I love my iPod.

Alright, so I hope everyone here is ready to be technologically enlightened. Don’t be scared, this isn’t going to be painful or difficult. Today class, we’re going to discuss briefly about Podcasts. I’m pretty certain that there’s a podcast out there for everyone. But first off, for those of you who don’t know or don’t know much about them, we should clarify. A podcast is an audio program that can be freely downloaded off the internet and its content can be just about anything you can imagine (we’ll cover that next).

Its probably the easiest if you have an iPod, or MP3 player of some sort and the iTunes program on your computer. If you have a podcast you like you can subscribe to it through iTunes and it will automatically download them to your computer when new episodes are available. You can then listen to them anytime on your MP3 player, or if you don’t have an MP3 player, burn them to CD and listen to them in your car, or at work.

They really make long drives or mindless jobs (ahem… American Water People) much easier to deal with. Your first step is to download iTunes, then I would recommend downloading the Podfinder Podcast. That is just a program that comes out once a week and showcases about 15 podcasts in a half hour. It also explains how to easily subscribe to the shows it features while listening. Seriously, if you’re bored, try this at home and just see if anything you hear on the Podfinder Podcast peaks your interest. And here's a massive directory of podcasts.

Just for some examples:

• Religious Podcasts: Catholics, Buddhists, Muslims… you’ve got them all. From sermons to just the world from that point of view.
• Harry Potter Podcasts: debates over possible plot twists, new movies, or obscure references. You can also replace Harry Potter, with about anything (Gilmore Girls, Star Wars, NYPD Blue.)
• CopCast: Speaking of NYPD Blue, how about hearing from a cops perspective, recorded at a police station, get funny cop stories or horror stories, or the latest buzz in the law enforcement scene.
• Blind Podcasts: there’s several, an audio blog from a person with a vision-impairment, or what the latest developments in the science and study of all things vision related, surgery to accessibility.
• TechyCasts: I live off these: Diggnation and This Week in Tech
• Cancer Cast: If you, or someone you know is suffering from cancer this show put the facts to you in plain English. Gives you advice, tells you the proper questions to ask, and offers support.
• Anything from NPR: They’ve got all their shows available. I listen to their archive of science and health reports.
• Learning Foreign Languages: Get a weekly or sometimes daily Russian/Spanish/English lesson and make that trip to Italy you’ve always wanted a little easier for you (I’m looking at you Kim)

I know that a few of us listen to them already, how about sharing anything I missed. And if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

P.S. Grade (A)my Woman, I’m really glad you spoke up. I’m always super excited to hear that people actually read this besides my Mom and my Roommate.