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August 10, 2004

Cool Tool Tuesday: Macromedia News on Your iPod

We're a little early for Cool Tool Friday, but I think this is a cool enough project that I'm bending the rules a bit. Mike Chambers and I just finished putting together and launching an application we're calling Take-Away which not only lets you read MXNA aggregated news as notes on your iPod, but also lets you listen to it, as well. The application checks over 300 Macromedia-related weblogs for new posts every hour, and regenerates the appropriate MP3s and note files. If you drive to work, listen to Macromedia news on your stereo. If you ride a bus or a train, read the news. If you work from home, play with it just for fun. And if you don't have an iPod, this is as good a reason as any to go get one!

See the Take-Away page for more information, and let me know if you have any suggestions for future versions.

Posted by cantrell at August 10, 2004 09:40 AM | References

Comments

Very interesting concept. Now all you need to do is convince Apple to make the iPOD a wireless device that can pickup the news without having to be plugged into a computer. Not having to connect to a computer and drag and drop the articles into a playlist would make this the "killer app". As is, it's a neat trick, but the hardware keeps it from going all the way.

Posted by: James Cummings at August 10, 2004 10:03 AM

if you have a connected PPC:

http://www.ericd.net/new_css/mxna_mp3s.html

With wireless firewire coming, and probably some kind of wifi for an iPod someday, you take what you can get. I think this service is pretty nice. I think the audio aspect of it alone opens up a lot of possibilities.

Posted by: ericd at August 10, 2004 12:53 PM

Hey Christian - great work on the take-away stuff! Very cool! I really like it. Gives me some new ideas for text to speech stuff and flash. Take care! -Rob

Posted by: Robert M. Hall at August 10, 2004 01:15 PM

Wow, new macrostation :)

Posted by: Anna at August 10, 2004 06:12 PM

Mike and Christian, really love the idea. The first one i downloaded had my name first which was well odd to hear. Would be nice if you could change the pitch, or the speed it got read back?? just a thought.
Keep up the good work

Posted by: Andy Jarrett at August 10, 2004 06:30 PM