Josh and I were working with a batch of resources this afternoon, and we had to rename them all to match a particular specification (by prepending each filename with a string).

We didn't want to use the Finder to manually rename each file, so Josh was trying to remember enough shell scripting to get the job done, finally resorting to renaming them individually via Terminal in duplicated mv afilename prefix_afilename format.

I just did another update to the iPodder.org Educational Category, adding a handful of new feeds, and more importantly, adding a new "English as a Second/Foreign Language" category.

The new ESL/EFL category is being edited by Robert Diem (thanks, Robert!), which will definitely help keep the updates fresh.

This last round of updates hasn't shown up on the iPodder.org directory yet, but they will be there the next time Adam's OPML crawlers update their data (in a few hours?)

OK. The blogosphere is all breathless over this one. Steven P. announced at the D "conference" that the next version of iTunes will include a helping of podcasty goodness. (Engadget with the news, and Phil Torrone dishes the dirt).

There are rumours that only "podcast feeds" that have been vetted by Apple will be included (similar to the Radio section of the iTunes library, possibly including some paid/subscription content). If that's the case, then iTunes Podcasting is essentially dead in the water.

I've been trying to use Spotlight as my primary app launcher (after being a diehard user of Launchbar and then QuickSilver). One thing that annoyed me about Spotlight is that you have to enter your query, then cursor down to the "Top Hit" before hitting RETURN to launch it.

I just stumbled across this... If you enter your query, and after there are some results, just hold down the COMMAND key and the selection will toggle between "Show All" and "Top Hit" - so a quick "Command+Return" will launch the top hit quickly. This is likely documented somewhere, but I can't remember the last time I RTFM for MacOSX... Ever?

I just officially got word that I'm going to WWDC 2005. This is going to be an amazing conference. I've been to two WWDCs before (2002, 2003), and each time it was like a weeklong firehose-drinking geekfest. There is SO much stuff going on, and the caliber of the presentations (and non-presentation gatherings) are much higher than any other conference I've experienced.

King and Josh will be going, too, so there will be a strong NMC/Pachyderm contingent. I wonder if we should score some of the traditional elephant stickers for our conference badges?

Update: Added small screengrabs of the segment.

This morning, I got my copy of the Technical Knockout episode starring yours truly. I was braced for an embarrassing 2 minute segment, but was pleasantly surprised - it was actually pretty good! And I didn't feel too self-conscious seeing myself on the little screen.

It should be airing in a couple of weeks, and I'm not allowed to "rebroadcast" the tape (Big Scary Letter™ included with the tape, and a Big Scary Warning™ burned into the first 5 minutes of tape). Keep your eye on the GlobalTV listings, for Technical Knockout (TKO) episode "Satellite Stalkers"

My Flickr feed for water just turned up this amazing photo of the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium in Okinawa, Japan.

I simply must go there... Evan would go ape over the big fissies.

I fully expected to have to drop Safari as my primary RSS reader, and revert to NetNewsWire 2.0. I assumed that the lack of all of the wonderful features would cripple me in my quest to satisfy my RSS addiction. I thought I'd be frustrated and annoyed with Safari's RSS implementation.

I'm not. I found that the only time I launch NetNewsWire now is for a daily update of podcast downloads (Safari RSS doesn't do enclosures). But, I read all of my feeds and posts in Safari. For a bit of background - in NNW, I stick to the "New Posts" folder more than 99% of the time, and just cycle through posts as they come in - so the One True Page listing in Safari is just fine for my style.

I've tried playing around with the Folksonomise your files with Automator tip from MacDevCenter.com - I really like the idea of it.

If you follow the tip, you get a handy item in the Finder's contextual menu that lets you bring up a text field to enter tags for the file. Like you do with del.icio.us, or Flickr, or iPhoto. Then, Spotlight lets you find them easily. Or, you can create Smart Folders in the Finder for tags, and have these files be found (even if the tag isn't contained within the content of the file - a case that would normally make Spotlight overlook it).

I've been asked to participate in a new effort by Apple, called the "Apple Digital Campus Exchange" - it's basically a community of folks much smarter and more interesting than myself (ranging from Cole Camplese to Alan Levine to Larry Johnson to Carl Berger) who just get to talk about stuff like The Future, iPods in the classroom, etc...

I thought this was going public next week, but I see it was actually scheduled for launch on May 12. Since it is now somewhat after May 12, I think I'm safe linking to it...

Microsoft Officially Unveils the Xbox 360 -- Page 2 Feature for Xbox on GamePro.com

Man, I bet Steve is a little pissed at Bill over this one...

For the Mavericks project, I get to transcode 9 DVD-ROMs worth of high resolution TIFF images into JPEG images for use during authoring by Pachyderm (I could use the TIFFs directly, but that would tax the system more than I'd like to during beta testing).

At first, I was wondering what to do about this. Back in the day, I'd use Debabelizer Pro, or a Photoshop action or something.