::A Geek in Korea::

I’ve previously mentioned my borderline apathy for “Podcasts“. Unless it was teaching people English, I wasn’t really all that thrilled with them as the “hot item” that people talked about before Twitter became popular. The term “Podcast” is stupid and misleading. It only caught on because “Mp3 embedded in an RSS feed that any mp3 player can play” is a mouthful.

The Cowon D2 I had to send in because I bricked the firmware came back with a folder with Windows “Podcast Ready” software installed. I figured it wasn’t going to get much use, since 99% of the time I don’t run Windows these days. After further research, Podcast Ready had Linux, Windows, and Mac software called “myPodder“. Ugh. Still, most of the features of the D2 work extremely well. I decided to try this out to see if it was as good as some of the other features they’ve added in the past.

The software from Podcast ready goes onto your Mp3 player, not your computer. Simply plug in any Mp3 player that works as a USB hard drive, then run the software. The software then connects to the service on Podcast Ready and downloads any shows you have subscribed to. Since codec support isn’t robust enough on the Cowon D2 to allow for video podcasting without conversion of the files, I’ve been exploring the various audio podcasts.

What I really like is the fact that it’s a one click script with a GUI to add and manage podcasts. Simply subscribe and have it do all the work for you. For example the preloaded subscriptions included a “NASCAR” feed. Cars driving around in circles doesn’t interest me, so I deleted the subscription and it took care of the rest. Since I don’t have to worry about syncing or doing any file movement, I’m more than willing to listen to some content provided by others.

I don’t want to listen to 95% of the stuff available, but with so many choices, there was bound to be a few feeds that got subscriptions. Right now I’m subscribed to (click on the following links to subscribe):

The Keepers:

I should be writing: A published fiction writer shares helpful tips about the writing process.

Kimchi Girls: A Korean language podcast. It’s a good beginner’s review broken down by common tasks needed to be accomplished by Ex-pats in Korea.

Several NPR Podcasts. (Satire, Story of the Day, Sunday Puzzle, Technology )

The Maybes

Slice of Sci-Fi: A science fiction discussion. Haven’t downloaded an episode yet.

Onion Radio News Network: The Onion does Radio News Parody. I’ve listened to five of these and they are exactly the same format. “Comical Headline, Local man says X.” Make with the funny already Onion!

The Platformers:  This is a splinter group of a few people I used to read on Penny-Arcade Forums. The last podcast is an epic 90 minute series of rants on video games and forum in-jokes. That’s a large time commitment, but I spend a lot of time on the forums as it is anyway.

Since I am new to the idea of podcasting, so if anyone had any shows I should recommend, drop a link in the comments and share them. I’m not interested in gadget laden, “You gotta buy this new gizmo to be on the cutting edge”  geek talk. No sports either. Anyone?