I’m not sure how I missed this, but there’s a Pragmatic Programmer’s podcast interview with Jeremy Sydik, author of Designing Accessible Websites.

This looks interesting. It’s an episode of IT Conversations where David Temkin, CTO of LaszloSystems (makers of OpenLaszlo) is interviewed. From the IT Conversations page:

Before AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) had a name, there was Laszlo Systems, a software tools developer using AJAX-like methods along with with Macromedia’s Flash player to deliver richer Web experiences. David Temkin tells us why he chose the Flash player as a platform. Laszlo went open source and chose IBM’s Common Public License as it was flexible enough to fit their needs without curbing commercial use.

David plans to leverage rich client environments other than Flash Player, such as DHTML, Java and .Net and shares his about thoughts about Eclipse, the recent Adobe/Macromedia merger, refactoring the desktop user interface and calendar interoperability. He also explains why Flash is not an ideal platform for mobile devies and desktop applications and compares Laszlo Blog Boxes to widgets in Apple’s Dashboard and Yahoo’s Konfabulator.

It looks like the IT Conversations site has been streamlined a bit… I was able to download the mp3 without having to jump through hoops. Thumbs-up on that one, Mr. Kaye.

I was piddlefarting around with OpenLaszlo a few months ago, and was basically on the cusp of doing something useful with it… but got sidetracked (of course). I found that the documentation was a bit too sparse for my liking. OpenLaszlo needs a good solid tutorial that walks one through creating a simple application that includes non-trivial bi-directional client-server communication (maybe like a blog editor or something). Most of the samples send simple parameters to the server and get an XML response back. Most of the stuff I’d want to do aren’t uber-complicated, but it’d be helpful to have some of that spelled out in a decent, well-written tutorial.

While I like OpenLaszlo overall, I find myself caught up in trying to figure out how to do things that seem like they should be simple, or at least documented somewhere other than in sample code.

While yes, I could spend a couple of thousand dollars to go to one of their training seminars, I’m not gonna. I’d consider writing said client-server sample app tutorial, but a) I don’t have the time, b) I’m not really a big enough Laszlo fanboy, and c) I don’t think I’d want to deal with the nitpicky comments from internet folks. I dunno. Right now I’m busy working on learning to Think In Java.

Actually, I wrote a simple thing to play around with Laszlo forms and to look at the server response. Perhaps I’ll post that sometime soon and see how bad the razzing is.

edit 03/18/2006:For some reason this particular post attracts a bit of comment spam (I include unsolicited links to blogs/podcasts in that category), so I’m turning comments off.

I can’t explain exactly why, but McKormick Astley is my hero. To quote a friend… “I like the cut of his jib.” Every conversation I’ve had with him (via e-mail), almost every blog post, and every one of his podcasts gives me the “I’m not alone in the world, there are others similar to me” feeling, and not because the details of our lives are that similar, but more along the lines “I think similarly.” Perhaps it’s the whole “misery loves company” thing, but whatever.

While I’ve generally had my head in the sand in regards to podcasting lately, I’m still listenin’ to McKormick’s “As Evidence That I Exist, WHYME: Worst Music You’ve Ever Heard, and Super-Dave Slusher’s Evil Genius Chronicles (I seed ‘em on Bittorrent AND I wear my t-shirt regularly). Of the three, McKormick’s is the most personally resonant.

I’d have listed Illinoise! too, but a) their t-shirt is white, b) I just can’t get over the fact that Janet made Pete throw out his Playstation, and c) they’ve gone the way of the TrippOdd podcast… they’re missing in action. Yeah, that’s right… leave it to me to lead by example.

Indie Music worth checkin’ out:

• Hayworth
• Dressy Bessy
• The Arts and Sciences / Paul Melancon
• Seth, Third Son of Albert (S3SoA)

Bay Area:

• Corpus Callosum
• Colin Carthen
• Tin Cat
• Russell Barber

I’m this much cooler now, and all because I listen to and support Illinoise!, WHYME: Worst Music You’ve Ever Heard, and Evil Genius Chronicles. Thanks podcasting friends!

I know I should ask Ross to let me post this over at Drooling Fanboy, but I’m stoked that I ordered an Evil Genius Chronicles Stuff Package. Soon the entire world will receive visual acknowledgement of my Dave Slusher fan-ness.

