I want to apologise for taking so long to release Episode 103. This week was a combination of long hours at work, family commitments, some unforeseen events I had to attend, and to make matters worse, Audacity decided to eat my project file for the show. With the help of Ubuntu Studio I was at least able to get Ardour running and to learn enough to edit the rest of the show using that. More on those adventures in a future show, suffice it to say for now that I will be switching to Ardour for producing the podcast from here on out. At least all of this gave me the chance to finally get my arse in gear and start learning how to use it (I had meant to do that for ages now).

I hope you enjoy the show despite the wait. The news might be slightly stale content by now but as usual, Dan and I had great fun recording this episode and if nothing else it should at least be funny. Once again, we are sorry for the inconvenience of the late release. There will also be no rest for the wicked and we plan to record 104 today at 18:00 UTC so be sure to catch the live show on ustream. If you can’t make it, Dan will edit this one so it should be out a lot more quickly then this week’s release…

I have recently compiled statistics on the total downloads of Linux Outlaws show files up to Episode 100 from all available data collected up until July 9 on Libsyn, the Archives and the main server (although there are some missing records between Episodes 9 and 34 that I still need to investigate). In the spirit of a truly open podcast production, I want to share this data with you now. The end result is a total download number of 423,906 downloads in the roughly 22 months since September 12, 2007. Pretty amazing, huh?

If you want to see the nitty-gritty details, you can download the complete ODF spreadsheet and check it out. Also, for all those people who think we shouldn’t be publishing a MP3 file, it might be interesting to see that Ogg Vorbis only makes up 21% of our total downloads. As much as I like Free formats, I think the data speaks for itself.

I am truely stoked about the direction the show is heading, it looks like we are going from strength to strength and I hope we will continue to pick up new listeners and keep entertaining the regulars as well. On that note, if you have any ideas how the podcast can improve, get in touch — we are always welcoming any feedback we receive. And if you are not on board yet, what are you waiting for? It’s loads of fun, even if you aren’t an hardcore Linux geek. Trust me.

Hey folks, it’s been a while since I wrote anything on the blog and I figured it was time I stopped slacking – not in a Slackware sense, thankfully Also I was pretty surprised earlier this evening when Fab found an interesting article concerning us on Podcast Alley. It seems we were listed in their top 5 tech podcasts for May, and we didn’t even know until now. Have a look at the screen shot below…

Podcast Alley Listing

(click to enlarge)

You might notice a little podcast down there below us at number 8… what’s it called again? Oh yes, that’s it. Security Now! Hang on, that’s pretty amazing news. I don’t listen to it myself but I couldn’t deny that it’s one of the best known technology podcasts around. Part of Leo Laporte’s TWiT stable no less. I know it’s only one website and one month’s review so we shouldn’t get carried away, but it’s nice to see. I’m pretty chuffed by this and so is Fab, I wanted to share the picture. Thanks to everyone who’s helped and supported us in almost 2 years of doing this now. It’s a lot of work but we both have fun making the show, that’s thanks to our great listeners. We recently passed 100 episodes, a landmark I never imagined we could reach. Here’s to another hundred. We’re not done waffling yet.

Take care,

Dan

For all of you who were interested in Jon Kulp’s classical version of our theme tune but who are having problems reading the notation, he has produced new files with tabulature added: PDF version & LilyPond source file.

Thanks again, Jon! Now all of us Rock’n'Roll guitarists can read it as well.