Archive for the 'Technology' Category

• Tagline : For Mac Geeks, By Mac Geeks
• Website : The MacCast
• Subscribe Link :
  
• Parental Rating : G
• Star Rating : 8 out of 10

OK, so I’m a geek, nerd or whatever other word you want to describe me as. I love technology and indeed technology podcasts, but not all tech podcasts come up to scratch. I’m a PC man at heart. I’ve been programming PC’s for over 18 years. I do however get very frustrated when seemingly simple tasks, turn out to be absolute nightmares, or require a ton of money to be thrown at them.

I bought a digital video camera 2 years ago to primarily document my twin girls growing up. However after a year of frustration trying to edit and create DVDs on a PC, I finally bought into the hype and purchased a modest Mac Mini. This isn’t my first experience with the Mac, I used to produce a newspaper on Macs in the early 90’s, but they were different beasts back then and I do mean beasts. Anyway I bought a Mac and creating great looking DVDs became a synch. I love using my Mac for creating DVDs, but also wanted to find out what else it could do and so enter left stage, the Mac Cast.

Presented by Adam Christianson, this podcast comes out a couple of times a week and as well as covering all the latest in Mac news, also features some great products and reviews. I’ve found many a neat piece of software and also learned a lot about my Mac, I otherwise wouldn’t have found out. Adam has a great presentation style, but I have to admit, I find it a little dry at times, but technology isn’t the most sexy of subjects and it’s sometimes hard to get excited.

Another area that the MacCast excels in, is their show notes, which puts many other podcasters to shame.

Conclusion : A great podcast for learning all about your Mac. Even if you are not a Mac owner, listening to a few shows may turn you into one of the many converts.

• Tagline : Our 20-30 minute, weekly audio security column & podcast by Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte
• Website : Security Now!
• Subscribe Link :
  
• Keywords : discussion, technology, security
• Parental Rating : G
• Star Rating : 8 out of 10

More great techie discussions with Leo Laporte. For anyone who doesn’t know Leo, he’s something of a diva in the tech world, having numerous radio shows, cable shows like The Screen Saves and Call for Help and the more recent TWiT podcast. With the Security Now! podcast, he’s teamed up with security guru Steve Gibson, who’s’ also the man behind SpinRite, the legendary disk recovery tool and GRC.com.

Computer security is often something that is either ignored, because it’s perceived as something vastly complex, or not thought of at all. Security Now! tries to alert those interested of what’s happening on the security front and tries to help you plug the holes on your computer(s).

As with everything that Leo does, this is a well produced show, with highly relevant content. To a certain degree though, it’s not for the faint of heart. Having said that, the more you listen to these kind of shows, the more your learn. Yes there’s acronyms a plenty, but they are usually explained, so it’s not all unintelligible technical soup.

Security Now, isn’t all about Internet security. The recent Sony foot in mouth incident, regarding recent CDs which install rather nasty software (root kits), is also covered, along with discussions on passwords in general.

Conclusion : If you have a computer that connects to the Internet, you definitely want to give this podcast a try. Especially shows #10 and #11 which deal with wireless Internet.

• Tagline : Your first podcast of the week is the last word in tech
• Website : TWiT
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• Keywords : tech, humor, computers, news
• Parental Rating : 15
• Star Rating : 5 Stars

For anyone who’s into tech, the names Kevin Rose, Leo Laporte and Patrick Norton may be somewhat familiar. In fact they will seem very familiar if you used to watch the tech show The Screen Savers(TSS) on the cable channel TechTV. When TechTV was bought by G4, bit by bit all the best in tech were swept straight out of the door and some of the best names, including the previously named had to look for a new gig. In fact TSS didn’t last too long after G4 took over and what was TSS is now called Attack of the Show (AOTS), which is like a severely dumbed down version.

Anyway so what does that all have to do with Podcasting. On the 17th of April 2005, Leo Laporte, Patrick Norton, Kevin Rose and Robert Heron released their first joint podcast and named it Revenge of The Screen Savers (ROTSS). I imagine this wasn’t too popular with G4, as by episode 3 it was renamed to the now popular name This Week in Tech.

Anyway so that’s where it all stems from, but what exactly is TWiT. TWiT is a weekly tech show, that covers what’s new in tech. What’s sets this aside from other similar tech shows, is the level of expertise of the on air team. Not only do you get frequent appearances from Patrick Norton and Kevin Rose, you also get the ever present Leo, putting everything together. On top of this you get regular appearances from John Dvorak, Steve Gibson (who also does a podcast called Security Now with Leo), Roger Chang, David Prager, Robert Heron and Alex Lindsay, as well as a whole host of other guests.

The show runs on average about an hour, but the time really does fly. It’s great to listen to people who truly love tech and that shines through in their discussions. That’s not to say I agree with everything they say, but then that’s the name of the game. Shows that are based around a discussion format, should get you thinking and questioning things.

Conclusion : If nothing I’ve said has whet your whistle, then I’m doing this podcast a disservice. In short if you are into tech, this is one show you do not want to be without.