Travis in Berlin

DDR Design
Originally uploaded by Travis J. Todd

Realized I haven't been reading at all like I used to in the states. So I went out and bought some novels and two design inspiration books. Click the photo above to check out what I bought and some descriptions (link to flickr).

In part one of a multi-part series, we join Travis and Sofie on their whirlwind tour of Germany and Switzerland. In a rented Peugeot 307 cabrio, the two travel to Leipzig and Nürnberg enduring rain the whole way and checking out the sites. To be continued...

To Download Episode Zehn: Teil Eins Ten: Part One, ctrl+click here

Labels: Berlin, Germany, podcast, todcast, travel

Noel Hidalgo, of On the Luck of Seven stopped by to meet up with me and David Troy, creator of TwitterVision last week. It was a great conversation about open-source technology, coworking and the general nature of technology and the internet (ask Noel if you ever meet him about self-conscious ash trays, that'll blow your mind).

Noel is writing a book about his "open-source journey around the world documenting free culture, social innovators and global change." He's also filming a documentary and video blog along the way. Dave and I were featured in episode 10, with a little bettwr production quality than my Todcast:

http://luckofseven.com/vlog/episode10

Labels: Berlin, coworking, internet, social-networking, travel, twittervision

Well, for a country that calls itself "The Fatherland," Germans seem to have gender roles reversed from the rest of the Western world...or at least the English.

In my ongoing observations I'd say the majority of German women I meet are really independent, self-assured and strong-willed, whereas a lot of the men seem to be emotional and passive. This matriarchal dominance seems to be a departure from what I'm used to.

This could also explain the un-manly sitting down to pee post I wrote earlier.

Labels: cutlure, Germany, sexes, travel

This has been a long time coming and I know my parents need it as they always seem to forget I have a blog:

How to Subscribe to an RSS Feed

Firstly, What is an RSS feed?

An RSS feed (forget what the acronym means as not even the experts can agree on that) is basically a file on the internet that stores the "meaty," important portions of several articles. This basically includes the title, date published, a snippet of the text (sometimes the whole text) and a link to the actual webpage that the post is on.

Every time I make a new blog post, or the BBC puts up a new news article a new entry is added to the RSS feed with the "meat" of the post. What having a separate file for this does, is allow you to get the content of the post without having to go to the website and get all the graphics, ads, and other stuff involved with a webpage. Dial-up internet users and Eastern Bloc European Countries, rejoice!

You can find RSS feeds by this icon:

Next, How to Subscribe?

This gets a little more tricky, but bear with me. Unfortunately RSS feeds are still kind of a nerdy concept so the magic standardized crossover between computers and RSS feeds hasn't been developed yet. This means you'll need a third-party program (translation, you'll have to install something). What this program will do will allow you to put all the feeds you want to subscribe to in a single place. It's like having all the content of the webpages you visit in a single glance without having to visit them.

If, you have Firefox, congrats, you've already installed something that will read and store RSS feeds. Wherever you see that icon above or a link that says "Subscribe to My RSS Feed!" you can click it and Firefox will prompt you to "Subscribe to this feed using: Live Bookmarks." Clicking "Subscribe Now" will give you the option to add it to your Bookmarks Toolbar. If you do this, it will be place right above your browser window and you can click on the link to activate a drop down that lists the titles of all recent posts on the site. Nifty, huh?

For the Firefox users who are a bit more savvy, I recommend the Wizz RSS News Reader Add-on. It creates a nice little side panel listing all your feeds.

And finally, if you don't have Firefox (or I should mention Apple's Safari, now for Windows!, does the same thing), there are a lot of other great desktop RSS readers for download.

How to Subscribe to a Podcast

What is a Podcast?

Even though "pod" is in the name, you don't need an iPod for Podcasts. Let's get that out of the way up front.

A podcast is basically on demand radio or TV. That's a concept we're all familiar with at this point, right? You see a listing radio shows or TV shows, you click one, you can watch it right then. If you really like that series you can subscribe to it and get the whole season and every new episode that comes out.

This is the same with podcasts. The come in two flavors, audio (radio) and video (tv), and use the technology above (RSS) to tell people when a new show is posted. Best of all, they're free!

How to Subscribe to a Podcast: My way ... Or the Highway.

Disclaimer: Ok, I'm only taking one approach to this, and here's why: One: I'm an Apple fanboy. Two: All my podcasts are in m4v format. Three: I'm getting tired of typing.

Basically, if you haven't already, do yourself a favor and go get Apple iTunes. Its an amazing music player with a lot of other great features.

Once you have iTunes subscribing to podcasts is a snap. If a link is formated right (like mine) it will open iTunes automatically and subscribe for you.

Otherwise, it will bring up something that looks like the RSS feed we clicked on above. To subscribe, open iTunes, click "Advanced" in the menu bar, and then choose "Subscribe to Podcast..." This will bring up a text box called URL. Copy and paste the website address (URL) from your browser into this text box. It'll look something like this: http://www.travisjtodd.com/podcast/podcast.xml . Then click, "OK."

This will automatically subscribe you to the podcast, and once its done downloading you can view it by clicking "Podcasts" in the left hand side of your iTunes. You can even get a description of the show before you watch it by clicking the little "i" in a circle at the far right side of the window.

In Conclusion...

Try this out by clicking the links on the right of this site. And comment below if you have any questions. Merry Internetting...

Labels: Apple, firefox, itunes, podcast, RSS, subscribing

Here is a weird German word, Gerne (or Gern, depending on your fancies that day. Either spelling means the same thing and they're complete interchangable). This word is used to amplify a desire. For example: Ich will gerne Finanzierung für meines Projekt, Growvotes.org. I WANT funding for my project, Growvotes.org.

Now, I can't think of a word in the English language that does this. I would say "really" if the Germans didn't have a word for that also, wirklich. So, imply what cultural/historical things you want from having a word like this. I'll just leave it open to interpretation and contemplation.

Labels: German, Germany, language, travel

Jörg, my room mate, asked me today if I feared vampires because I eat so much garlic.

Labels: garlic

Democratic Socialism is a strange animal. It definitely has it's ups and downs (but I'll let Michael Moore explain those to you).

One bizarre thing in Germany, though, is that there is a TV/Radio tax. Now I haven't met anyone who actually pays it, yet, but apparently you have to pay a tax for every TV or Radio you own, and possibly, now computers. The tax doesn't go to the provider, as in America, but to the individual.

It stems from the state providing free TV and Radio, and on one hand it's nice they're only taxing the people who are using it but on the other...well, no one likes being taxed.

In my case though, the TV tax collectors have been coming by for the last couple of days and knocking on my door. I don't let them in. One, because I don't have a TV. Two, because I don't even understand the TV or Radio here. Thirdly, and most importantly, I don't feel like using my meager German skills to convey that to them.

Labels: Berlin, Germany, radio, tax, travel, TV

In this episode Sofie, a couple of her friends and me go to the Carnival of Culture in Berlin. The Carnival of Culture is a big parade celebrating the diversity of Berlin. It's also a place and time to drink exotic cocktails, and in our case, they were free (pays to know the bartender).

It rained most the day than cleared up, but it wasn't without it's bizarre sights, sounds and lack of sobriety. Also, Sofie wishes to apologize in advance to my parents for her drunkeness. ;)



To download episode Neun Nine, ctrl+click here.

Labels: Berlin, Carnival, Cultures, Germany, todcast