So recently I upgraded my cell phone to the HTC Hero Android Phone (Sprint).

While this isn’t my first phone, that could play MP3 files, its the first one I wanted to replace my Apple iPod nano 8 GB Blue (4th Generation).

This led me to being rather spoiled by the iPod and iTunes, work together. Of the podcast catchers I have experimented with in the past week, none of the them knew how to tell if I had listened to a podcast. This of course makes sense as that isn’t one of the variables the MSDOS file system (which at least my Android uses) knows of.  And while I know there a few good Android Apps that do podcatching, I would prefer that my computer keep my podcasts, and dishes them out to the Android, ala iPod / iTunes.

So here is what I would like to see in a PodCatcher:

Computer side:

• Be able to download regular podcasts
• Be able to download paid podcasts (ie: with login information)
• Generate a simple table to give to the Android based player.

Android (or other phone) side:

• Be able to play MP3 files
• Update simple table for Computer side to check

The table I think is key, currently I try using gPodder to send my music to, the bad thing is it doesn’t know how to tell if I have listened to the episode, its controls are simplistic at best. This means manually updating the client every time I want automatically update it so that it erases the old MP3s. The client on the Android will play the file, and then edit the table (perhaps in SQLite format) so that the next time the computer based side checks it will be able to know which episodes have been listened to.  As another side idea, instead of having it like iTunes used to have it where it was a Yes No toggle of have you listened to it, make it so it can take:

• 0 — haven’t listened to any of it
• 1– started but not finished
• 2– finished

Do you have any comments? Would this type of Open source catcher work?

As you may have heard, I have been working on fiction for quite a while. I finally have one that I’m wanting to bring out to the public.

Its not fully finished yet, so I will be releasing it as I’m working on it.  This is borrowed from how Mur Lafferty released her book Heaven.

I will also be borrowing features from the likes of Phil Rossi (and others) who pre-released stories in his book’s world. This will be released on September August 1st 2009. More information is available at my new fiction blog.

So a while ago (3/25) I wrote a blog post saying I was thinking of starting yet another podcast. And wanted to know what you all thought.

Well, I decided to start the podcast after all. Starting hopefully around June 1st, of this year, SteamPod (http://steampod.org) will launch!

The first story has already been accepted, and its quite good, if I do say so myself!

So yesterday I was listening to a new podcast, Steampunk Spectacular, and came up with another idea for a podcast.

I’ve talked to some of the people who are already into podcasting, and while they think its a great idea they don’t know if there is enough available to do it.

What’s the idea you ask? A show that would be similar to Escapepod, where short fiction is read on a weekly basis, but would be steampunk based.

If you are not familiar with steampunk, you can learn about it by checking out this Wikipedia article.

What do you think? Does steampunk have enough steam for this to happen? Even if its a bi-monthly or monthly show to start off? Or does steampunk need more time to build up steam?

If your an author of steampunk short stories, get in touch with me! If you know someone who is, have them get in touch with me!

You can reach me at chris [at] chrismoody [dot] net.