L.T. Blog

I first heard of Hypernonsense last November during National Podcast Posting Month which was started by Jennifer Navarrete of The Morning Brewcast.  This is where podcasters were encouraged to post an episode every day during the month of November.  Shawno and Jen are podcasters from San Luis Obispo, CA. Their podcast generally runs close to two hours, but it really does hold your interest.  They are very good storytellers talking about what they have done whether it be a bus ride from hell coming home from the fair or taking the Amtrak train to Monterey.  They have a Nabaztag bunny that interrupts the show every so often to read news headlines, play a song, or announce the time. I also like the pop culture discussion whether it be movies, tv or music and another feature of the show that is fun is when they talk about bizarre or odd news stories. Both have a really easy to listen to talking style and both seem to be pretty comfortable with the microphone. The show is often very funny as well.  Shawno comes up with some pretty wild statements about the coming of the end times or his insistence on calling Canada Canadia. I also like Jen’s “tell-it-like-it-is” style.  They have a really good dynamic together. They are also starting to have really good guests on the show such as the librarian that was on an earlier episode or Orange Tim from Erkpod in Australia who was on an episode recently and did a fabulous job.

It was from them I learned about the series Mad Men and in the last episode I bought the track of a band called The Weepies off of iTunes.  There usually is a song closing each episode.  So podcasts do sell media.  And speaking of selling, I really like the marketing they have done on their site.  They have a leaderboard for the number of comments someone leaves, they just wrapped up a contest in order to get more phone or voice messages, and they have a bunny fund for raising money.  Really interesting approaches. So check out Hypernonsense with Shawno and Jen.

There is a new iPhone/Touch app called Simplify Media that is so cool!  After you download the app, you go to their website at Simplifymedia.com and download an application for your computer. It works on Windows, Mac or Linux.  The computer application walks you through creating a free account and then you are ready to invite friends or access your own iTunes library.  With the iPhone app you can access your or your friends iTunes music library and have it stream on to your device.  This is great for many reasons.  If you have a Wi-Fi connection, or even if you have an iPhone a 2G/3G connection, you can have your whole iTunes library (excluding video) at your fingertips. So if you have an 8 gig device you can access however many gigabytes of songs you have in your iTunes library.  It is also neat to be able to peruse your friend’s music collection and maybe if you like something you can buy it or have your friend burn you a copy.

Looking at the playing features of the app, when you play a song you sometimes get album art, artist biography pulled from Last.fm, and song lyrics pulled from LyricWiki. On the computer side you can see what songs your friend is listening to by clicking on the messages tab.  This is just an unbelievable program and it is free for the first 100,000 iPhone/Touch users. It was released Friday, and at the last check it was still free.  Even at $3.99 I think this app would be worth it. If you get it and want to invite me my username is nathanl.

No Agenda is a podcast hosted by Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak. I have taken a break on The Daily Source Code, Adam’s main podcast, but I still enjoy this one. It is a weekly show that is 1 and a half to 2 hours long. Curry and Dvorak talk about all kinds of topics from politics to fine dining. Most of the shows lately Curry has been off the deep end with economic conspiracy theories claiming the super rich are pulling all the strings and causing all these world economic crises. Dvorak is funny because he is always his skeptical self. Curry and Dvorak have great chemistry together and it is a lot of fun to hear them go back and forth with each other. The topics are always very interesting.

There are no jingles, no music, occassionally an audio comment, but always interesting conversation. Since the recording is on Skype the audio quality is sometimes hit or miss. Most of the time it is listenable, though. This is another podcast I enjoy listening to very much.

One thing I’ve been thinking about lately is the question mentioned in the title. It seems like it is easier to listen to music or audiobooks in a car full of people than it is to listen to podcasts. Is it because podcasts are so specialized? Is podcast listening subjective?
My wife doesn’t like listening to podcasts when we are in the car. We only listen to music. It might be the topic of podcasts I listen to (see the blog post about TWiT) that she doesn’t care for. Other podcasts like Dawn & Drew I would probably be too embarrassed to listen with her.
Does anybody else find listening to podcasts to be a solitary activity? The other reason I think it is is because of the conversation factor. It is much easier to talk over music than it is over someone else on a podcast talking. I can only listen to one voice at a time so if other people were talking I would not hear what the podcaster is saying.
If you have any thoughts on this I would love to hear about it in the comments.

P.S. I wrote this on the iPod touch with the Wordpress App.

