Tim Bourquin who does The Podcast Brother's Podcast, Endurance Planet, and the Podcast and Portable Media Expo (shortened by many to just PME) is blogging pretty transparently about his business of doing conferencing.
These two posts are worth reading:
It is funny to me that this question and the answer to this is a Top Tip at Extreme Tech, but it is.
And of course the answer is - "NO" - you can listen to podcasts with any device that plays an MP3 including many car stereos via CDROM.
An interesting side note is that Mike @ The Mike Tech Show recently did a show on MP3 players that his listeners were using. The diversity is pretty amazing. Here is the list via his blog:
eWeek recently had a pretty positive review (slideshow) by Jim Rpoza on the Opera 9 browser that is now free, and can be extended using widgets. I have downloaded a copy, and I'm going to try it out on my Windows XP test system.
Anyone else using it?!?
Very interesting article by Anne Cearly in the Union-Tribune on Sunday, June 25, 2006 entitled "Vehicles armored all over: Insecurities, rash of kidnappings turn Tijuana business into a growth industry."
I liked the last two paragraphs:
Guerrero considers his workers artisans. So much of what makes a car so secure, he said, is the touch of the delicate human hand.
“Armoring a car requires craftsmanship,” he said. “This is not a job in which a machine puts everything in place. It's a very artistic and laborious process.”
My Cingular 8125 got dropped into my clothes bag yesterday afternoon while we were camping at Santee Lakes, and then I fogot about it.
And when I got home later on Saturday, it was completely drained. I tried to plug it in to re-charge via the external USB power cord but it wouldn't come up. It did however, take a charge from a USB cable to my Toshiba M400 TabletPC, so it is back to life now.
But it was kinda weird the power cord didn't work immediately (it works now that the battery has some juice).
Edward C. Baig had a review in USAToday.com for 15Jun05 of the new MusicGremlin Gremlin MG-100 that allows subscribers to download audio from MusicGremlin.com via WI-FI connections vice a tethered connection to a personal computer:
The unit has 8-GB of storage, 2-inch color LCD, has an FM receiver, and lists for $299. Song downloads are $0.99 or you can get an unlimited download plan for $15. Music is protected via digital rights management (DRM), and will work with online sites like URGE and RHAPSODY, but not APPLE ITUNES.
He rated it a 2.5 out of 4. With the major downside being a weak graphical user interface (GUI) and navigation.
No mention of podcasts in the article ... it would make the Gremlin more compelling to me if were podcast-savvy.
QuadPolar #002 ... links for you and me:
}.Why?
From the Google Alerts I have learned that "Cingular plans to offer Microsoft Direct Push Technology for the Cingular customers" including those with 8125s like I have. I'll have to look into that. [mobilemag.com, yahoo, ]
It also appears that the Cingular 8125 is one of the key tools being used in Pixie Hunt. [gisuser-blog, radar.oreilly.com]
QuadPolar #001 music recommendations:
Eric Rice had a very interesting closing session at Podcast Academy III hosted by Yahoo! (awesome hosts). My personal take-away summary was:
One thing that people do with media is "watch, see, and hear" your "brand." And your brand (blog, personal appearance, audio & video podcasts, etc.) brings "something of value" to your audience whether is an audience of one or of thousands. Everyone should be spending time making their brand as effective as they want.
BTW ... I was there during lunch when Eric admitted he missed having a corporate job. I nearly fell over laughing, but he did say it, and CC Chapman can confirm the blog post on EricRice.com.