Family Tech: Pass the time listening to podcasts

If you saw someone shoveling out the 2 feet of snow on their driveway last week laughing out loud at times, that might have been me.

To try and drown out the monotony and lighten the hard work, I was listening to a comedy routine I’d loaded on to my phone. Lately I’ve been driving a couple hours a day, and since surfing the Internet while driving is both illegal and contrary to self-preservation, I’ve discovered podcasts.

Podcasts are like radio programs that are distributed over the Internet so you can download them to your iPod or other device, like a phone.

Listening to a podcast is a pleasant way to pass a long commute whether you are driving, or riding a bus or the Virginia Railway Express.

Being a geek, I’ve been enjoying and learning from the tech podcasts created by Leo LaPorte. Leo is a longtime tech journalist who has for many years has a syndicated radio program on weekends, “The Tech Guy.” And for a while he was with Paul Allen’s TechTV. When TechTV folded, Leo began creating his own podcast network, putting out a dozen or so podcasts each week with a variety of guest contributors. Most of the time his contributors just call in. On one of his most popular podcasts, he’s never physically met his two contributors.

That’s the beauty of podcasts. While you can find podcasts of material professionally produced by NPR or WTOP, you can also find podcasts that are just two guys having a phone chat. When those two guys are experts in a field you are interested in, it can be an entertaining and rewarding listen. And since podcasts don’t usually have to worry about serving a large audience, they can focus on small niche topics.

Apple’s free iTunes software offers a vast collection of podcasts you can download to your iPod, iPod Touch, iPhone or just to your computer for transfer to other devices. You’ll find all sorts of podcasts.

News, history, foreign language education, sports and cooking, are all there, and mostly free. A powerful search ability lets you find podcasts on just about any topic you are interested in.

There are also video podcasts you can watch on your computer. Of course, if your phone supports Apple’s video format, you can transfer it to your phone and just listen to the audio portion. It’s amazing though how little of a TV program’s meaning you get just listening to the audio.

Another good listen and use of time is an audio book, a full-length book read by actors. These are usually not free. Again, iTunes is a good source for audio books, as is Audible.com.

Free audio books are available for download from Prince William County Library’s Web site if you have a library card.

Audio books have Digital Rights Management software in them to prevent pirating. Only certain devices can support the DRM in audio books. All the iPods can. Be sure to check out the list of supported devices to make sure your device can work with the audio books.

And if you feel you have something to say that others would be interested in hearing, you can produce your own podcast with a microphone hooked to your computer and free recording software like Audacity. You can submit your podcast to iTunes for distribution. Leo Laporte’s little podcast network now employs half a dozen people and he’s making a living on his advertising supported free podcasts.

This week’s link page has links to sources for the podcasts and software mentioned this week.

Links for items mentioned in this column can be found at: http://bit.ly/FamilyTech. Mark’s blog is at http://markstout.blogspot.com and his e-mail address is markstout@gmail.com.