or perhaps more frequently, but once the sun comes up you'll have to wait another year--or longer, depending on nature's demeanor. iPod vs. CassetteHere's a fun comparison between the world's current favorite music device, the iPod, and that old standby from the Analog Age, the tape cassette. Guess who's the winner? You may be surprised... RSS, XML, and AtomIf you haven't yet heard, you can now syndicate your website to the rest of the world due to an emerging Internet technology called RSS. Though the meaning of the acronym is under debate--some say it means "Really Simple Syndication", others say it stands for something else--the intention of RSS technology is clear: it makes it easy for anyone to distribute their content widely and for others to access that content just as easily. I'm not going to explain the underlying technology here--the fact is, I don't entirely understand it myself--but I'll tell you how you can get started having fun with the tool.
First, you need a news reader, also known as an aggregator. I'm not talking about the news readers you use to browse Usenet articles. RSS news readers have some of the same features of these other news readers but they also differ considerably. Some are desktop applications, some are browser apps, some deliver news feeds to your email inbox, and some even let you set up your own website complete with RSS news feeds. I use an RSS reader that is built into a website--My Yahoo!, in fact--because I tend to jump between a Mac and a PC throughout the day and I only have to go to the website to read the news feeds I've subscribed to. (If you're already a My Yahoo! user, you probably haven't even noticed the RSS feature. That's because it's not there--not yet, anyway. Since it's currently in the beta stage of development, Yahoo! has it hidden, but you can still try it out.) There are many good news readers out there, and many of them are still in the beginning stages of their development, so just choose the one that sounds like it best suits your needs. Don't worry too much about your delivery preferences--you may find that your preferences change once you begin using RSS. (Some folks never realized just how much they love real content, rather than spam, delivered right to their email inbox.) Just to be clear, news is not the only content that can be distributed via RSS. Though news articles and blog commentary are the dominant forms of content currently being distributed via RSS, folks are distributing a variety of other things as well, including listings of new book and CD releases, torrents, and just about any other information you can think of. RSS enables you to get the word out whenever you've posted something new on the web, which means you can use RSS to distribute just about anything. Once you get your hands on a news reader, keep your eyes open whenever you're browsing your favorite web pages for a link to an RSS feed so you can add it to your aggregator. Many websites offer links to their feeds in the form of a small orange image labeled "RSS" or "XML" or "Atom". (Here are some examples, both of which can be found on this site:  and  ) The feed links won't always be indicated by these orange images--in fact, most Atom feeds aren't indicated this way. Yet no matter how the feed link is presented, you won't find much useful by clicking on it since you'll most likely be presented with a bunch of gobbledegook--code, in other words. The usefulness will come once you've added the link (A.K.A. "feed") to your aggregator, which will use some form of digital alchemy to transform all that nonsense into something you can actually read. This is where the fun begins--once you've subscribed to RSS feeds you'll no longer have to visit their sites in order to view their latest headlines, etc. You'll simply be able to scan the headlines as they are presented in your news aggregator and choose which stories you'd like to read the entire content of. (Some aggregators even present all the content in the reader.) Then, if you still wish, you can surf on over to the site to view the rest of the content.
The post you are reading right now is, in fact, available as an RSS feed. Somewhere on this page--I usually keep it near the top--is a link or two to the RSS feed(s) of this site. If you add the feed(s) to your news reader, you will be able to access the content of this site in a variety of ways. The power of RSS is that it gives you the choice of how you want to access your content. You can read just the headlines from a variety of your favorite blog and news sites, or you can read the entire articles. You can have your content delivered to your desktop or email inbox, or you can have it presented in your browser. Then again, you can always surf on over to each and every website you enjoy reading every day and read every single article on the site, but who has time for that? You have better things to do with your time. Once you've chosen an aggregator, here's a few of my own RSS feeds for you to add: Joe Frank Shows Now Available Through Subscription ServiceJoeFrank.com, the official website of my personal favorite broadcaster and recording artist, has released a new subscription streaming service. You can now listen to all of Joe's 200+ shows in high-quality Windows Media audio for one low monthly fee! The subscription service makes for an incredibly affordable alternative to purchasing individual CDs of Joe's shows and is tailor-made for poor people like me. The service generously provides access to 5 shows from Joe's catalogue during each 24-hour period and promises access to his future productions.
I recently caught Joe performing at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, an event in which half the city seemed to show up for. The standing-room-only crowd was treated with a masterful reading of the artist's latest work. Joe will be performing next at the Third Coast International Audio Festival in October, but unless you're flying off to Chicago to attend that event the only way you're going to be able to gain access to Joe's mesmerizing audio pieces is through his website. Check out the subscription order form and choose the plan that best suits your needs. Then turn off the lights and prepare yourself for liftoff. I subscribed just a few hours ago and I've already listened to three shows, and let me tell you, right now I'm in heaven (or Nirvana, or utopia, or whatever term you use to refer to your own garden of delights). Besides this blog, a narrative blog called something that happened, and various other projects, I also moderate a discussion forum: Please consider subscribing to engage in a dialogue about all things having to do with Internet radio! |
Send Us Your Music
Artists! Want to be heard on this station? Email your MP3 audio, one file at a time, to our Program Director or mail your CD promo(s) to the following address:
Harold J. JohnsonVoyagerRadio
547 Gayley Avenue #1
Los Angeles, CA 90024 Make certain to let use know whether we may use the audio in our podcast, too!
Download the Podcast
We are officially podcasters now that we have revitalized and reintroduced our downtempo show Tempo of the Down, this time around as a podcast. Now showcasing independent downtempo we've been granted permission to offer for download, Tempo of the Down is our entry into the future of Internet radio.
Head over to our new Podcast area to download the latest session!
