I actually like McCafe coffee's. The real coffee from there, not the instant from the main McDonalds section.

They are quite nice. Better than Gloria Jeans.

...btw would love to hear Pete Smith on the show again.

hey guys,

just letting you know the itunes feed hasnt auto-updated for me for a few weeks now...

come tuesday night or wednesday morning i normally think 'where the hell is boxcutters?" and have to manually donwload it.

you may want to check the xml file itunes is getting.

sorry to geek out, but i'd hate for my itunes brothers to unsubscribe cos they thought you werent updating.. :)

@FTC This happens with iTunes every once in a while. I don't know why. All you have to do is unsubscribe and resubscribe and it should be fine.

Let me know if it works.

I have other issues with iTunes like: Why doesn't our beautiful new logo get imported into the feed as album artwork?

It's a frustrating application because it's so convenient but causes little problems. However, let's not get started because Ross will go on his rampage, Brett will start talking about Apple and we'll get stuck in that horrible loop all over again.

You very well know I'm a tech nuffy of the worst kind but I understood FTC to a point. Inasmuch as I hit subscribe but when I hooked my music gadget with headphones machine up to my gizmo thingy Boxcutters didn't magically appear in my headphones like it was meant to.

I blame Bill Gates. And the Melbourne smartcard people. And that's all. Anything to avoid a Brett tech rant. The Channel Nine rants are bad enough.

Just to throw a spanner into the techy works, my itunes hasn't had any problems at all and I continue to get the new eps. (Not sure about the logo, I'll check)

As for James, I have a very different recollection of the Marieke Hardy incident... she will always be my 4th Boxcutter. :)

@Bolden, it's polite to use someone's full name when referring to them, Marieke 'Dead to Me' Whatsername please.

Is anyone having any luck finding an archive of December TV listings?

@Wilbert: that's cheating. do your own homework.

@wilbert yes... but i won't tell you where

I can't think of any RANT, per se, that I've had about channel 9. I just like to see if we can get any further info from an insider on the latest legal proceedings against the network as they arise. Oh, wait, I may have had a rant about not sticking to the scheduled programming and shoving anything that doesn't pull 3mil on its first episode to 10:30 on Tuesday - but not to you Jimbo.

Perhaps I'm pushing shit uphill trying to get the insider goss on the show...

iTunes worked fine for me this week. No problems with the episode showing up at all. Maybe it's a local issue. Now, if someone could just tell me how to stop the updater telling me there's an update for iTunes or Quicktime when it's just another push for a fricken browser I don't want, I'll be slightly happier.

And so it begins ...

ignoring brett.. ahem.

for the album art its probably simple, iTunes shows your spiffy new art for the feed, but each episode needs to have the album art embedded into the mp3 as well for it to show up on your device.

its an annoying step i often forget to do myself.

as for the feed, i'm sure if i waited everything would be fine.. itunes only pings the server every 24hrs for new episodes, unless you force ping it. Podpress for wordpress will force ping itunes as soon as an episode is published. do you guys use it?

anyhoo, thats way to geeky. feel proud i care this much. :)

wait... what?

An mp3 with embedded graphics? That's no longer an mp3 file.

And did you people read what I wrote about iTunes? I said "iTunes worked fine for me..."

Serious advice on the updater issue is ventured.

ahem.

an mp3 with embedded graphics is still an mp3. mp3's are able to contain metadata like album art, lyrics, shownotes, artist, track number etc. download the latest fulltimecasual, kermit the frog is the embedded album art.

yes i did read that itunes worked fine for you. awesome. it didnt for me.

as for itunes trying to push safari onto you, well thats an act of pure bastardry from apple.

A lot of podcasts have album art. ID3 tags... Google it

@FTC. The iTunes thing isn't actually a fault at all (though it is bloody annoying). If iTunes detects that the podcasts being downloaded haven't been listened too for a long period, it assumes the listener isn't interested and halts downloads. Hence the need to unsub and resub. I find it bloody annoying as I am a podcast junky and sometimes don't get a chance to listen to everything in on hit (especially as I usually listen to podiobooks of some kind and like to have some spare listening hand y when needed).

As controversial as this might sound. I would like to see the ABC adopt a TV license strategy. It would talk all the Political pressure away and more than likely give the ABC a descent budget.

A descent budget? I thought that's what they had at the moment? ;-)

HELLO KERRIE! Welcome back.

Is a descent budget one that keeps going down?

There's no way that a TV license would defuse the haters' criticism about what the ABC does with its budget. The system in the UK is intrusive and expensive to enforce and really isn't any different from direct funding of the BBC by the government - apart from the cost of sending sheriffs around to any household that doesn't pay for a license. Ergo, conservatives are still going to make up complaints about political bias on the ABC and use that as a reason to argue to further reduce the amount of funding.

Have to agree with Brett (there's a first for everything.) The licence fee means it's unlikely the government can arbitrarily slash funding - but it can certainly stop funding increases whenever the licence fee is re-negotiated. And it definite;y doesn't stop the same old allegations of bias. Sometimes it's funny how similar are the criticisms of the BBC and the ABC.

And while often it's the conservative side of politics which criticises public broadcasters it's certainly not always. Ask Greg Dyke.

Besides (sorry to double up) it would be extremely hard to justify introducing a licence for something which is rapidly becoming obsolete.

When I was there, dodging the license inspectors seemed almost sport. They'd come knocking at the door of any household that didn't have a license - supposedly with high tech TV detection equipment in the van out the front - and demand an explanation. Only thing was, they'd have to actually witness a telly on the property, after being allowed in by the tenants, to enforce it. As long as you didn't invite them in, they were hamstrung.

Geez, I was all excited by the "21 comments" on the blog post... until I started reading and it was the same ol' iTunes stuff again *sigh*

It was suggested a while back that there be a separate ongoing thread for all things tech-related - can we please revisit that idea??

James Talia would be Damien Day, given half a chance. (I jest - I'm certain of your scruples)

I seem to recall a similar accusation made against the ABC regarding promotion of commercial ventures when they screened the rehearsals and production of 'Mamma Mia'; I also agreed with the criticism.

Finally, that quiz question was a cracker which took a a fair amount of thought, and yet so obvious when I finally worked it out (assuming I did get it right, obvs.)

Jimbo said

"Besides, it would be extremely hard to justify introducing a licence for something which is rapidly becoming obsolete."

That is a very good point and I think your right. However, I can't really see the major networks abandoning Television as a medium. They still haven't really understood "downloading". They are firmly entrenched in this idea that TV is there to make money at the cost of its audience. None of them actually deliver content efficiently to meet audience needs. The constant battle of the people have to endure to actually watch a show, shows just how little commercial networks value of the audience they are trying to supply content to.

Shareholders don't like risk. That also has a lot to do with it.