so, i just realized how painfully out of date i was (am?): apparently, the site that was hosting my audio files went belly up a year ago! whoops! and apparently they only notified the paying customers – not the folks that were hosting audio for free (because, you know, sending a mass email is just that difficult).

anyway, i’m trying to find a good site for hosting my audio and streaming it here, for free. there doesn’t seem to be a YouTube equivalent for audio… or am I missing something? WTF?

i found a service that looks pretty good… only their player doesn’t seem to be embedding properly. Not for me, anyway (or for the 12 other people that logged the same problem in the past day). I’m waiting for some feedback. But in the meantime, you can listen to the tracks by clicking on the titles under the dysfunctional players, or by going directly to my page on SoundCloud.

And if anyone knows of a reliable audio hosting/streaming service, let me know. Please.

UPDATE: Looks like all my players are working now. Yippey!

SoundCloud’s whole website was just down for about 30 mins… not sure how often that happens or how flukey the site/service really is. But for now, play away!

The Mad Poets Blog, an offshoot of the Mad Poets Society’s main web page, has been a while in the making. It includes a wicked-cool sidebar events calendar and regular contributions from po-bloggers Anna Evans, Rachel Bunting, Ashraf Osman, G. Emil Reutter, and yours truly. Eileen D’Angelo, the MPS Director and self-professed technophobe, will hopefully join us in the bloggery goodness once I convince her how easy WordPress actually is.

To say that I’m excited is an absolute understatement. You should totally check it out: There’ll be MPS news, ongoing poetry discussion, reviews, interviews, etc. etc. etc.

And as always, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Little Mister, who saw the gobbledygook that was passing for code in the WP theme I was using and just decided to recreate the entire thing (in a matter of hours, by the way!) so that it would be easier for me to use/edit in the long run. And it is!

For all it’s bonuses, technology continues to befuddle me at the most unlikely turns. I spent this afternoon making simple sidebar banners to highlight my regular poetry events. You may or may not actually see those banners, and, if you do, they may or may not look the way I intended. Herein lies today’s befuddlement. You see, for some reason, the only way I can view changes made to my code is by clearing my cache, closing the browser altogether, then reopening. (Just refreshing, or clearing the cache & then refreshing won’t work). Then, maybe, the page I see will reflect my most recent updates. Sometimes, I have to restart the computer altogether.

Considering my html skills are rudimentary, at best, viewing my changes is particularly important… so I can be sure I inserted the links properly or set the alignment and margins correctly. This cache confusion has caused much cursing and fist flailing, as I’m accustomed to assuming that any problems are the result of user error (*me*) rather than an equipment glitch (stupid damned computer!!!!!). This afternoon, it got so frustrating I got the Little Mister involved. Even he was perplexed. Why, for instance, were the image paths in IE completely different than those in the code??? Regardless of how many times we cleared the cache and refreshed, it seemed that the little web elves that live inside my computer decided they preferred the old fouled code.

I *think* its okay now. I think. And hope. I can only go by what I see, and from what I see they’re fine. But if the banners are all icked up for you, please let me know. Or you could let me know if they look just fine too. A non-geek like me can use all the positive reinforcement I can get!