Rubénerd!

The Rubenerd Show audio episodes have been successfully moved over to the new web server as of a few minutes ago! This will mean a far more reliable show production schedule, no more interruptions, lost transfers and more reliable and zippy downloads. Mmm... zippy downloads!

As a comparison, with the old server it could take anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes to upload a 4.6MiB MP3 file, and there was no guarantee it would actually work when it finished the transfer (as many friendly people have pointed out on the Rubenerd Forum in the past!). Very often episodes could be delayed by several days because my host would just blatantly refuse to accept uploaded files, even if it was done through their "Web Upload" interface instead of FTP!

Now the entire process takes less that 2 minutes, and so far I have not experienced any upload dropouts or "stalls" as the Terminal FTP program likes to call them. I can also see iTunes and Juice Receiver downloading the files a lot faster now as well which is great news.

Tomorrow's episode, Episode 191 for Tuesday 12th December 2006 will be the first one to be released entirely on the new server. I just can't get over how fast and easy uploading is on this new server!

I'm also giving another serious look at using Ourmedia as a mirror site to prevent future troubles and to help people access the shows. Ourmedia is great because it lets you upload and share media files for free, and unlike Google Video, YouTube or PodShow and the like, it is based around the Internet Archives and is a non-profit organisation, so I feel far more comfortable using their servers to host my content without fear of it being used inappropriatly because of evil hidden clauses in licence agreements and so forth. Am I paranoid? Probably! But better safe than sorry.

Of course again if you have any problems or suggestions I love talking to people on the Rubenerd Forum, or you can just leave a comment on this blog post.

Thanks everyone for your patience and support over these last few weeks! :D

Cheers,
Ruben

EDIT: I have just been able to get internet access again. I've been called to Singapore for an emergency meeting with my employer and won't be back until Saturday. What's the point, I ask everyone here, of work when it interferes with your podcast?

I'm in the process of putting the holiday photos and decorations up on the Rubenerd Show and Rubenerd Blog. :D. Both pictures are of Christmas in Singapore.

If you load the pages and can't tell the difference, try holding down shift and click reload to force a page redraw.

The picture to the right is my mum's cancer doctor, Hematologist and Oncologist in Singapore Dr Tan (of Gleneagles Hospital and Medical Centre) who I dressed up in a very well drawn and detailed fake Santa costume as you can tell ;).

If you haven't seen it yet, the PodShow website is a classic example of an abysmally designed website; the pages look cheap and hacked together, half the time the podcasts themselves don't work in iTunes or Juice Receiver and just finding the audio files themselves to download is a royal pain in the backside.

My favourite tech podcast, the Gillmor Gang uses PodShow, I liked it much better when they were on IT Conversations :(

It's good to know I'm not the only person who loathes PodShow though, according to some of the comments on the Gillmor Gang's page (directed at the site, not the show):

How about the decision to place the show in the podshow network? Could there be a more loathsome venue? Could the web site be any more hideous without being completely unusable?

Finally found out how to get the damn show into itunes....what a drama that was....who designed this podshow ui, should be shot.

Technorati tags:  podcast, podcasting, podshow, newtimeradio

Originally posted on the Rubenerd Forum

Well it's almost 04:30am here in KL, and I figured out what the darned problem was in Internet Explorer!

Brace yourselves! It was... a <div> tag that wasn't closed! That's it! I reinstalled the database, I uploaded all the server files twice, I rewrote all the CSS, and it was because I forgot to close a <div> tag. AAARGH! Firefox must have been more forgiving when it encountered my crappy code extensions; in any event for once it wasn't Internet Explorer's fault, it was entirely my own!

Tinkering around though with this Vanilla Forum software though I learned a lot, so it wasn't a complete waste. I figured out how to use the language customisation features, so now we can all bask in the glory that is Aussie/British spelling! I'm so old fashioned :wink:.

I also changed the theme to one that takes up much less screen space.

Let me all know what you think and if you have any further problems. It was exhausting, but in a way I'm glad it happened, I've learned so much about Internet Explorer CSS hacks, and how to customise Vanilla Forum software.

Cheers
Ruben

Hello everyone. Just wanted to apologise for another week without regular programming on the Rubenerd Show. A spate of technical problems regarding our internet connection and the stress of having my mum starting chemotherapy again have been wrecking havoc as you can imagine.

I love doing the Rubenerd Show, but it's becoming increasingly obvious that doing them can be at times unreliable. I went for months this year without a hitch, so three interruptions in a month is unacceptable. I'm weighing up now therefore to record the shows a few days in advance starting next week and use WordPress's ability to release posts with a time delay, so any unplanned events will not affect the show. The beauty of New Time Radio is that if there is an important event I can change a future show on short notice.

In the meantime you're more than welcome to check out the Rubenerd Blog, the previous episodes of the Rubenerd Show or even check out some of my high school friends' websites (Boyd Anderson and Kevin Keirle) for something new.

Thanks everyone for your support, you all rock.

Cheers,
Ruben

You may have read a few days ago that our telephones were stuffing up around Gita Bayu and therefore so was our DSL: well would you believe... it intermittently happened over and over again these last few days. I've got Nelly and Tim McGraw singing "Over and Over Again" in my head as I type this. Argh I hate hip hop! There's usually enough time to post a few things to my del.icio.us page and to read my email but it cuts out and resets so often it's been driving me to insanity!

I couldn't upload Rubenerd Shows because they would cut out after the first 2 megs, so I've resorted to going all the way into the city to upload these shows. The WiFi here at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf is a bit unreliable but much, MUCH better than at home.

I'm thinking of a drastic way to rescue the show and bring it back to a regular schedule, it has to do with the way WordPress can submit posts with a time delay and recording shows a week in advance, but I'll discuss that in more detail next episode. Hopefully this way if there are delays the show will continue uninterrupted; the only downside I see with this is that I won't be able to talk about current events as easily.

Damn the monsoon season!

I must appologise again for the week long Rubenerd Show Fast, problems at home have been making it more difficult than I thought to release the shows. I have been very worried about my mum recently and the show hasn't been the number 1 priority over the last few days, as you can understand.

I've scheduled Tuesday the 24th of October (of this week) for Rubenerd Show 171. In the meantime if you're starved for audio entertainment you could check out the Rubenerd Show archives, or even give Crap and Stuff or any of the other fine New Time Radio programmes a look-see if you haven't had the chance too.

Thanks everyone for your patience and understanding, you all rock.

Cheers,
Ruben

After several delays, the Rubenerd Show is back on the internet airwaves, now from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. I want in particular to thank Israel, my school buddy Felix and Dave for their support.

Damn those evil exploding air conditioners ;).

Just a warning message, if you are not a human being don't email Israel Brown:

I'm still concentrating on other things right now. I just wanted to pop up for a bit to comment on something I received as e-mail recently. I say that I always answer my e-mail, and it is true - I answer legitimate e-mail from *people* who don't talk like spam-bots.

If you write to me and say something like "hey dude, hows the crap an stuff hangin. r u japanese???hmm?" as one "person" did, I'm probably not going to say anything in reply.

However, if you have a real question to ask or want to discuss something, I'll be more than happy to carry on a conversation! Oh, and if you don't speak English too well or something, please say so, or else I'll just assume that your message is spam or that you're some idiot playing around.

If you haven't heard all the shows, please give them a listen. Also, feel free to comment on anything. I always answer my legitimate e-mail.

This meesage brought to you by Crap and Stuff and New Time Radio.