Off Wing Opinion

On Wednesday, I posted a brief item about Podcasting -- a method of distributing audio programming using a combination of RSS, a broadband Internet connection and your friendly iPod.

The software that pulls it all together is called iPodderX (check out other apps here) -- think of it as a newsreader for audio feeds. Simply subscribe to the feeds you want, iPodderX will check them automatically, and download the latest programs onto your iPod the next time your sync with iTunes. One nice touch -- iPodderX puts all of the programs you download into distinct playlists, so you don't have to play hunt and find through your entire iPod library to find the programs.

Well, after only a week of playing with Podcasting (and dealing with a hard drive that fills pretty rapidly on my old G4), I'm hooked. As I've written before, Washington radio is a vast wasteland, and my iPod has become something of a salvation ever since I started commuting from Reston to downtown D.C.

But after a few weeks, even I started to get a little tired of the mere five megs of music I was carrying on my iPod. Enter Podcasting, which now provides me with enough music and chatter to fill my hour long commute from start to finish (looks like Oliver Willis does as well).

For now, all I listen to is The Daily Source Code from ex-MTV VJ Adam Curry (click here for his feed), as well as Hardcore Insomnia Radio (click here for that feed). Better yet, Hardcore Insomnia seems pretty evergreen, so if I miss a few shows and have to play catch up I don't feel like I'm behind at all.

So if you've got broadband and an iPod, give it a shot. I'm not promising a revolution, just a more pleasant commute.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 17th, 2004 at 11:21 am by Eric McErlain and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.