I spent some time tonight talking with folks at the Open Mic at Red Rock Coffee Company in Mountain View. Hopefully some of the recorded audio sounds decent enough to put into a podcast… it was hard to tell if the fidelity was adequate… and I recorded it all in an elevator.

I’ve been working on a number of segment ideas, and hopefully will be able to beef up my podcasts with some interesting stuff. I’m really getting into podcasting. It has the potential to be even cooler and more fun… and I’m lovin’ it.

One of the smartest decisions I’ve made recently was to go to the Dawn and Drew get-together in San Francisco, in the Tonga Room of the Fairmont Hotel. I might podcast about it, but the Reader’s Digest condensed version is that I’m impressed with how cool and down-to-earth the podcasting folks are. Dawn and Drew are totally personable, and were fun to chat with, even if only briefly.

I think everyone was surprised at the turnout. I’d estimate that there were between 25-30+ people there, most of whom are podcasters, though there was a subsection of Dawn and Drew fans.

A highlight for me was meeting Ryan King, who I’m going to collaborate with, probably using Skype. I’m really excited about the podcasts we have planned, I think it’ll be interesting and hopefully entertaining. (Sorry, no details until we’ve worked ‘em out a bit further.) Ryan made it to the WordPress get-together that was held last week, which I’m bummed that I missed.

I ended up sitting next to Sam Levin, who I kinda felt compelled to hold my non-Mac-fan-tongue around. I’m not religious about Operating Systems, but Apple lost me as a fan quite a while back. Sam had the new iTalk which looks like a pretty darn sweet addition for the iPod.

I enjoyed chatting with Butler, whose Rock and Roll Geek Show podcast is quite entertaining; and Kris, who does Say Yum with her husband Devin (who are in a New York Times article that I have yet to read).

Totally nice people, all of whom are doing podcasts that are really interesting and fun. I couldn’t help but to tell Adam Curry that I love his show, and think that he looks mega-better without the poofy big hair from the 80’s. (I’m thankful that I saw him because up until yesterday, I had a mental image of him with Wolf Marshall/Billy Sheehan hair when I listened to his podcast.) I totally covet Michael Geoghegan’s home theater. =)

I wish I’d had the chance to meet everbody, and I’m sorry if you were there and I didn’t link to you, but I have a crappy memory, and I turn into a pumkin at midnight, so I had to leave a bit early.

If you’re interested in listening to podcasts, all of these folks have great shows that are really interesting, very worth listening to, and have been around for a while. It was neat to be around the pioneers of podcasting. I had a great time!

After talking with folks at Open Mic tonight, I really realized how similar podcasting is to Open Mic. While they’re not similar in terms of the format, they’re very similar in essence. Both are avenues for creative expression, and both are unique in that what you’re seeing/hearing is the real stuff, from real people, instead of some canned, sanitized, and monetized product delivered over commercial distribution channels. Can Open Mic and Podcasting save humanity?

podcasting is creating an audio file (traditionally in MP3 format, though other formats can be used as well) and making it available online for other people to listen to. If that were all there was to it, you would probably say “So what? That capability has been around for years!” and you would be correct. What’s different now is that there are simple ways to subscribe to specific shows and have the audio files automatically downloaded to your computer and placed into your MP3 software - likely iTunes on the Mac - and, thus, if you wish onto your MP3 player - probably an iPod - without any effort. Simplifying and automating that task has made all the difference.

Right off the bat, I want to clear up one common misconception about podcasting: it has essentially nothing to do with the iPod, and you do not need an iPod to listen to podcasts. If another MP3 player was the cool toy everyone had to have, podcasting would have been given a different name.

From TidBITS.

Lots of cool crap today (in addition to the wicked witch getting the axe):

• Where’s George? I got a dollar bill stamped with this URL. The site is tracking dollar bills, which is pretty interesting.
• Google Maps This will show the results of searching for me in San Francisco. It’s borderline frightening… calling all privacy advocates… there is no privacy.
• iPodder.org This site is not about Apple’s crappy mp3 players… it’s about a new type of personal “broadcasting” which has a dumb name (like “blogs”).
• The Dawn and Drew Show
• Dialy Source Code Adam Curry’s podcast (yes, that Adam Curry).

Thanks to Ross and Andrew for links/info.