Napster’s new MP3 music subscription gives you the ability to download as much music as you can cram on your portable media player for a low, low fee per month. But that’s not what this is about, but something similar, podcasting. I had been hearing about it for a while, and what sold me was I was able to find an NPR program.

So what is podcasting? Basically, it’s TiVO for your radio. Well, really it’s more like BitComet + BTEFNET for you TV Shows. If you want something more substantial besides analogies for definitions then on over to Wikipedia.

Now, right now, I think the main problem with this medium is the lack of quality content. I wasn’t all that interested in trying it out because there didn’t seem anything of interest that anybody that I cared about was saying. But then I found NPR’s On The Media, which I on Sunday afternoons and I always miss it. And I also found lots of software development podcasts, like DotNetRocks. So I downloaded iPodder, subscribed to my two aforementioned shows, let it run for two weeks without thinking about it. Then last night, I had to go to the grocery store. I hate grocery shopping, so I thought I’d do a little multitasking, so I copied one each of the shows iPodder and quietly downloaded for me over to my phone and listened to some great discussions of interfaces versus inheritance, and modularizing your code, followed by a healthy dose of how blogging got a CNN exec fired, all while pushing a buggy full of groceries down the aisle. I have to say this seemed a much more pleasant way to grocery shop. I’m even looking forward to doing it again next week!

Now, if only I could get Selected Shorts, I’d be one happy man.

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