We have decided to scrap the Pligg site in favour for some forums. There was not much going on over there lately and I also recently discovered some slightly disturbing security problems with the system that I didn’t really wanted to live with in the long run. Since a few people requested forums anyway and they can basically fulfill the same purpose as the other site but are much more versatile, we decided to switch. I sincerely hope this doesn’t cause too much of an inconvenience to people.

Registration is optional of course, but we hope that many of you will join us at the forums and provide us with feedback and valuable ideas for future episodes. If you prefer to just hang out and talk about other stuff, that is fine as well. I am looking forward to many fruitful and entertaining discussions over there!

Please note that the theme for the forums isn’t finalised yet — in the moment we’re running the default prosilver template. I am looking at customising the looks of the place soon, but I’ll probably won’t get to it until the new year. In the meantime, the functionality is all there, however, so head over there and enjoy yourselves!

Over the last few weeks, we have received several emails requesting an Ogg version of the podcast. I knew this would eventually crop up and while I initially did not produce such a version of the show to minimise production time, I am not oblivious to the fact that many people place a lot of importance in making your podcast available in Ogg, especially if it is a show that primarily deals with Free Software. I personally consume 95% of my podcasts on portable players, however, and I’ve yet to meet one person who actually owns a player that supports the Ogg format. I am not saying that such a player doesn’t exist or that I don’t get the ideological reasons behind using Ogg, I am just saying that it is still a very much impractical format for a large majority of people.

Nonetheless, I am willing to consider the publishing the show in that format, even if it means about an hour of additional production time since I not only have to re-encode every episode but I also have to tag that version on its own and create a special Ogg feed for it that I have to publish seperately. I am very much suspecting all this effort won’t warrant the actual number of downloads we will be getting for this version, but I am willing to try. The reason why I am posting this here instead of just doing it, is the fact that I want everyone to understand the work involved in this and also to make sure that it is understood that this will be the only two versions of the show I will be doing — don’t even try to talk me into different bitrates or somesuch.

I don’t know exactly when we will be releasing the first Ogg version of an episode since I am currently looking for dedicated hosting and bandwidth for the podcast files; our listenership has grown so much, that we will soon be forced to move them off this server. I will decide where to host the Ogg files and how to produce them after I know how much the new delivery method will be costing me. You may see a donation button appear on this website soon after. I definitely don’t want to consider any advertising neither on the site nor in the show itself at this point, so if you want to help us along with the fees (I will definitely write a post on the blog telling you exactly how much those amount to once I know myself), just use that button once we put it up.

I really appreciate the fact that so many people seem to enjoy this show and I am happy about every piece of listener email we receive. So far, all of them have been really positive. I hope the people who requested the Ogg version can live with this arrangement. If not, or if you have any other ideas, let me know, OK? Thanks again for listening, I’m having the time of my life doing this!

I just quickly wanted to thank everybody that send us listener feedback via the contact form or directly by email. The response so far has been tremendously positive and I am already looking forward to recording show #2 later this afternoon largely because of this. Thank you very much for writing so many kind words, it has been great fun reading your responses!

Also, if you are interested, send us an audio file with your feedback and we’ll play it on the show. Maybe you could also tell us something about your experiences with Linux or F/OSS — it doesn’t have to be a positive story, you could also tell us why you don’t like Linux and prefer to use Windows or Mac OS and we’ll discuss it on the show. Whatever you have to say, I think it would be great to hear it from yourself in your own voice.

Anyway, thanks for all the encouraging feedback. I am already looking forward to the next batch of letters!

Welcome to the Linux Outlaws Blog. I am currently working on getting everything organised for the first episode of the podcast and I am setting up this blog to keep you up to date on the proceedings. I have recently acquired a mixer and a nice studio microphone and I’m in the process of sketching out the first few episodes. I was also able to pursuade Dan from Feeble Force to co-host the shows with me and I am working on the theme music for the podcast right now. The album artwork and site design is already completed.

I will post an update on the blog as soon as things are shaping up and a concrete schedule for the first episode is on the horizon. If you have any suggestions for topics you’d like us to cover or ideas about possible segments for the show, please click on the Contact button in the navigation at the top of the page and use the provided form to send us your feedback.