I hope everyone had a great Christmas. I worked Christmas Eve, had Christmas Night off, and then worked another three days but Christmas was still great. It was another decadent orgy of gift giving and receiving. I think I'll post a review of the items as I actually use them (which makes it more searchable anyway).
CURTIS ALARM CLOCK RADIO WITH DOCKING STATION FOR IPOD
I love my iPod Mini, but over the past year, I've lost both of those ear pads and had wanted a way to listen to my iPod without using earpieces. This alarm clock radio recharges my iPod, has two alarms, 10 pre-set radio stations and the remote control is easy to use (well it did take some practice). The speakers are impressive considering it's not that big a unit.
It's been one of those gifts that has gotten me to widen my use of the iPod. I've downloaded lots of tunes and I've added all of my favorite tracks from my CDs, but I've now gotten into podcasts. I didn't really get the idea of why podcasting is taking off so much, but now I listen to podcasts through my ipod clock/radio (for whatever reason, I couldn't get into them when limited to earpieces that were hurting my ears).
I've been subscribing to podcasts via iTunes, but just found out it is just as easy to subscribe to them from their individual web site, which I didn't know I could do. Some of my favorites:
Calmcast: Very relaxing music and nature tracks. About 20 podcasts, about 20-35 minutes long. A nice way to wind down when I hit the sack. Unfortunately, no new episodes have been produced since February 2007.
Chillcast with Anji Bee: Another podcast based on relaxation and de-stressing. Still in production. The host's voice is absolutely hypnotizing.
Idyllic Music: Another podcast with really cool music.
Magnatune: A wide variety of great music, including classical, piano, folk, electronica... oh and Hammered Dulcimer. New podcasts monthly. And actually, the hammered dulcimer podcasts are quite beautiful.
WGBH Classical (Classical to Go)
LSAT Logic in Everyday Life: Not at all musical. This is a weekly 5-10 minute discussion of current events and news, and the common flaws in logic used by the media, politicians, speakers, etc. Admittedly a bit dry.
Discover Magazine's "Vital Signs": OK another weird one. These are podcasts of medical mysteries.
To add a podcast manually (not through the iTunes store), click to Advanced > Subscribe to Podcast and enter the xml feed from the podcast website. Useful since many podcasts that I listen to I find through digg, not iTunes.
If you play podcasts through iTunes, they play one at a time, most recent first. I like to listen to them in the order they were published, and I like my iPod to play them all one after another. To do this, I make a playlist of the podcasts I wish to hear and put them in the order I wish to hear them. To do this automatically, I make a Smart Playlist. The directions to do so are found on the Apple iTunes podcast tips page.
I'm on the look out for interesting podcasts.
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