The vast coolness of the internet archive

I screwed up the podcast’s RSS feed for iTunes, so at some point today I’m gonna fix that. The software I used to create the XML file for the RSS feed is little confusing. I’m hosting the mp3 file over at the Internet Archive and the iTunes music store is looking for the file on my tedfoo.net servers which isn’t correct because the forms on the XML generator were um, misleading. It should be easy enough to fix though now that I’ve seen the error of my ways. I apologize for an inconvenience this may have caused you. All three of you. Ha ha.

But the real reason for this post isn’t to illustrate my technical incompetency but to let you in on the vast coolness of the Internet Archive. I took a deeper look after I signed up for an account to host my podcast file. It has web, audio, video and text available for browsing and downloading. You can even submit your own media for posterity. The IA’s mission is clearly stated on the right side of the page:

The Internet Archive is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.

But what is really cool about this historical-minded outpost of the internet? The live music files and audio. I found this audio track and it totally rules and is not boring.

Oh and the books are totally readable right from your computer. It offers a wide range of different viewing formats. Including the original scans in a “flip book” format. It seriously rules. I really can’t say how much I think this site totally rules. It’s much cooler than web 2.0 apps.