
i got an ipod shuffle yesterday. at first, i was taken aback by the simplicity of the interface. not just that it has no display, but the amount of fiddling that you can do with the playlist is very sparse. you really can just attach to it, fill it up, and move on.
i was talking to my brother, and we both wished it had a facility to let you grab the newest three podcasts from each of your subbed podcasts. that would be a really cool way to go. unfortunately, there is no such thing..
this morning, in the shower, i remembered that the itunes library is just an xml file that is well defined, and super simple to whip through. my first instinct was to just write some ruby code that jumps into the xml file, and makes this kind of playlist.
then, reality set in.
as far as i know, itunes uses this file to mess with its playlists and listings. i don’t THINK it’s generated from another source, but i am not keen on running the risk of messing it up. thinking further, i don’t want to let some source code out that might possible mess up someone else’s itunes library..
i will think about this a little more, and maybe take a whack at it..
but for now, here is a smart playlist that will do something similar. it gives you a list of 25 of the newest podcasts that are less than 4 weeks old. i will mess with this a bit, and see if it works for me.
if i find that the itunes library xml file is not read, but only generated by itunes, i will think about messing with that, too..
let me know if you find this useful..