I’ve had a number of people ask me recently if and when I might offer an enhanced AAC podcast feed for Dave’s Lounge. There are two reasons why I’ve never offered an AAC version of this show.
The first is that I don’t want to limit my audience to iTunes and iPod users. MP3 is still the most popular and most portable file format for audio, and if I switched to AAC, I would immediately lose about 8% of my total audience. My goal has always been to attract as many new listeners as possible, and it’s easier to do that with MP3 files rather than AAC files. If every digital audio player out there played AAC files, it might be different, but for now, MP3 is the best way to reach everyone.
The second reason is that I don’t really want to create two separate feeds for MP3 and AAC listeners. You can chalk that up to time constraints or laziness or whatever, but I feel better knowing that there’s one feed where everyone can go to get the latest episode of Dave’s Lounge. It just feels more inclusive that way.
There’s also the fact that I don’t own a Mac, but I suppose that’s neither here nor there, is it?
So that’s why I only produce shows in MP3 format. I won’t say it’ll be like that forever, but until AAC overtakes MP3 as the audio format of choice for everyone on every platform (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.), this podcast will remain an MP3, because that allows everyone to come to Dave’s Lounge.
I had a different show planned for tonight, but then I got distracted and started listening to some music, and I just decided I wanted to do something else. So I cobbled together a new playlist from songs I’ve played in the past. If you’re a new listener, some of these might be new to you. Regardless, I liked ‘em, which is why I played ‘em in the first place….
Oh, and if anyone out there knows what happened to Bitstream Dream, send me an email. Their web site has been down for a few weeks, and I’m trying to find out why this project seems to have disappeared from the Internet.
So I spent weeks looking for ways to improve my PC setup in my living room. I looked through catalogs and web sites for assorted furniture that would fit what I was looking for. Then, on a whim, I just rearranged some of the furniture I already had. Turns out that was all I really need to do.
Well, maybe not all I needed. This dining room table is still too large and needs replacing, but at least I have a much better idea of what I need now…
Thanks to everyone who suggested MP3 tagging software last week. I tried a few and decided to go with the simply named MP3tag, and while I still have a lot of organizing to do with this gigantic music collection of mine, I can see a light at the end of the tunnel now. Which is nice.
I’m throwing this out to the podcast audience in the hope that someone might be able to point me in the right direction.
I am currently in the process of fixing all the tags on my giant MP3 collection. I’ve gotten all the full albums fixed, and now I’m onto the singles. However, I have a huge number of loose singles, and close to half of them appear to be without tags. Going through and tagging files individually will take a very, very long time.
So what I’m looking for is a program that will read the name of a file, every one of which is named Artist - Title.mp3, take the artist and title info from the filename and put that into each file’s ID3 tag. I’ve found tons of programs that do the opposite — take the ID3 tag and change the name of the file — but I haven’t found one that will read the filename and parse that name into an ID3 tag.
If anyone out there knows of such a program, post a comment here. My MP3 collection is about 76 gigabytes right now, and the singles take up somewhere between 20 and 30 GB, so anything that will help me avoid going through all those old files individually would be a big help.
This week’s playlist is a bit on the spaced-out side, so if you’re driving at night and you’re feeling a little tired, you might want to try something different to keep you awake — like Insomnia Radio. If you’re at home in your bubble bath, though, this should fit the bill quite nicely…
