4 posts tagged “twit”
Do you listen to podcasts? Are there any you'd recommend?
Inspired by Alex.
I love podcasts, they're the best thing to happen to broadcast media since the web became popular back in the 90s. On average, I'm quite confident that I spend more hours per week listening to podcasts than I do watching television.
I'm not sure where I come down on the podcast vs netcast debate but I agree that a new name is needed. One thing that I'd love to be more widely known is that you don't need an iPod to play podcasts!
My favourites are definitely the TWiT netcasts from Leo Laporte and the gang, they're professional and informative. I love the discussion from the panel of This Week in Tech but I really think that awards should be give to Security Now, that show has taught me so much about IT security that I'm somewhat of an expert amongst my peers (and I do work in IT).
Other favourites are the Video Game Show from the guys at Gamercast Network, it's informal but the guys really know their stuff and the last episode was so funny I was practically in tears. Another hilarous but informative show is the MeanDawg Top 5, each week the guys pick their Top 5 movies in a given category and debate eachother's choices.
Oh, and as a final word - you can't forget Ask a Ninja.
Having had the Mac for a good few weeks now I thought it would be a good time to post my experiences back on the blog. Initially I still found the user interface confusing as OS9 is quite different from Windows, I also had my suspicions confirmed in that there is almost no application support for legacy operating systems. To get round this I decided to take the plunge and get a copy of OSX, this is a decision I do not regret in the slightest - it's great!
The install for OSX ran like a dream, though I'm not really sure how long it took as I was watching TV in the other room for the bulk of it. Once it was up and running I downloaded all the patches (being a Windows user this made me feel at home) then got hold of the latest version of Firefox so I could start using the Mac in earnest.
So far I've found it very enjoyable getting to know OSX, most things seem to be where you'd expect and I love that funny toolbar that pops up at the bottom for launching applications - much nicer than the Start Menu. I decided to make the Mac my primary web-surfing machine and have moved it into the living room, saving my PC for more hard-core use as well as my email (I'm currently tied-in to Outlook).
Every second I use OSX I am mentally comparing it to Windows and it's obviously way ahead of XP in terms of graphical niceties and general usability. That said, Vista is hot on it's heels and in honesty the whole Aero/Glass thing beats OSX's graphical style hands down, MS are clearly taking their cues from Apple and hoping to go one step further.
Of course, Apple will have a chance to bite back with Leopard so I'll keep watching that space and I'm sure Vista will usher-in a whole new world of security issues and bugs that need fixing - comments I've heard from Steve Gibson on the Security Now podcast have been quite alarming and I've stopped using my copy of Vista Beta 2 because of security concerns. That said, I will hopefully receive Vista RC1 soon but I'll try that one inside a virtual machine if I can.
On a final note I had a very helpful and friendly email conversation with a guy from my local Mac user group, if you're reading this - thanks, I may be in touch again once I've gotten to grips with things a bit more. Also, I still find the Mac press to be over-zealous and have resolved not to buy magazines any more (barring useful cover disks) - I'll get my news from the MacBreak Weekly podcast (yet another great podcast from TWiT.tv.
For me this was quite a big news item, I got into the DreamStation.cc Video Game Show podcast earlier in the year and have been an avid listener since. The podcast basically covers news, opinion and humour from the world of videogaming and was very well produced/edited compared to many other podcasts - basically think TWiT for gamers.
Well, now the host of the show Chris Paladino has secured a job working for Microsoft's gaming community site Gamerscore Blog working in the community - a dream come true more-or-less. The rest of the crew have created a new podcasting network Gamercast Network to bring together a range of independent gaming podcasts, this could be good for gamers in general so watch this space.
As for DreamStation.cc, they're continuing to podcast and will grow into their own style once more, I will definitely keep on listening and using the forums, if you've never tried I reccommend you have a look.
So, after months of deliberating I've finally started a blog and welcome to it! I'm still not 100% sure what content I'm going to put out, it may be focused on IT, technology and gaming (as these are my specialist subjects), but may expand to include my other interests (music, movies, life in general).
Either way, I hope that if you read my blog that you take away something interesting - if not, feel free to get in touch and suggest how I could do better!
I heard about Vox from one of the fantastic TWiT podcasts hosted by Leo Laporte, and was kindly invited to join this service by JonHirt, a fellow member of the forums at DreamStation.cc. I look forward to exploring what is a relatively new facet of the Internet for me. I'm not a proper 'old-school' web user but I've been on for roughly a decade and the changes I've seen in such a short space of time have been staggering - I definitely buy-into the whole user-created-content idea and shall try to put something interesting back out there.
Cheers, thirtyfootscrew.
P.S. My name on Vox is also my Xbox Live gamertag so feel free to add me to your friends list.
