Mac Corner: Podcasts — Information for people on the go

  
By Larry Grinnell, Palm Beach Phoenix Apple Users Group

larry grinnellLike me, I’m sure many of you have long commutes to and from work every day. Mine runs 45 minutes to an hour each way. Additionally, I’m sure many of you are less than enthused about the quality of South Florida radio broadcasts and would love to find an alternative.

The most obvious (at least to me) are the excellent and varied programming options available on the two audio satellite services, Sirius and XM. Another great option is books on CD. Lots of popular titles are available at your local bookstore, but you can get most of the same titles for free at your public library.

One of my most favorite mobile entertainment choices is listening to podcasts. Podcasts, which run from a few minutes to up to an hour or so, are chunks of content on a wide variety of topics, freely downloadable from Apple’s iTunes store direct to your iTunes application.

Podcast frequency is all over the map. Some are daily, others weekly, and others are distributed whenever podcasters get around to it. This is where the iTunes store and your iTunes application add extra value to this proposition. You can subscribe to your favorite podcasts, so that whenever a new one is available, it is automatically downloaded to your iTunes application. Then, at your convenience, run your iTunes application, connect your iPod to your computer (Mac or Windows), and let iTunes synchronize what’s on your computer with what’s on your iPod.

Okay. Those are the basic mechanics, and now you know how to get podcasts into your iPod, but what about the content? What’s out there that’s worth listening to?

Here are a few of my favorites, which might give you a few ideas on what’s out there and how to find more on your own.

MyMac.com podcast: One of the oldest Macintosh-oriented podcasts, whose hosts (full disclosure dictates that I note one of the hosts is my brother) David Cohen and Guy Serle do an entertaining and informative weekly free-form podcast that discusses all things Mac. At least once a month they invite one of their listeners to be a guest host.

HDTV and Home Theater Podcast: Hosts Ara Derdarian and Braden Russell do a twice-weekly podcast all about home theater, HDTV, home audio, and the latest in consumer electronics technology. They also maintain an excellent website.

TWIT (This Week In Technology) Network: New media superstar Leo Laporte hosts a number of podcasts and provides bandwidth and production support for many more. Some of my personal favorites include:

Cranky Geeks: This weekly panel discussion, hosted by top computer journalist John C. Dvorak, covers the latest news on the high technology front.

American Public Media — A Prairie Home Companion‘s News from Lake Wobegon: This podcast extracts host Garrison Keillor’s wistful News From Lake Wobegon segment. For many, this is the best part of the weekly PHC broadcast.

No Idle Frets: A weekly 30-minute podcast featuring performances by emerging and veteran jazz guitarists.

Other podcasts include news and opinion, language studies, cultural subjects, comedy, music, and more. If you have time to site down and watch, there are tons of video podcasts available on an equally wide variety of topics.

With the state of radio in South Florida, I don’t know how I could have survived seven years of commuting from central Palm Beach County to western Broward County five days a week. Podcasts helped me keep my sanity and continue to keep me company on my long drive. I even learn stuff once in a while.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Readers are welcome to comment on this or any Mac Corner columns by visiting the Palm Beach Phoenix blog as well as by writing the editor of Palm Beach Business.com.

Mac Corner runs every Wednesday only in Palm Beach Business.com. Click to read the previous column.

About Larry Grinnell: Larry has been working with Macintosh and Windows PCs for over 25 years and worked as a senior technical writer and IT support professional for a major midwest-based consumer electronics and telecommunications equipment manufacturer here in South Florida. His musings on a wide variety of topics from computers to jazz guitar to strange foreign cars from the 1950s can be viewed at the MyMac.com website. Click here to reach him by email.

palm beach phoenix logoWriters of this column are members of the Palm Beach Phoenix Apple User Group, a nonprofit organization for Apple Computing Device Users, recognized by Apple Inc., with the purpose of providing educational training and coaching to its members (students, professionals and seniors alike) in a cordial social environment. The club meets the second Saturday (1-4 p.m.) and fourth Wednesday (6-8 p.m.) of each month at the Fire Station #2, 4301 Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach (just two block south of Southern Boulevard). Click here to visit their website. Click here to reach them by email.

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