Recent Upgrades And Changes
Hi Everyone! First and foremost, thanks to you all for getting so involved right at the beginning of the Shot Of Jaq story. Aq and I have both been blown away by the discussions going on in the shots, and they have been oodles of fun to be a part of. It is awesome to see our community growing. We are keen to continue improving different aspects of the shots themselves and shotofjaq.org.
With that in mind, I just wanted to share with you all a few recent changes:
- Studio Upgrades – some of you had commented on Aq’s audio quality not being quite so good, so we have ordered an upgrade to his setup which will bring it up to par with my own (same quality audio interface and mics), and I have recently upgraded some core chunks of my own studio, which will continue to raise the quality of the show.
- Discussion Formatting – we have tried to tidy up the discussion part of a shot to make it look a little nicer and more spaced out. We are keen to make this part of the site as easy to use as possible as that is where you all get involved, so let us know what you think.
- Shot Of Jaq Regulars – the main sidebar on the site now shows those users with the most comments to Shot Of Jaq shots. While this is not a means of assessing quality of posts, it does show who is most involved on the site. These numbers are reset every year.
- Donate – we had some folks asking if they could donate some money to Shot Of Jaq to help us keep our equipment up to date, run the site and produce merchandise and other goodies, so we set it up (see the Donate button at the bottom of the sidebar). Please give generously!
- Podcast Feeds – the podcast feed should be working fine now. If you have any problems, please drop us a note in the comments on this entry.
So those are the changes, but what else would you all like to see? What would make your Shot Of Jaq experience more fun and more engaging? Share your thoughts in the discussion on this entry.
37 Comments to “Recent Upgrades And Changes”
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It’s always great to know what you’re up to.
I’m not sure how I missed this, but I’m adding it to my podcast viewer on my G1 immediately.
Just in time, too–enhanced quality for me! Keep up the great work, you two.
what podcast reader do u use on your G1, mine wouldn’t get all the episodes available.
This hang out just keeps getting cozier and cozier all of the time; I think that I will take the lounge chair and stay for awhile.
-Yos
If you could implement a feature that watches the particular post/thread and sends an email alert on a comment’s follow up it would go a long way in helping the discussion aspect.
As it stands, you’ve got to watch the posts/episodes that you’ve commented on in order to respond when appropriate.
Good idea, that should be fairly easy to do. I will check into it.
I definitely vote for the “email replies to your comments” feature!
You may find the comments RSS feed useful for this — see “Get Jaq Delivered” in the page footer. We’re thinking about a special Shot of Jaq application that tells you when new things have happened too
Would it be possible to make the ‘Shot Of Jaq Regulars’ links active and show the comments for the user? Currently some go to users web site.
How do we either register or change our user pics?
You can change your pic by registering a Gravatar – see http://en.gravatar.com/ for details.
Awesome, thanks for the tip.
glad to see the podcast feed is fixed, its even easier now to get a shot of Jaq!
“So those are the changes, but what else would you all like to see? What would make your Shot Of Jaq experience more fun and more engaging?”
I would really, really like it if the episodes could be numbered… Would that be possible?
Apart from that little problem, love it, great work.
Why do you want them numbered?
Just downloading the 5 released episodes on to my MP3 player ( a Rockboxed Sansa). Not having numbering in the episodes filename means that I will have no idea of the correctly broadcast order of the shows. Having MP3s (or OGGs) that a alphanumerically ordered, whether for podcasts or album tracks always makes sense in my mind. (I know that some players order by the track title, but that also is not always alphanumerically ordered)
Ah, hello sir – big fan. If it is pain to do I understand.
I just think it is a really good idea – among many things, it helps people record and remember which episode they have played and if they have missed one for example (my main reason for asking). There are of course other reasons. EG: when talking about a particular episode in conversation it is quicker/easier to refer to a number than to a title.
If anything it is a little strange, imho, that a project like this not number the episodes.
Do you think it could be done or am I wrong somewhere?
Thanks for reading. =)
@Mark_L I use aCast, which while not Free Software, is “free as in beer”. You can also support the developer and turn off ads at the same time by buying the paid version. I went this route because of the sheer amount of time I spend in my Podcast Player!
@Jono I agree with @Whym to a certain extent – maybe using the date would be sufficient, then you could say “In the 11-23 episode” (which is not an americanism by the way, it’s the ISO format, stipping off the year) referring to the most recent instance of the 23rd November, or you could say “09-11-23″ if needs be? You already mention the date at the start.
Any chance of an Ogg feed? I know there’s an ogg link the feed, but that doesn’t work for podcatchers.
I tried to make my own feed with Yahoo Pipes, but it doesn’t work, due to the URL redirects, or my own stupidity.
deadrabbit: you might want to start with the following YQL statement:
select * from html where url=’http://shotofjaq.org’ and xpath=’//div[@class="post-content right-col"]/p[@class="audio"]/span/a[contains(@href,"ogg")]‘
Hi. Could you please announce the new shots through identi.ca too? Thanks.
This should work now (I thought it was working before
)
Thanks Aq. The show was awesome right from the start, btw.
Are you going to have an OGG feed?
I just heard about this. Nice to see you guys doing a podcast again.
I was wondering: are you recording it with Free software this time? I’ll settle for Free audio apps on Ubuntu, it doesn’t have to be gNewSense.
I am afraid not, still using Cubase.
Like the show even though it’s a bit short in length. Still using Cubase and Mac? Come on Jono it’s getting a bit tired. It’s almost 2010 for Christsake! Ardour is awesome. I get very good audio quality on the MythTVCast with it. Is it just a case of using what you’re familiar with? Keep up the great work. Take it easy.
I use Cubase for Shot Of Jaq two main reasons:
In terms of music, Cubase provides many things Ardour doesn’t which I need such as MIDI support, VST and VSTi support, and variaudio.
I know Ardour is awesome for many things, and I always support the project where possible, it is just not for me, that’s all.
Hard to fault you on the hardware support. The compression I think is debatable to my ears.
Too bad. Be sure you mention it when you make the switch, I’ll check back every now and then.
Btw, Jono, since when did you change your website to http://www.jonobaon.org/ ?
How about a shot about wordpress given you both seem to love it so much
Not a bad idea. Will add it to the ideas list.
I’m with Pat. Ardour is only limited to your imagination – it’s all in there – VST plugin support as well if you want it.
Depends on your view: VST plug-in support varies, and I use a lot of plug-ins instead of outboard gear. I should give it a shot to see if HALion One EZ-Drummer, DFK and the various VSTs, particularly the compressors and limitors work.
In all of the 180 or so podcasts that I produced, I can honestly say that I’ve never needed MIDI support in my recorder.
I don’t need MIDI for podcasts, I need it for music.
Keep posting stuff like this i really like it.
Even the Ubuntu community manager is running his podcast on a mac” But seriously you need to talk to the Linux outlaws guys they run their podcast all using open source tools and it works so great. If we all talk about free and open source software and how cool it is, we all need then to put our money where our mouth is. keep up the great work