After a lot of editing, which entailed learning the open source audio editor, Audacity, we've finally published our first podcasts in the Open Source Conversations series. I wrote about Audacity previously in "Learing Audacity".

They stem from one conversation held at the Uptown Café among Clarise, Bernard Golden, and me, dealing with two topics:

• What is Open Source
• Why Open Source

We thought it was a good idea to just extend upon our conversations that we've had at the Uptown Café in the past, but the background noise was pretty bad. We sepnt a lot of time with Audacity working on that. There still is a lot of background noise, but I think you can follow the conversation without getting an headache. We also want to thank Mike for the hack he did to b2evolution to provide a better enclosure format for the RSS2 feed. Mike, it works great - now we need hacks for RSSv0.92, RSSv1 [RDF] and Atom.

I hope you enjoy conversations. More will follow; the adoption of Open Source software, and the commoditization of software products is becoming too important for either business or personal consumers to ignore.

We've recently recorded a conversation in a café and we're now learning the open source software Audacity in an attempt to clean it up. It may not be the easiest listening, but we think our upcoming podcast(s) will be very interesting.

Audacity is a very powerful program, but there just doesn't seem to be any way to remove noise that is quantitatively similar to the signal [voices ordering coffee as noise, voices discussing open source as signal].

But that's OK. We're learning. And the one thing that I have learned about myself is that I enjoy learning, more than doing. That's why I made the move to information mangement from aerospace - quicker learning curve required, over and over again.

Apple is adding feed syndication podcatcher capability to iTunes. This served as a central theme for the return of the Gillmor Gang on May 28th. As a tangent to the converstaion, the Gang discussed the ability - or lack thereof - of the Apple iPod to take full advantage of RSSv1, RSSv2 and Atom feed syndication. Of course, the iPod has no OS/API/applications to do this.

"Looking at other implications of the iTunes announcement. Doesn't this also mean that with RSS, that the iPod is much further along in it's being the total multipurpose device? You know... What's to say that you wouldn't be able to, on the disk, have all the things that you might subscribe to via RSS, in that device and you might then plug into headphones or into a TV screen? Well..."

-- Steve Gillmor, Jon Udell, Dana Gardner, Mike Vizard, and Doc Searls, with guest Adam Curry and Executive Producer Doug Kaye Gillmor Gang Rides Again 33m:44s - 35m:06s

No doubt the iPod is great, but its main job is to play m4p files. If you want the ability to grab your feeds no matter the media, how about the Palm Lifedrive or one of these from the Daily Wireless article "WiFi MP3 Players". So, forget the iPod and get a machine that let's you get to all your feeds, podcast, songs, blogs, vlogs, news, and whatever comes next.