iTunes 4.9 Has Arrived

Apple launched iTunes 4.9 a couple of days ago. This is big news if you are a podcaster and/or a podcast listener. With the release, Apple also released a new firmware update for the iPod.

iTunes now has an area for podcasts and an easy model with which to subscribe and manage them. The firmware update provides a menu item under "Music" called "Podcasts" where your subscribed podcasts go. I find it to be very easy to work with.

For a podcaster, we now have a platform that is huge! The only problem is that Apple delivered this new version of iTunes without any heads-up on the new feed specifications required to optimize a podcast's look and information within iTunes' directories. Here at This And That, we have chosen to continue to use the same feed that we are currently using (i.e. NO disruption to anyone!) which means that until our feed-host provides the ability to enhance our feeds with iTunes-only descriptions and images, we will continue to have a very 'boring' look in the iTunes directory (and somewhat hard to find).

So - you wanna subscribe to This And That using iTunes? Just go into the iTunes music store and search for either "jeff pat" or "dallas" - those two seem to always find us for now) and click the subscribe button when you see our podcast come up! Easy. Oh - if you do, don't forget to unsubscribe from us from the feed reader you are currently using (you don't want double downloads, do you?).

There is a LOT of talk / buzz around the proverbial virtual water cooler. I'll share some quick observations:

1) Some podcasts were in the iTunes directory when they launched. Some weren't. We were (though as I said, with no graphics and little information). Many podcasters (good ones at that) were not included initially and are worried about their placement in the directory. I would say to them 'don't worry' - nobody is getting an edge - yet. Too much other flux in and around the system. I would give the system and third parties about two weeks for things to settle down.

2) iTunes has crashed because of volume at least once. The major podcasting websites (Curry's various sites, PodcastAlley, TWIT, etc...) have been SLOW or CLOSED since the launch. WOW. That's volume! Who ever thought podcasting could be so popular. AND this volume accounts for only a fraction of iTunes subscribers that even converted to the new version yet (the geekiest ones, no doubt! lol).

3) iTunes is highlighting the 'legit' podcasts like those produced by ABC, Walt Disney and NPR among others. Don't expect to find much 'drag queen' action highlighted by Apple (or This And That type of action for that matter). In fact, I would expect more traditional content providers to leap into this more.

4) All the talk among podcasters is how do I get into the directory? how do I enhance my look? is my feed XML ok? These are all legitimate concerns but it's pretty funny to watch all the similar questions and sheer volume on the newsgroups.

5) Morning Shows? One of the four highly visible 'mega' categories for the iTunes Podcast stare is one for Morning Shows / Talk Radio. It is full of Morning show Radio duos (all of whom end up looking fat, why is that?)! Blechhh! Let's see how long this category lasts. I think most people look for podcasts because they are tired of the drive-time banter by half-wits. Instead they look for shows like This And That by half-wits ;-) lol

Hello, My Name Is Shotgun!

Hello, this is me. Now that I have this blog thing licked (arf arf - funny eh?), I figured that I would post a pic of my beautifulness. Next stop for this pup - podcasting nirvana - I just have to find myself a little puppy pop-filter.

Gotta run, I think she's on to me. SAVE MY MANHOOD!!! Pass the word.

A Differentbreed.org experience

Shotgun here.

My human took to this place yesterday and I think it's just the first step in the end for me. We got there around noon and there were lots of other dogs there. Several of them were barking loudly and I was pretty sure I wasn't going to like this experience. They put me in a cage over one of the barkiest dogs. I tried to settle in and was listening to my human talking to this other human who appeared to be in charge. My human told this other human that she thought I was the best looking dog in the place. Well DUH! She gave me a bath AGAIN, yeesh, this is ruining it for me. Just as I get good a doggie smelling, my human gives me a bath. She said something about smelling good and having soft fur. Whatever.

Then she left. There I was. It was hot, but occaissionally other nice humans would stop and stick their fingers in my cage. They took me out some too, sometimes for a walk and sometimes to just pet me. Two families put in applications to adopt me. I'm so sad about leaving my human. Sure, she's got her problems, but she takes good care of me. One of the families has 3 kids, but I think the In Charge Human didn't like that family too much. They want me to be strictly an outside dog and the In Charge Human thinks that's not right in Texas.

I have a good life. I have a doggie door and as long as I stay out of the flower beds (which are very tempting) I have the run of the back yard. I have an endless supply of fresh water and lots of toys to play with. Even the big dog - my human's other dog - who used to be really mean with me has been won over by me. We play tug of war with the toys. I get to go on long walks twice a day. I don't want to go. Why won't she keep me?! I get sad thinking about how I am going to lose my "you know whats". I saw on Jay Leno the other night some guy was auctioning off a fake testicle. I wonder what he did to lose his nuts.......

