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spencer on Sunday May 25, 2008

Yep. In addition to reading books (Who Reads Harry Potter?) I've also started educating myself about all kinds of things by listening to "podcasts", named after the iPod (although I actually don't own iPod).

So I listen to podcasts on general technology, security, tech news, Internet news, general conference addresses, scriptures, economics, and some general news. I listen to these on the way to/from work, at night while working on my own things, and occasionally at work when doing mundane tasks.

Here's a list of some podcasts that I listen to with a link to their "feed":
Before getting into a little more technical explanation of what this all is, and how to do it

What I listen to:
This Week in Tech (Leo Laporte and a bunch of tech guys, weekly):
http://leoville.tv/podcasts/twit.xml

The Tech Guy (Leo Laporte's Radio Show w/out the commercials, twice a week):
http://leo.am/podcasts/kfi

Windows Weekly (Leo Laporte and Paul Thurrott, weekly):
http://leoville.tv/podcasts/ww.xml

Security Now! (Leo Laporte and Steve Gibson, weekly)
http://leoville.tv/podcasts/sn.xml

Business Daily (daily)
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/bizdaily/rss.xml

LDS General Conference Addresses (every 6 months):
http://feeds.lds.org/LDSGCComplete_eng

Book of Mormon in MP3s (once - never changes):
http://www.lds.org/mp3/display/0,18692,5297-41,00.html

What do you listen to?
Podcasts are available on any subject. You can listen to cooking, sports, political, knitting, animals, etc. podcasts. Do you listen to any podcasts? I'd like to know what they are if you do.

What is Podcasting?
Here's a quick introduction to what podcasting is. Basically, it's listening to audio files that aren't music. These audio files are available from Internet sites that produce them. Podcasts are normally on a set subject and produced on a regular basis (e.g. a tech website may do a tech podcast on a weekly basis). You download the audio file from the Internet site, put it on your portable device (I use my blackberry phone) and listen to it.

To make it easier to listen to certain podcasts, you usually subscribe to a podcast listing. You can do this in iTunes, or just in your Internet browser (Internet Explorer 7 or Firefox). To subscribe, you usually subscribe to an RSS feed - which basically just provides a listing of the podcasts, for example, the last five podcasts produced by that website.

Feeds:
Most of the links above are direct links to the feeds. This gives you a listening of recent podcasts. Although feeds can be used to show any list type content. To view the feeds you need to be using a feed aggregator (such as www.google.com/ig or www.live.com or www.netvibes.com), or a browser that supports them (Internet Explorer 6 doesn't but Internet Explorer 7 does).

Personally I use google and also a program called Amarok - but it's for Linux (not Windows, not Mac).

Internet Explorer' 7s Feed watching capabilities are pretty cool. You can set the feeds to automatically download the attached content (podcasts).

Huh?
If you are interested in setting something like this up for yourself, to listen to feeds on anything, let me know and I'll see if I can help.

4 comments - view comments or leave one

harmony on Sunday May 25, 2008

huh? is right. does anyone know what this guy is talking about? if you do, then congratulations you're managing to not be left behind in the world of technology. I vicariously listen to Spencer's podcasts when we're in the same room and he's listening. Leo is quite the guy! Actually my husband gets a fancy phone device, but not me. And I don't think I can manage to read and listen yet. So, good job Spencer, you're absorbing stuff into your brain in multiple ways. I'm glad you are making such good use of your travel time.

azotus on Sunday May 25, 2008

On demand radio! I do listen to one podcast. The official podcast of They Might Be Giants. Its usually fun, never before released, versions of their tunes with the occasional commentary. So far I've enjoyed it.
http://www.tmbg.com/_media/_pod/podcast.xml

Virginia on Monday May 26, 2008

Wo, Spencer! Whose son are you? I',m impressed, as usual. I can't keep up with all this technology. Thanks for being my informant.

Lauren on Friday May 30, 2008

I really only listen to a few (some are video podcasts)

One is the TMBG podcast as already mentioned. I love their videos with the puppets.

Another is the Writing Excuses podcast at www.writingexcuses.com where some local (but fairly famous) authors talk about how to write good sci-fi/fantasy books.

I listen the 4th Age Podcast, which is a Wheel of TIme fan based podcast. It's found at www.dragonmount.com

And that's it right now.

Tags: helpful, loisirs, podcasts

Blog submitted by spencer on Sun, May 25th 2008, 01:13 | direct link

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Staying Safe with Skype - Roundbook

spencer on Sunday February 17, 2008

I wrote a blog using the Roundbook blog that discusses the use of skype and issues with privacy and safety. It also provides a tutorial on setting privacy settings. If you use skype, please check it out:

http://www.roundbook.com/roundbook/blog/?id=d9ce71e0779032ec06fca1d9f6374a0a

2 comments - view comments or leave one

Lauren on Monday February 18, 2008

Good to know. Though I don't currently use Skype, I'm sure I will one day, and this is good to keep in mind.

Virginia on Tuesday February 19, 2008

Thank you for this info Spencer. I will have dad help me put those precautions into effect.

Tags: helpful

Blog submitted by spencer on Sun, Feb 17th 2008, 02:04 | direct link

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Sharing a cool Video!

spencer on Saturday February 3, 2007

So, Harmony shared this video with me the other day. This is the band OK GO. Their website is here: http://www.okgo.net/.

She saw the video on a friend's blog, which you can see here.

So I said,

"you know, you can put videos like that on Roundbook too!"

And I don't know why it never occured to me, but you really can do this quite easily. For a long time, I'd been thinking about putting video sharing into Roundbook. And someday, I may. But for the moment - if you want to share a video from some other service, like YouTube, then you can.

Before I go into the details - enjoy this video. Even if you are not a fan of the music (its pretty fun music though), you need to watch the whole thing because the coordination and choreography is amazing. You'll be blown away by what these guys do on treadmills. And given the music, they seem to be talented musicians too.

Um, I'll put up a tutorial on how to do this later. But basically, when writing a blog, you would push the "Source" button, and copy the code from YouTube. YouTube provides this code next to each video. It looks like this:

<embed allowScriptAccess="never" allownetworking="internal" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/pv5zWaTEVkI" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="320"
height="256"></embed>.

Then press the source button again and write about it.

Later - Spencer

3 comments - view comments or leave one

docenah on Saturday February 3, 2007

Fun!

Virginia on Monday February 5, 2007

Wow! New innovative exercise! This certainly breaks the monotony of the treadmill. The music is okay. Thanks for sharing.

petelaw78 on Thursday February 8, 2007

Spence-It was good hearing from you. I think your site is great. I'm trying to convince my family to use it. Hey, I noticed that your brother lives in Bellevue. I live there too. Keep up the good work and if I have any suggestions I will definitely give them to you.

Pete