So You Want to Help Manage ds106 Radio?

cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo shared by Alan Levine

I am going to assume the answer is ~~“yes”~~ “EFF YEAH I AM #4FLIFE”

We still have some server quirks to try and figure out, like getting live stream meta data to display, and some indication of when a live broadcast is going on. That is going to take some elbow grease and Grant Potter Magic.

But there are two ways you can help now:

(1) Do live broadcasts. I’m not writing that up, and the doc is a bit of a mess, but look at the resources in http://bit.ly/ds106radioinfo

(2) Help Program the schedule, so there is always something playing no one is live broadcasting.

Remember this, and repeat often…

DEAD AIR IS NOT OUR FRIEND.

Stop the radio silence.

Live futzing is awesome, but DEAD AIR? Bad news.

The old server software had a repeating single playlist; in the new system, we can program pre-recorded files, playlists, “smart” blocks, and live cross casts from other internet radio stations in the schedule. To make it useful, I have pre-set each day for three eight hour blocks of scheduling, but that just creates a place holder.

We need your help in going in weekly and pre-filling these blocks with content.

Key is to login on at http://ds106rad.io/index.php (the index.php is needed) with username=ds106 and password=wejamecono

How dumb are we giving away passwords?

No answer.

Okay, I have written up some instructions for doing this, but maybe that’s a bit dense (or my writing sucks).

I just tried to record some screencasts that demonstrate the process, but I fear my screencasting sucks even more than my explanation. But here ya go, I just cranked out three (3) five (5) minute Jing screencasts to demonstrate how the calendar works, how to add content from the library, and how to add and schedule web streams.

Logging in to ds106rad.io, dashboard features, the calendar (10 MB SWF)
Populating content with files, playlists, smart playlists (16 MB SWF)
Populating content with web streams, adding new web streams (13 MB SWF)

We have a ton of material on the server. we are not asking you to upload more stuff, but to help fill out blocks of time with what is there– and believe be, Smart Blocks are the way to go.

Let’s stop the horror