When my human came back I was so happy I almost flew into her arms. I wagged my tail so hard, I'm thinking if I put out my cutest self she may keep me....

I just want a good home where I am loved and well taken care of. I'll fulfill my duty as best friend, I promise.

Reminder - Last Couple of Days for Len's T-Shirts

Hey all, just wanted to give you a friendly reminder that Len's (from Jawbone Radio) cartoon logo that he designed for us will be available in his CafePress Shop for only 2 more days. We may offer these again at a later time, but I can't guarantee it - so if you like it, you should probably get one now from Len. He has a few different styles as well as some other things.

Somebody HELP ME!!

OK, I'm just a puppy so don't be two hard on me for my typos and misspellings. It's not so easy to type when you don't have an opposable thumb, you know.

Anyway, I have to do this quickly, my human could come in and see me using the computer and she'll probably spray me with water, which I HATE.

But, oh my god, this is so horrible. I heard my human this morning talking with another one about me. My human said that as soon as my balls come out, she's going to have them CUT OFF! Criminey! What kind of a thing is that to look forward two? What did I do to deserve to have them lopped off? My human said that I can't be adopted out till I'm sterilized.

I'm sooooooooooooo distraught by this. And, here is the worst part. I heard on NPR (my human plays it all the time) that the Army was recruiting dogs for duty in Afghanistan - to sniff for bombs. But, they will never take me after my nuts are just a dream of better times! As the Word Nerds know, everyone will call me a pussy once my boyes are "hasta la vista".

So, someone has to come to my rescue. Someone please please please come free me from my human. Don't let her nips off my balls in the bud.

I AM SERIOUS, I NEED SOMEONE TO COME SAVE ME!

Holy Sterilization, I can here her coming in the house so I better go now...........

Crepe Myrtles Final

Guess I've gotten a bit behind on my posting. Here are the last three days of Crepe Myrtle progress. I think we'll stop here as they look like they have fully bloomed for the most part. I hope you guys enjoyed the "10 Days Of Crepe Myrtles".

All pics click through to a larger picture. I'll put these three in reverse order to be consistent with the rest of the blog! lol

June 24



June 23




June 22

Crepe Myrtles 7

Here is today's picture. Looks like we're almost getting to the 'peak'. Quite a change in 7 days, huh? Click to get the larger picture.

Theft In The Office

My office had a break in over the weekend. A window was smashed, projectors were ripped out of the ceilings in three conference rooms, offices were opened, laptops and monitors were stolen. The police indicated that it was a "pretty good" take for the burglars.

I had nothing stolen but a "This And That Podcat" mug from my desk. Apparently they bring in quite the take on the black market... ;-) Also, thank goodness they did NOT steal of wonderful espresso maker!

The company is installing a bunch of new security and apparently the police have several clues / leads. Luckily no one was hurt.

Crepe Myrtles 6

Here is yesterday's picture. Click to get the larger picture.

Holy Maurading Mongrels

Man, my heart has finally slowed down here. I took Belle and Shotgun for our morning walk. I've been doing this walk now for three years, more or less that same major route, with some variations down side streets. I know which houses have dogs, cats, which houses are on sale, where dogs are tied up outside, the whole nine yards. I remember walking Belle on Park and having a Pitt Bull run after us, now I avoid that street.

But today started out the normal way with the long walk down Mixon, where there is never any trouble. Unfortunately, it didn't stay that way. I'm walking, listening to Morning Editon, making sure Shotgun isn't annoying Belle too much when out of my right eye I see some movement. It's two rotteweillers, rather large, and they are walking towards me.

I take off the earbuds so I can make sure I've got all my attention focused on what to do next. I'm completely unarmed (other than the bag of dog poop that I'm holding). Belle starts this high pitch barking - she's scared, and the puppy is just running around and I can tell he's terrified too (probably more from Belle's hysterical barking). And the dog keeps coming towards us. I'm trying to figure out what the best thing to do it, I'm afraid of standing still and I'm more afraid of running. In fact, as I start to move slowly away, the big (male) dog speeds up some. So, I start yelling "STOP" at the top of my lungs. It's 6:35A and I'm YELLING AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS - thinking surely someone will hear this and come out to see what's going on.

Well, nobody comes out, and by now, I have Belle partially in my arms and the puppy has tied himself around my legs. At least the dogs have stopped their advance. With just this brief moment of seeing they weren't still moving forward, I managed to untangle myself, Belle stopping schrieking, and I s-l-o-w-l-y started retreating.

