djukon wrote:

Luckily I was catching up recently and was still able to preserve episodes 15 to 22.

More luckily, I was able to recover episodes 7 through 10 as well, with no overwritten clusters. There are other partial recovered files: 5, 6 and 11 through 14.

Unfortunately, all the files are iTunes versions of the originals, which means they contain file name corrections and episode 10 even contains incorrect information in the tag (possibly due to an iTunes bug). I'll now try to recover additional files from the iPod, if luck continues on my side.

djukon wrote:

djukon wrote:

I'll now try to recover additional files from the iPod, if luck continues on my side.

Indeed there were more files on the iPod. Episodes 6 through 14 were totally recovered. Episodes 1 through 5 were partially recovered. iTunes fortunately has the metadata stored even for listened to files, so for episodes 1 through 5, at least the metadata is recoverable (by copy-paste).

So the main question now left is, who stored episodes 1 through 5?

(edit) If you need to run a file recovery pass on your storage media, here are some clues for episodes 1 through 5, in case some file metadata is missing. They are all 64 kbps 24 kHz MP3 files.
001: Intro to Boring Beige Box; 21 minutes; 9.2 MB
002: Online Services of the Early 1990s; 44 minutes; 20.1 MB
003: IBM PS/1; 25 minutes; 11.5 MB
004: Modems; 26 minutes; 11.7 MB
005: LucasArts; 38 minutes; 17.4 MB

On this shared folder, you can find audio files for episodes 6 through 22, meta data for episodes 1 through 5, as well as the website's podcast list from Google's cache.

For some odd reason, Episode 22 seems to be missing the last one to two minutes. iTunes didn't download the file correctly the first time round, so my backups are based off this cut off file. I corrected some inconsistencies in the files' metadata (especially episodes 21 and 22) and added the show's small artwork/icon/logo to each audio file. Though I didn't re-listen to the episodes from start to finish, I did jump around the files and played the intro and outro to be sure the files are the right episodes and are without large missing parts/errors.

I'm still uploading the files as I post this, they should all be up in a few minutes. If anyone finds the missing episodes, or some error I didn't detect in the shared files, please let me know. Thanks.

Is this any use? I'm at work so can't check the files, 1-5 at the bottom

Looked again and saw you can't directly download them - tried to capture them but limited at work

https://www.mixcloud.com/boringbeigebox/

This page might have the actual files - its blocked when clicking the files because of work filter tho

https://archive.li/J0Nud

Edit: NOPE - tried it on a different connection and just redirects to the original page 🙁

Thanks for the feedback, Mr_ppp, unfortunately it is a no-go.

Mr_ppp wrote:

https://www.mixcloud.com/boringbeigebox/

Mixcloud (at least for this content) seems to be a frontend for playback, piggybacking on the files (previously) available elsewhere. In this case, they were on libsyn.

Mr_ppp wrote:

This page might have the actual files [...] https://archive.li/J0Nud

The audio files weren't archived here.

Doh!

Mr_ppp wrote:

Doh!

This looks more hopeful!!!

I played a few seconds succesfully but can't listen for long to verify as at work

http://audio.textfiles.com/shows/bbb/

Mr_ppp wrote:

This looks more hopeful!!!

I played a few seconds succesfully but can't listen for long to verify as at work

http://audio.textfiles.com/shows/bbb/

Great find! The first five episodes are there, complete, as well as some live episodes, which I hadn't heard nor stored. Only missing now are the last two minutes of episode 22, since the textfiles backup missed the last two episodes (nothing after 2008).

I'll update my shared folder with the new files in the next few days.

EDIT: I couldn't find the Talk Shoe page for the live podcast. It might have more recordings after 2008.

Whatever happened to this guy anyways?

fsmith2003 wrote:

Whatever happened to this guy anyways?

I have no idea what happened to Matt Wilson. Does anyone else know?

Anyway, I've updated the shared folder with tag tweaked episodes 1 through 5, uploaded copies of the live episodes as-is from text-files (I haven't had the opportunity to listen to them yet), and minor tag tweaks to the rest of the episodes.

Summing up the state of this thread, we're still missing:

• The TalkShoe page location (for grabbing more meta data, and possibly downloading more episodes);
• Adding tags to the TalkShoe live episodes;
• What happened to Matt Wilson.

Sorry to bump an old thread. This is Rob O'Hara, host of a few podcasts including You Don't Know Flack and Sprite Castle. Boring Beige Box was one of my favorite podcasts, and a big influence on You Don't Know Flack. Many years ago I tracked down Matt through Facebook and friended him. At the time he lived just outside the Chicago area, and while I was on vacation visiting family I met up with Matt at a local Starbucks to share some stories and old computer memories. Matt is now married with a couple of kids and I think family and work took over his podcasting time.

If anyone is still looking for them, I'm sure I nabbed all the episodes of Boring Beige Box before they went offline. This thread has inspired me to go back and listen to them once again. I can't answer the other questions, but I can say that Matt Wilson is alive and well!

RobOHara wrote on 2021-03-22, 16:21:

Sorry to bump an old thread. This is Rob O'Hara, host of a few podcasts including You Don't Know Flack and Sprite Castle. Boring Beige Box was one of my favorite podcasts, and a big influence on You Don't Know Flack. Many years ago I tracked down Matt through Facebook and friended him. At the time he lived just outside the Chicago area, and while I was on vacation visiting family I met up with Matt at a local Starbucks to share some stories and old computer memories. Matt is now married with a couple of kids and I think family and work took over his podcasting time.

If anyone is still looking for them, I'm sure I nabbed all the episodes of Boring Beige Box before they went offline. This thread has inspired me to go back and listen to them once again. I can't answer the other questions, but I can say that Matt Wilson is alive and well!

Thanks for the update Rob!

BTW, I've been a fan of your podcast for quite a while. I look forward to listening to each episode of YDKF when I see there is a new one up! You do a great job of putting the nostalgic emotion behind all the old "useless junk" (as my wife would say) that so many of us enjoyed growing up into words.

Unapologetically bumping an old thread. I randomly thought of this podcast today and went looking for the episodes so thanks for archiving these.

Hey Flack, I’ve enjoyed your books especially when you talked about 405 as I once called OKC home.

For future reference: I also found a copy on archive.org. However their time is shorter for episode the last episode. The media fire version includes an intro. I wonder if the archive version does not... https://archive.org/details/BoringBeigeBoxPodcast