We've been rethinking our podcasting strategy and hardware - mostly due to the poor sound quality of our previous podcasts. We also realize that we want to podcast on more than just open source topics, so "Open Source Conversations from the Open Source Café doesn't cut it.

Merienda in Tagalog [via Spain] and Merenda in Italian, mean snack or the small dishes that make up the snack, such as might be served in an Enoteca. Podcasts are very much the same, a small dish for the mind, to be taken in hand, and consumed on the run, or savored as you while away the time at your favorite wine bar, enoteca, caré or caffé. So, Meri^enda will be the name and tag for our podcasts going forward.

We did some web research, received recommendations from friends who are podcasting, and advice from Mike at Manor Music, Inc. and have begun investing in some podcasting gear [Note that links go to our Amazon store].

• A digital recorder, the M-Audio MicroTrack 24/96
• AUDIO TECHNICA ATW-222 Microphone
• A pair of AUDIO TECHNICA ATR-35S Lavalier Microphones
• And a bunch of adapters and cables and stands

This gives us the capability to record directly to MP3, for quick podcasts from the field, the ability to do higher quality recordings, to roam around an audience, and even to record off the phone or skype or computer. We have some podcast plans for the summer, so keep a look out for Meri^enda. Enjoy.

One thing I did this weekend was to reorganize the feed syndication categories for my Feed Reader, RSSowl. I decided to go with the majority vote, and used Technorati Tags as a source for my new obsessive-compulsive hierarchy. However, o-c behaviour wasn't the only reason to do this. I also want to garner feedback for two realms.

1. The first, we're considering adding a new service to the TeleInterActive Networks - integrating an online aggregator with a desktop reader for RSS, RDF and Atom syndication feeds; this will allow us to provide a true blogroll for our blogs, as well as allow one to access their feeds from any computer by synchronizing the subscriptions in the desktop reader with the server.
2. The second, I would like to propose that more "topics" be available for the blogs on Bayosphere. I'm hoping that by cross-posting this article to Bayosphere and TeleInterActive Lifestyle, we'll be able to fine tune the folksonomy to use in both cases.

Technorati Tags are essentially categories as used by the millions of RSS/R[DF]SS/Atom syndicated sites that ping Technorati to let the world know that they have something new posted. The Tags are listed by Technorati in alphabetical order, with relative font size showing the most popular categories. The larger the font, the more posts have been made with that tag. This makes it easy to scan the Tags page, and see the topics about which people are writing. But some of them seem similar, and there are no definitions associated with these terms from the wiki(Folksonomy). So, in trying to decide if a site's syndicated feed should be in Blog, Blogging, Diary or Personal, Science, Technology, or Computers and Internet, or one of the many other tags, I came up with my own definitions, all starting with "a site primarily dedicated to, about or provides...".

Blog

events, happenings, news, and subjects of public and personal interest

Blogging

the art or technology of building, writing or using a web log

Books

reading, writing or publishing books or a site by the author or publisher in support of a book

Business

providing advice for starting, running or growing a business

Computers and Internet

general information about buying and using any type of computer from servers to handhelds as well as information related to the Internet; oddly enough there are separate tags in the folksonomy for computer, computers, computing and Internet, but they are smaller than the joint usage - I've added subcategories for the individual tags

Current Affairs

news that grabs the public interest and will be the stuff of history tomorrow; it is almost as big as the News tag - I wished I had paid more attention in Current Affairs class

Diary

relating the day-to-day events of the writer's life

Education

tools for, issues concerning, funding for, politics around and art of teaching

Entertainment

music, theatre, movies, television, dance, story telling and other things that divert our minds from all the other tags

Food and Drink

cooking, eating and imbibing, recipes, restaurants, etiquette

Health and Wellness

medicine, exercise, diet, nutrition, lifestyle

Life

joie de vivre

Mobile

technoliges and techniques for accessing information and communicating on-the-go, synchronously or asynchronously

MoBlog

sometimes text, but more often photos, posted to a blog while on-the-go, especially to record events as they happen

Music

enjoying, expaining, making or reviewing those noises the reader accepts as Music rather than any other type of noise see wiki(Music, wikipedia on Music)

News

global, national or local events that impact, however briefly or tentatively, everyone

Open Source

about creating, using and licensing software, and maybe even other intellectual property, such that the source [code] is freely available, and to quote "free as in 'free speech', not as in 'free beer'"

Personal

one's personal interests, but not necessarily about one's day-to-day activities

Photography

equipment, art, creating, processing and presenting film or digital pictures

Photos

being an online photo gallery

Podcast

an audio blog - see blog - generally provided as an enclosure to a blog and generally recorded as an MP3 file with associated meta data and RSS/RDF/Atom feed syndication information

Podcasting

creating, producing, distributing and receiving audio blogs

Politics

difficult to make a polite definition of this one

Reviews

impressions about entertainment, computers, Internet sites, gadgets, gizmos and toys

RSS

the bugeoning phoenemnon of using really simple syndication to grab content from the Internet

Science

researching, ezpanding and defining the body of knowledge that leads us to understand and comprehend reality through objective, repeatable and predictive studies, such things as Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Astronomy but not Medicine, Psychology or Astrology - see wiki(Science, wikipedia on science)

Software

that which runs the computer you're using to read this - not hardware, not wetware

Sports

paid physical activity that should be an hobby but folk wind up being millionaires by arousing the passions of the masses er, ah, global, national, local, college, school or community physical activites played by individuals or teams - I'm not a fan

Syndication

Not actually from the folksonomy, so see RSS, but more general to include RDF, Atom and any new means that come about to more easily publish and subscribe to content on the Internet

Technology

science turned into products by engineers with hype from marketing, or gadgets, gizmos, tools and toys

VoIP

Voice over Internet Protocol and the growth of an industry that Jeff Pulver has been advocating for over a decade, think Skype, Net2Phone, Yahoo! Messneger Voice, etc

Wireless

See Mobile, but focused more on synchronous H2H, H2M and M2M exchange of information

Did I miss your favorite Technorati Tag? Let me know what you think.

HonorTagAdvocate