My heart pounding I looked back later and saw the mongrels running the opposite direction on Mixon.

I'm going to start carrying doggie mace, this was way too scary to repeat.

Crepe Myrtles 5

Here is today's picture. Progress is being made!

Cartoon Pat

Here is another picture from Len at Jawbone Radio. This is your esteemed co-host (and leader?) Pat!

Crepe Myrtles 4

Here is today's picture. The left tree is starting to strut it's stuff. Though it's hard to see the tree on the right is starting to show buds of red. Click on it to get a bigger picture.

Crepe Myrtles 3

Here is today's picture (actually yesterday's pic). The tree on the left is starting to get there. Click on it to get a bigger picture.

Shotgun Update

Yes, Jeff mentioned some bits get dropped on the cutting floor. And, well, since I am the leader of this podcast, I usually make the decisions on what goes and what stays. Last episode I spoke some about Shotgun, the Podcasting Puppy, but in the interest of time, I cut that part.

What's new with the puppy you say? Well, when I got him he was 8 pounds. He's now 16! And, I was worried he was not growing. He's getting cuter every day and losing some of the annoying aspects. For example, he now selects a chew toy to play with instead of my shoes. Ok, ok, I put the shoes away, but I'm convinced he wouldn't pick them.

He's also gotten better about not waking me up in the middle of the night and I'm grateful for that. I've gotten hooked up with A Different Breed and so I hope he will get adopted soon. He's such a sweet little puppy.

Crepe Myrtles 2

Here is today's picture. Not a huge difference though you can see a bit more red on the left. Any day now! Click on it to get a bigger picture.

Crepe Myrtles 1

In Texas, Crepe Myrtles come out in mid June. This also coincides with the 'hot' weather typically. Well, so far they haven't come out and it seems just a bit late. I figured I would share a pic each day and we can watch these bloom together.

Here is today's picture. You can see at the very left of the two trees some red just starting. Click on it to get a bigger picture.

Dallas Podcasting Party II

Well, as what happens sometimes, we did talk about the Dallas Podcasting Happy-Hour on our show this week but it ended up on the cutting room floor in our attempt to keep our show somewhat 'streamlined'.... (surprised we have a "cutting room"? - yep - bits and bytes all over the place)

Dallas was really meant for podcasting as you can see from the design of Reunion Tower in the picture to the right!

However, I did want to acknowledge all the great people that we met and guide you to their sites. Some of the people that we had great conversations with include:

• Gary (Pickleman) from the Podcast Pickle podcast directory (thanks for the hats!!). We love the Pickle!
• Justin and Magdelena (love her name!) from a really cool podsafe music site (yes, I checked it and really liked the music selection) PodsafeAudio.com. They also both play violins and have a performance business for very reasonable prices. Check them out at Two Violins.
• Alan Aguirres from The Zany Aquirres podcast - a promising 'young' podcast that features a completely rock and roll family of five. Alan also runs a podcast advertising business called Podcast Media.
• We also met (but didn't get a chance to talk to as much as we would have liked to) Marcus from WSM Advertising (an advertising company that really 'gets' the podcast movement) and Mike from Podshack, a skilled producer offering his services to podcasters.
• Also we met the creater of a future (soon, he assures us) podcast called EdgeCast. I apologize but I can't remember his name (met too many folks that night!) but he promised that EdgeCast will discuss the 'cutting edge' of culture, music, fashion, etc.. Cool!

And of course, again, thanks to Andrew from Exit50 for organizing. We would be happy to help organize the next one - and I'm sure it will be even bigger given the growth of podcasting!

Andrew did some interviews during the happy hour - listen HERE.

Dallas Podcasting Party

Thanks to Andrew from Exit50 for organizing a podcast party of Dallas current and future podcasters this past Friday night. Pat and I met lots of cool and groovy folks - everyone from directory developers, producers, podcasters, podsafe music providers, and future 'casters. What a great community!

We'll have more in our next show (#17). But for now here is a collage of pics taken by Andrew.

We're Cartoons!

Len of the GREAT Jawbone Radio podcast just did a quick drawing of our 'logo' pic for us. How cool is that? This guy's got some real talent - for more drawings of his, check out the website! Thanks a bunch Len!!

My Date In Court

Today, I go to the Highland Park, TX police court and pay them $195.00 for going 42 MPH in a 30 MPH limited area. I will go for the deferred adjudication to keep the ticket off my record. Nevertheless, it still seems like I get speeding tickets about once every three to four years.

I sort of look at it as a bit of added tax for supporting my local police departments. Fine. They earn their money.