The Apple appstore is here and I have upgraded the iPod Touch that I got for my birthday to the 2.0 software. I’ve been going crazy playing with applications and here are some of my favorites and not so favorite.  If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch and would like to suggest application, I would be glad to hear about them

Applications that I like:

Mobile News: AP newswire–free

CheckPlease: tip calculator–free

My Lists: create to do lists organized by tiny graphic like pencil for work, grocery cart for grocery list, etc–$1.99

AOL Radio–free

Quordy: boggle type game–$2.99

Scrabble–$9.99

NYTimes: reader for NY Times–free

YPMobile: Yellow pages–free

BoxOffice: movie times and reviews–free

Other apps I have

JirboBreak: Breakout style game–free

To Do: I decided I like My Lists better, you can make more lists–free

Google Mobile: It’s okay, I might use it. You can’t get to Google Reader from it however. That seems to be broken–free

Pandora: Internet radio–free

EpocratesRX: prescription drug app. look up prescriptions, see a picture of pill, and see interactions –free with free registration

eBay: might be useful, haven’t had much need for it yet–free

Light: white screen makes a nice flashlight in the dark–free

Exposure: Flickr client–free

Pownce: Twitter clone–free

Twitterific: Twitter app–free

Apps to stay away from:

Where: it doesn’t work–free

NearPix: doesn’t work–free

OneTapMovies: doesn’t work–$1.99

I’m going start a series of posts about podcasts I like to listen to.  Today I’m going to start with Leo Laporte’s TWiT shows. I listen to TWiT, The Tech Guy, MacBreak Weekly, Windows Weekly, Daily Giz Wiz, Jumping Monkeys, Munchcast, Roz Rows the Pacific, and Net@Nite.  Each one of these shows is entertaining, attention grabbing, and interesting.  I love the debates and issues that are brought up on TWiT. Even though I’m not a parent, I really like the interaction between Leo and Megan Morronne on Jumping Monkeys and they always have interesting guests. MacBreak Weekly and the Daily Giz Wiz are funny shows. MacBreak may as well be called “Rathole Weekly” because they go on so many tangents, but it is all interesting. Dick De Bartolo is really funny on Daily Giz Wiz.  Net@Nite talks about the latest on the internet and Leo and Amber MacArthur really seem to enjoy talking to each other.  Cammy Blackstone comes up with wild and crazy junk food related topics on Munchcast. Roz Savage is fascinating in this new show about her rowing across the Pacific Ocean and Leo calls her three times a week on a satellite phone to talk to her. Finally Windows Weekly is just interesting in what is going on with “the other side”. So many people use Windows it is nice to know what developments are going on there. Finally the Tech Guy radio show Leo does is probably where I learn the most about technology through people’s questions and I’m even learning about HD TVs and that kind of equipment when I can finally afford to get one, I’ll have somewhat of an idea of what to get.  

So to sum it up, what I would say is I love Leo’s passion.  Each one of these shows Leo delivers with enthusiasm, sometimes silliness, but always with plenty of information.  That is why Leo goes straight to the top of the playlist whenever his shows come out.  Plus a new thing is TWiT Live, his streaming video of him producing all of his shows.  I’ve watched a few times. I really don’t like the chat so I’ll just blow the video up full screen.  The only bad part about watching is I have to decide whether I want to watch a show or listen to it because I can’t do both.  I hope Leo keeps doing this as long as he can.  I know sometimes he gets tired, but I also know he has thousands of fans that feel the same way I do.  

Last week when I came home from substitute teaching, I noticed that a door that is normally kept closed was slid open.  We have the living room area blocked off with doors from the bedrooms because we got a kitten and we wanted to keep her separated from the dog until they could get used to each other enough. Anyway, the door to bedrooms was open and I walked to our bedroom.  My wife’s jewelry was all over the bed and two of my wife’s dresser drawers had completely been pulled out on to the floor.  They had taken her college ring which was on a necklace and some other jewelry.  Next I checked out the computer room.  Miraculously all the computer were still there, but I noticed that the video camera which I use to do my video podcast and the still camera were missing.  Finally I noticed that some DVDs were missing.  All of our Disney collection (teenage robbers?) were gone and some DVDs I had just ordered from Columbia House were missing as well.

We were lucky on a couple of counts. One is that they didn’t take the computers or even the laptop (that is not even mine and just a loaner from my Mac Users Group since I’m the president) and Two is that we weren’t  there thus no one was hurt.  Last year our neighbor was shot in the hand and it was all over the local news. This whole ordeal has made us think about security.  As we list off the stuff for the insurance adjusters, we are thinking about alarms, backing up the computers, and engraving some of more expensive possessions.  The police detective who showed up at our house said that the San Antonio police have a special division that just goes out to a house with an engraver and engraves a special word onto objects to make it easier for the police to check out pawn shops and possibly get things back.

We also need to remember that these are just things and luckily no one was hurt. Things are replaceable, but not so much human life. It has shaken us up a little, but it could always have been much worse.

I do five podcasts under the Lott’s Thoughts label.  Mostly I’m doing them for myself because I enjoy making them.  According to my Feedburner stats I have 15-20 subscribers for my movie and TV review podcasts and single digits for my play review and Texas video podcasts. The book podcast is somewhere in the middle.  I can’t tell you how much I enjoy comments. I’m thankful to have listeners like Shawno and Jen from Hypernonsense who regularly leave me comments.  It makes me feel like someone out there is really listening to me and I’m not doing this just for myself.  It also makes me feel like I should leave more comments for the podcasts I’m listening to.  I love the conversation aspect of podcasting and all of the new media that is out there today.