GameBoy Micro

My GameBoy SP has been hijacked. My son has discovered "Pokemon Emerald". He has also discovered the Pokemon card game, which I play with him, but I digress.

Nintendo has just announced the GameBoy Micro :

http://micro.gameboy.com/

and already all the geek experts :

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000520043660/

are chattering on about what a huge mistake Nintendo has made. Probably the same "experts" that considered the Apple iPod Mini a mistake (it has sold millions).

Nintendo is doing something very smart here. They are squeezing the GameBoy platform for everything it can give. They have the advantage of a huge library of GameBoy Advance games, something that the Sony PSP does not have (though I'm not comparing the Micro to the PSP). While Sony will make very little on every PSP sold, the margin on the Micro is probably significant (it will sell for $99.)

The Micro is not intended for the hard core gamer. Hard core gamers seem to think that every new product is intended for them. Nintendo is going after the casual gamer, one who in the past would typically not buy a GameBoy. Perhaps they tried out one of their kids' GameBoys and enjoyed it.

The Micro is truly pocket size, so it can go anywhere. The $99 price may seem steep, but combine it with the new Play-Yan media player. Assuming that the Play-Yan sells for about $50, the combined cost is the same as an iPod shuffle, but has a screen and can play mp3's and video. This does not include the cost of a memory card, which will add about $40. The entire unit will be slightly smaller than the iPod Mini.

I want one. The Micro release date coincides with my sons' birthday. He may be getting my SP and dad will get a new GameBoy.

We need podcast naming conventions

I have been listening to a lot of podcasts lately as an alternavive to FM and have been noticing that there are many ways podcasts can be named (track name), but most are not named such that they sort properly on your portable device (iPod, whatever).

This seems like such a trivial thing, but in order to organize the podcasts, I have to rename (pretty much) all of them so that the episodes sort in increasing date order. The track number field is particularly abused. Sometimes it lists the month, sometimes blank, sometimes the episode number. Often it varies among episodes from the same podcaster.

Some would argue that this doesn't matter, and technically, it does not. To me, an illogical or random naming structure makes the podcast appear a little less professional. This is particularly a problem, when upon completion of a podcast, the playlist skips to the next file, which may be a month old.

How to fix it (I apologize in advance if thie is difficult to follow...):

My preference is an abbreviated name followed by a date or episode number, like the following, with possible issues listed beside the different options :

ABBR-YYYY-MM-DD
ABBR-YY-MM-DD (YY potentially confused with MM or DD)
ABBR-MM-DD (short, but with year rollover issues)
ABBR-NNNN
ABBR-NNNN-YYYYMMDD (pretty damn long)
ABBR-NNNN-YYMMDD

Where
ABBR = abbreviated podcast name
YYYYMMDD = Year-Month-Day. Use leading zeros.
N = episode number.

Always use leading zeros to fill numeric fields to accomodate sorting i.e

099
100

rather than :

99
100

In short, make the first 17 characters important, because that is all the listener will see (at least on an ipod). Podcast names sort alphabetically when dates are specified appropriately)

OnTheMedia-20050801

or

OTM-20050801

or Coverville-101-20050801

where YYYY=year, MM=month, DD=date


Using episode numbers rather than dates immediately following the name allows a few more characters :

DailySourceCode-115-2005-07-27

or

DSC-115-2005-07-27 (this is what I do)


Remember to be consistent!
For example, don't do this :

Inside Man Podcast
Episode 2 of 4
Inside Man Episode 1

Don't include spaces, or at least be consistent!

Don't use month or day names! They don't sort properly!
For example, don't do this :

On The Media - Aug 1, 2005
On The Media - Jul 29, 2005
On The Media - Jul 22, 2005

As for track numbers, I would do :
track number = episode number
or
always "1"
or
leave it blank

No random numbers in the track field. This is just silly.

Also, no roman numerals. They don't sort numerically.
For example, don't do this :

Podfinder Episode III
Podfinder Episode II
Podfinder Podcast

Keep the podcasts coming!