Dogs, work orders, and dreams

I'm so tired today! Why you ask? Because I had to get up 3 times last night to take the Podcasting Puppy outside to do his business. WAH! And, to make things worse, I had a night full of dreams. The first one was about "work order bundling". Huh? A guy on my team has been talking about how our model needs this and he's worried it's not going to get done. So, what do I do about it? I dream about it! Yeesh.

And, I also dreamed about puppies. I dreamed I was in a car with some children. We were driving along a river and we noticed a "herd" of puppies near the water. So we stopped to pet them. Only as they came closer you could see they had sores all over them. One came close enough and I could see he had and extra set of dog teeth on the side of his face, like he was deformed. It was not a pleasant dream.

I just want a peaceful night of sleep, maybe where I dream about Brad Pitt.

The Beatles "Revolver"

Decided to listen to the Beatles "Revolver" today. If this isn't the best Beatles album, it is very close. It marks a really great period of time where they transformed from the early Beatles to a more sophisticated drug-experimenting Beatles. The songs are magnificent, just stunning. Paul, John, AND George clearly were quickly and visibly evolving as songwriters.

Sometimes it makes me sad to listen to the great Beatles classics. Sad that George and John aren't with us anymore. Sad that the truly great Beatles music came in a period of about 5 years where magic happened and hasn't quite been replicated. Sad that they are not young, vibrant and innocent anymore. Sad that I wasn't with them. Sad that I could never write a song like "For No One" and certainly not "Eleanor Rigby". "And Your Bird Can Sing"? Forget about it!

Hearing the opening bass line and the guitar "chink" on the backbearts of "Taxman" still take me back to my Dad's reel-to-reel copy of the album - one of the first full length albums I had ever heard in my life. I guess in a way, that makes me sad too - I no longer have the joy of discovering the Beatles for the first time.

Featured Podcast - That's Us!!

We have just found out that "This And That" has been chosen as the featured podcast on Podcast Pickle for the week of June 5, 2005! This is not only a very nice honor but it is especially sweet as both Pat and I have met Gary (the "pickleman"!) and really admire both him and the Podcast Pickle website.

Go check us out there (and check out the Pickle)...

Love, Podcasting Style

I found some interesting facts about the original show, Love - American Style:

• Aired between Sept 1969 and Jan 1974
• Never ranked above #25 in Nielson ratings
• Received a Golden Globe nomination for Best TV Show in a Musical or Comedy in 1970
• The pilot for "Happy Days" was done as one episode.

Oh, and currently it is not showing anywhere! It was on Oxygen until about two years ago.

665?

Just think - this day next year will be June 6, 2006 or as more interestingly put, 6/6/6 or the day of the beast. I wonder what kind of festivities will be planned!! The podcast puppy is a beast. He will probably enjoy his special day.

Great Blog About Podcasting

I happened across this blog called RexBlog by Rex Hammock. He has written three very interesting articles about how the iTunes announcement will change podcasting forever. He looks at iTunes as being the most successful (or actually one of the only applications of) micro-payment retail outfits on the web.

He goes on to suggest that it may be fool's folly to plan on really making a career out of of being a podcaster but he does suggest that this technology will make 'stars' out of a very few (he makes an NBA analogy here - you can't plan on becoming one of those select few, but if you do it will be extremely rewarding). He does, however, point out that the ability for selling directly through the iTunes store could offer some nice cross-marketing opportunities for other ventures (your music, your ebay store, etc..).

Anyways - worth a read and worth keeping current on...

It's That Time...

...to show a little bit of love to your favorite podcasters! Just click the pink button on the right panel to vote for your favorite podcasts on Podcast Alley. And don't forget that you can vote for multiple shows and we DO encourage you to vote for all of your favorites. We do.

As a community, most of us don't ask for money because we simply love what we do. But it does take a few hours every week to get our stuff together, write bits, do the post-production, and update our web site. To know that you support us is all we need to keep going!

So... get out there, vote for your favorites and SPREAD SOME OF THAT LOVE around!!!

Thanks everyone!!!!

Doggie Nights

Last night, Shotgun fell off the bed. I heard a noise, but thought I saw him at the foot of the bed. Alas, he did fall off and when I realized it and picked him up to put him back on the bed, he wimpered some and it seemed like he was limping too. Awww, poor baby doggie.

Later that night, I dreamed someone went into my back yard, took my puppy and wrote in indelible ink on his belly! There were drawings and sentences on my poor puppy's belly. Everyone I questioned on it feigned ignorance.

When I got up, Shotgun was walking fine and, of course, had no writing on him. We've had our walk, and he's now vigorously squeeking a tiny dog toy.