+ 21 - 15 | § ¶RSSOwl and jPodder

The really friendly folks at RSSOwl have opened up the new upcoming release of RSSOwl (Codename Boreal) for developers. I decided this would be a good opportunity to team up with them. Considering all development work need for overhead code. (What I consider stuff which hampers me to develop more advanced features, like database etc..),  the decision was quickly made. So I started to migrate the code of jPodder in a separate plugin for  Boreal.  It's early stage but downloads work, and I am now migrating transfer to popular media players like WMP and iTunes. I am also looking into having a build-in media player perhaps from jlayer.

stay tuned: http://boreal.rssowl.org/

Cheers / Christophe

+ 24 - 38 | § ¶jPodder 1.1 for Linux

Check it out! It is better than the win32 version (for now). Enjoy podcasting!
/ Christophe

+ 36 - 31 | § ¶jPodder 1.1, new release candidate (RC2)

After some fun distraction learning Ruby on Rails, (This is what we use for the Open Podcast Directory Application), I received some feedback about a serious
installation issue in 1.1 RC1. So this is now fixed, we also allow you to select the podcast folder when doing a fresh install or if the folder moved for some reason. (THis happened to me, I had to move because of discspace, and then the jPodder feeds, where all confused as where to find the previously downloaded files.).
What else....Oh yes...Libsyn decide to turn off partial downloads, So we got an error message. Just to tease these servers a bit, if partial download is not allowed, we just get the complete file again, I mean what else can you do?. (Why would you want to turn that off??). I also fixed some other problems, but can't seem to remember when typing this. (And of course I was distracted....) .
hAVe fUn.

+ 31 - 27 | § ¶...October 2006 (iTunes 7, Linux etx..)

So, what have I been doing... Well you might have noticed the updated website for jPodder.com. It's propably not as fancy as we are used to these days, but it was fun to learn a bit more on CSS. Hope you like it!
I actually continued to work on the code of jPodder, as it turns out, it was still buggy. I found one big one in the way we release HTTP connections. With this fixed, you will see the download threads follow each other up, more smoothly. Also, we had some other issues like some concurrency problems. On top it seems that since iTunes 7, I can't transfer files? Finally to sum up the issues, the RSS parser is very heavy on jPodder (XMLbeans), I am looking into some lightweight alternative, to make it more snappier. 

FOr the Linux, users the good news is that I will soon be able to produce a build form the latest code, what is blocking me now is practical stuff like getting WIFI working on my Linux box. (Guess... will need to pull a long wire!)

Cheer / Christophe

+ 26 - 39 | § ¶Still some issues in 1.1RC2

There is a nasty issue with the just release RC2.  I was sloppy releasing and didn't fix the code which cleans the tempory unpacked plugin files. These files are unpacked in binnulltemp with a timestamp and are generated every time you launch jPodder. Please keep remove these manually until I fixed this issue.
/ Christophe

+ 40 - 35 | § ¶jPodder & Openpodcast Directory

Hey podlovers, the Release Candidate 1 (RC) of jPodder 1.1 has some problems I am working on.
Here is a list.

- The stop all/resume all in download tab doesn't work properly. (New downloads are added when in pauzed mode).

- The new jPodder-live directory has a bug in one of the stylesheets which renders the result. I fixed it and it will work in the final version of 1.1. BTW I was pleasantly surprised that the iPodderX guys (Now http://transistr.com) have been so kind to maintain the directory. As a compensation I added podcastalley and podcastpickle, but both are now so arrogant that only iTunes subscription links are provided ( I can't even find the feed URL anymore in "the alley") . This really pisses me off, all these people now making Steve J. even richer, while stabbing the initial community which made podacsting possible in the first place. What's up with this applephiles anyway, it's no different than any other big SW corp if you ask me. Apple when adopting podcasting broke the rule from day one by releasing an iTunes specific RSS extension. (They could have released it in an open community, bastards). The result is that podcasters are now sticking up their fist up Steve's asshole as they are worried about eyeballs and eardrums. It's easy, if your podcast is good, you don't need iTunes. Hypocrit as I am, jPodder can fully parse the iTunes tags and that's for example the pictures you see in the feed info window   I could rant on for another hour.. but I guess you are fed as I am by now. Something positive than, The OPDA will finally take of , this an idea conceived to release a web based framework which can deployed by anyome who wants to offer a podcast directory. It will take some time, but I am positive it will now start to move.

- Still some minor problem with file names. (Some podcasts file show up as numbers), I don't what this is now, and need to look into it.

- Some times I get a "method not allowed" error in the download. It seems to be a reject from the server, but as I never had this before it could a problem with jPodder.

/ Christophe

+ 37 - 30 | § ¶jPodder version 1.1 (Candidate) Released

New and improved! jPodder 1.1 is out. It's a candidate, so you are on your own. (Not really). Please let me know if you run into problems. So what's happening. While podcasting seems to converge towards a partially consumed treefruit, jPodder has been through a complete User Interface rebuild. Live and learn is what they, With SWT (That is a technical term, it means a programmers choice to a Software library for all litle UI controls like a button or a window), we have much better Browser integration. What you see in 1.1. is just the start. Now it's time to introduce some nice cool new features. So please scream out your needs. The focus is on user features which make podcasting more fun. 1.1 actually includes some new features like OPML import and export. (Use the opml files from podcast alley). Build in browser with quick access to podcastalley and pickle. (Sorry it seems we have problems with the ipodderx directory). We have a new player, which can be used with portable media players which show up as a drive letter. The player is Thumbdrive player. (An XML file is created which is used to synchronize the files). What else...Well we have a Feed reader functions which shows the basic podcast information and the syndicated news for it' episodes. We also can open files based on their OS Association. (So if .mp3 is associated WMP, jPodder will try to open the file with this program).  Have fun and let know.

+ 44 - 38 | § ¶redirct bug in 1.0

A problematic bug was reported in 1.0. For some time, I received feedback that redownloads occured. After some tracing, I found this occures in case of feeds which contain redirects in the URL. One example is "this week in science". jPodder is creating the file after the redirection. The flaw in the 1.0 logic, is that the file is inspected "before" the direct, letting jPodder to think that this file is OK to download, without an re-inspection. This is a bug which will only occur, in case an enclosure is marked for download after it has been downloaded previously. These cases are not normal and will happen if e.g. a feed is deleted and added again, while keeping the download folder. (I can't think of another case, but please let me know). For now I would advise to keep your feeds and folders. If you want to re-add feeds which contain redirects, you risk re-downloads. This problem is now fixed in jPodder 1.1