Safer driving with podcasts

I made an interesting observation – listening to podcasts makes me drive safer.

In fact, previously, I was driving safer whenever there was a good show on the radio. I was driving slower because I wanted to listen until the end of the show before I’d get to my destination. I’d pay more attention to the road because I were thinking that radio can disturb my focus. My braind would be more active processing the stuff I was hearing.

But since there just isn’t a great choice of radio stations in my area. And since my reciever can get only on decent station – catching a good show was a rare occasion for me. So rare, that I couldn’t notice the pattern in changes of my driving behaviour.

With podcasts though it became obvious. Podcasts are like a personal radio program. I choose exactly what I want to listen to, and thus every show is interesting for me.

I also noticed that I started to use more features of my mobile phone – my podcast listening device. I installed more new software, learned more ways of the old software, etc. But that’s a total other story, isn’t it…

castogg.sh – make podcasts smaller

As you might know, podcasts are like radio shows recorded and distributed digitally (read: mp3 and RSS). Since pretty much anyone can record a show and distribute it over the Internet – everyone and their brother do that.

The file sizes of some podcasts are huge. There are shows that last for more than an hour and include pieces of music and stereo special effects. I’ve seen this eat up more than 50 MBytes each.

Since I only have a 128 MByte memory card (and about 20 of those MBytes are eaten by software intallations and other data), I was looking at ways to minimize the file sizes of the podcasts that I wanted to listen to.

Continue reading castogg.sh – make podcasts smaller

Podcasting is cool

I knew about podcasting for some time now, but I’ve got the chance to try it only since a couple of days. 128 MByte memory card for my mobile arrived in the recent order and I’ve also got myself a card reader to speed up those file copies.

I have to say that I really like podcasting. It’s one of those things that you don’t think you need until you get it. Then you just can’t live without it anymore.

It is surprising how much time there is, if small intervals can be counted in, when you seem to be doing nothing, yet being occupied. Like when driving, or eating alone, or in the bathroom. This small chunks represent a really large period of time, if combined together. And they can be combined by listening to podcasts.

The whole thing reminds me of the time when I stopped smoking. Suddenly I found a lot of free time on my hands and I really didn’t know what to do with it. Now I have the realization of all this time and I rush to choose the worthy podcasts to listen.

I really suggest you try it. You’ll be amazed yourself, I promise you.

iPod did some good too

I am trying my best to be objective and open minded. I am not always good at it, but at least I’m trying. The other day I wrote a somewhat negative post about iPod. Ok, and a few negative comments too.

Because I try to stay open minded and because I don’t want to become an always complaining gramp, I try to find positive sides too. I thought about the iPod issue a bit and I think that obviously there is a good thing about it too. And not just some theoretical crapy good thing that is good for some abstract iPod user, but a really good thing for me and you.

iPod hype has increased the popularity of podcasting.

What good is in podcasting? Well, I happen to think that podcasting is a good idea by itself. It is one of those applications that make Internet more popular with the masses. And that’s a good thing. Podcasting, in turn, increased the popularity and common knowledge of such modern technologies as feeding (RSS and Atom) and audio compression (mp3 and ogg). That’s another good thing.

So, with iPod, as with any other thing there is good stuff and there is bad stuff. I found both. Now is your turn.