What I’m listening to and how

February 2, 2005

Seeing that Doppler have linked to me from their front page (Thanks, Erwin!), I thought I might give a quick rundown on what I’ve been listening to on my iPod and how.

What I’m listening to:
G’day World. This one is easily my favourite. Cam and Mick put together an hourish podcast every now and then and it is brilliant to hear the Australian accent get a thorough workout. The self-depreciating jibes and picking at each other is true Australian conversation and their ‘On The Pod’ interviews continue to amaze me. Most of the guests are out of my sphere, but they are genuinely interesting and the guys know how to work an interview.

The Daily Source Code, of course. Adam Curry’s pioneer podcast is standard listening for any podcatcher and should almost be a default feed on the clients.

The Dawn and Drew Show. This is another one that I wouldn’t miss, even if it does make me laugh out loud on the train to work. These guys are great, their irreverence is something completely different to hear in a radio-type production and they have perfectly balanced Dawn’s excess with Drew’s straightness.

Evil Genius Chronicles. I haven’t been listening to Dave Slusher’s podcast as much lately, but I still enjoy it when I do listen. Dave raises a lot of interesting stuff in his ‘cast and I’ve already mentioned a few points on my blog. He does have a bit of a tendancy to get angry about things, but it still fail to see how someone could be offended by Dave’s crankiness.

Engadget. This seems to be off the air for the time being, but it is a great ‘cast about the gadgets we would all love to be able to afford.

Goin’ Deep With The Paralyzer And Mr. Clean. Another irreverent podcast. I’m not sure how I came across this one, but it is good fun to listen to. It’s simply a group of guys hanging out and drinking beer, talking like guys hanging around drinking beer. They cover their own versions of news stories, including one from here in Melbourne, the completely pointless hottie of the week (given that this is an audio format) and basically just take the piss. The production quality is surprisingly high and includes short breaks.

RevTim. This is another one I don’t like to miss. While it is a religious podcast, it is a grounded, listenable few minutes. Rev. Tim is fantastic, he talks about life in a way that you want to keep listening to and when he does bring up the guy upstairs it is always in context and is rarely gratuitious. I’m in no way religious myself, but I keep coming back to listen.

How I’m listening to it:
Doppler 2.0 RC1. This may seem like a bit of a backslap for linking to me, but Doppler is far and away the best client I’ve used. I gave a previous version a bit of stick, but 2.0 fixed everything I was having trouble with and threw in a few nice surprises. I particularly like the autotagging features that let me change the default genre of what is downloaded (I’m very anal about my ID3 tags) and download resuming. This is very important, given that I’m trying to listen to all of the above over a dialup connection. Yeah, I know.

iTunes. I’m very impressed with iTunes as well, after being a bit dubious for a start. When I originally installed it, I made the mistake of selecting the consolidate library option, which promptly ruined my system for storing my files (as I said, I’m pretty particular about this kind of stuff!). However, steering clear of that, it is working great and I don’t know how I did without SmartPlaylists before. Naturally, using iTunes with my iPod and Doppler is a breeze, so there are no problems there.

iPod. I originally bought a blue iPod mini, but soon found out that four gig was not going to be enough as I had to keep removing tracks to fit freshly downloaded podcasts on it. I sold this one to a friend and picked up a 4G twenty gig iPod. Now I’ve got plenty of space. So far, it’s only half full, including three gigs of podcasts that I’ve accumulated. The only downside is that there is a slight seek time when the iPod accesses the hard drive that wasn’t present in the mini, but I can live with that. I’m keen to buy a Shuffle, but I think I’ll wait and see.

FoofPod. As you can see from my review in a previous post, I love my FoofPod. A simple, affordable, handmade cover that is anything but plain, I can’t wait to buy some other styles as well. I can only say get one, you won’t regret it.

I’ll also be keeping an eye on The Podcast Network that the G’day World guys have setup. I’m not sure what the deal is yet, but with these guys, I’m sure it’s going to be good

So that’s pretty much my setup. There’s not much to it, so if you haven’t started listening to podcasts, get in there and try it. Download Doppler (or iPodder or any of the others, your call) and start getting more out of your iPod than you thought you ever would.

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