Cliffhanger Resolved: Podcasting of text blogs and journals
So, last time I told you I found something interesting and was posting for testing purposes. Well, here is what I was fiddling around doing...
I found this website, Talkr.com, which allows you to point your text-based blog or journal (such as here at LJ) to it, and it creates computer-generated audio of a woman's voice reading your journal entries. Then, it creates a feed of the audio, which you can submit to iTunes or websites like Yahoo Podcasts or Podcast Pickle, so you then have a real, honest-to-gods podcast of your journal! Pretty neat, huh?
A few problems I ran into, though...
1) The feed from Live Journal has the most recent 25 posts that you've written, and Talkr creates mp3s for all 25 of those. But, for some odd reason, the feed out from Talkr only has the oldest 15 of those 25, so your most recent 10 posts get "lost" somewhere in the translation.
2) When I posted the test post, the feed from Talkr didn't have it dated like the ones it created initially, so in the case of iTunes, the new post came in looking like a post that was older than the original 15 that I downloaded (my iTunes puts undated "shows" at the bottom of the list below dated "shows" in whatever podcast I'm updating).
3) Even though I submitted it to iTunes and they accepted it, I couldn't access it using the Search function... it seemed like it wasn't even there, though I could get to it and subscribe using the direct link they emailed to me. That has now been fixed, so if you have iTunes and you go into the iTunes Store and search Podcasts for "deslock", the quasi-podcast of my LJ shows up.
So, there you have it... if you what to listen to my rants instead of just reading them, you can go into iTunes via this direct link or, as stated above, search the Podcasts section of the iTunes Store for "deslock", "darkstar", etc. and it will appear. I haven't submitted anywhere else yet, because I was trying to figure out the arcane happenings of the feed... I've given up on that for now. When I submit it anywhere else, I'll let you all know.
One funny thing about the audio... since it's computer-generated, the vocal inflections are often times quite off, even totally goofy-sounding, and it doesn't always pronounce unusual words correctly. For instance, listen to this post... it's the one from a couple posts back when I wrote about the kayaking Amish. The name of the creek is Pequea Creek, pronounced like "peck-way". The computer decided to pronounce it like "peck-key-a". Ha! Oh well....
And now for something completely different:
The new Orange Goblin CD, Healing Through Fire, completely kicks ass. If you like your music a little on the heavy side, you might want to check it out.
"Brandish your daggers and come all ye men. This is our kingdom, the walls we'll defend. Crows of the tower will peck out their eyes and lead us to victory under black skies!"
I found this website, Talkr.com, which allows you to point your text-based blog or journal (such as here at LJ) to it, and it creates computer-generated audio of a woman's voice reading your journal entries. Then, it creates a feed of the audio, which you can submit to iTunes or websites like Yahoo Podcasts or Podcast Pickle, so you then have a real, honest-to-gods podcast of your journal! Pretty neat, huh?
A few problems I ran into, though...
1) The feed from Live Journal has the most recent 25 posts that you've written, and Talkr creates mp3s for all 25 of those. But, for some odd reason, the feed out from Talkr only has the oldest 15 of those 25, so your most recent 10 posts get "lost" somewhere in the translation.
2) When I posted the test post, the feed from Talkr didn't have it dated like the ones it created initially, so in the case of iTunes, the new post came in looking like a post that was older than the original 15 that I downloaded (my iTunes puts undated "shows" at the bottom of the list below dated "shows" in whatever podcast I'm updating).
3) Even though I submitted it to iTunes and they accepted it, I couldn't access it using the Search function... it seemed like it wasn't even there, though I could get to it and subscribe using the direct link they emailed to me. That has now been fixed, so if you have iTunes and you go into the iTunes Store and search Podcasts for "deslock", the quasi-podcast of my LJ shows up.
So, there you have it... if you what to listen to my rants instead of just reading them, you can go into iTunes via this direct link or, as stated above, search the Podcasts section of the iTunes Store for "deslock", "darkstar", etc. and it will appear. I haven't submitted anywhere else yet, because I was trying to figure out the arcane happenings of the feed... I've given up on that for now. When I submit it anywhere else, I'll let you all know.
One funny thing about the audio... since it's computer-generated, the vocal inflections are often times quite off, even totally goofy-sounding, and it doesn't always pronounce unusual words correctly. For instance, listen to this post... it's the one from a couple posts back when I wrote about the kayaking Amish. The name of the creek is Pequea Creek, pronounced like "peck-way". The computer decided to pronounce it like "peck-key-a". Ha! Oh well....
And now for something completely different:
The new Orange Goblin CD, Healing Through Fire, completely kicks ass. If you like your music a little on the heavy side, you might want to check it out.
"Brandish your daggers and come all ye men. This is our kingdom, the walls we'll defend. Crows of the tower will peck out their eyes and lead us to victory under black skies!"