Podcast Zeitgeist, Jan. 26

This week's installment is the Podcast Zeitgeist of second chances, and probably the last such post for a good long while. I'll continue to listen to a few favorites, but a hiatus is in order. This started as an effort to make some notes about what worked for me as a listener. But it became an exhausting and time-consuming exercise, particularly since I sampled many more hours than I ever wrote about. It was cutting into my Twittering time. At some point I may summarize what I have learned, or not.[See all lists.]

Cranky Geeks 150: Big Wig Bailouts As tech podcasts go, this is one of the best, hosted by John C. Dvorak, with Sebastian Rupley of PC Magazine, Chris DiBonaof Google and Jason Cross of Extreme.com. Topics: Steve Jobs, Bernie Madoff, the fake Belkin reviews scam, disruptive technology like location apps and more. Dvorak keeps it moving. Good stuff. Running time: 31:40 minutes including several ads. Released: Jan. 21.

This Week in Media 123: Guns, Drugs and DVDs</a>. Daisy Whitney, Alex Lindsay and Dr. Kiki Sanford in a meaty discussion of new media technologies like Microsoft's Silverlight and CNN's Photosynth experiment for the Obama inauguration. YouTube music takedown notices. Do you stream or download Web video? Dr. Kiki: Streaming is getting easier, but buffering is still annoying, on the road. Whitney can't be bothered to download and sync video to a device. Beware: Even without DRM, iTunes songs contain your e-mail address. Depressing news from the old media business. Running time: 1 hour 7 minutes. Released: Jan. 20.

MacBreak Weekly 124: The Warmth and Saturation of Analog. Scott Bourne plugs his hard-to-remember photo critique site URL. Andy Ihnatko makes the funny. Frederick Van Johnson talks about getting laid off from Adobe. They are also joined by Alex Lindsay and Lisa Bettany. Twit site show notes are getting better. The health of Steve Jobs, again. Record iPhone app downloads (or are those just updates?) See the week's hardware and software picks here, including the very cool-sounding $200 2-gig Livescribe Pen. Running time: 1 hour 54 minutes. Released: Jan. 20.

This Week in Tech 179: Retail Therapy Laporte again, with Dr. Kiki, John C. Dvorak, Wil Harris of Channelflip, and Andrew Horowitz. Links discussed are bookmarked on Delicious. Good show, including a discussion of how Monty Python DVD sales shot up after the creation of an official, and free, YouTube channel. (Rathole: Military recruiting ads in movies and direct mail. Laporte says his teenage son gets junk mail: "Have you thought about what you're going to do when you drop out of high school?" Dvorak: "Let's get to some of these news stories.") Twitter raising cash. Foul-mouthed Carol Bartz, new Yahoo CEO, says she will drop-kick anyone who leaks, and then the leaking starts, inculding her breezy memo about "retail therapy." She is mocked. Health of Steve Jobs, again. The story behind Microsoft Songsmith, oy. CNN Photosynth, again. Various Obama tech stories, from Barackberry to Whitehouse.gov and the federal government's tech dark age. Huge traffic at Facebook. Dvorak on how to TiVo the Super Bowl properly and Horowitz on shorting the U.S. economy. Running time: 1 hour, 42 minutes. Released: Jan. 26.

Geek Loves Nerd 34: In-Laws The main segment is up front, an improvement over the last time I listened. This married Missouri couple gives advice to listeners about children, relationships and more. As the cute opening song explains, James is the geek and Jenn is the nerd. This week, they give advice about in-laws that I completely endorse as a married person with a child. Best example: Don't discuss your marital problems with your parents. They will naturally side with their own child and carry the grudge long after you have forgiven your spouse and forgotten about it. This is a clean podcast, but a warning: The views of sex roles are a bit stereotypical (men = breadwinners etc.) though perhaps that is intended humorously. Running time: 53:26 minutes. Released: Jan. 23.

The 40-Year-Old Boy: Episode 44. O.K., so much for the clean stuff. Here's a second listen from the world of blue podcast humor. Last week, the comedian Mike Schmidt depressed his listeners with an hourlong rant about his weight problems and stomach surgery. Listeners complained. That gives him a launching pad for a funny routine that range from "anonymous artless snark" on the Internet, Kevin Bacon losing his life savings to Bernie Madoff, people who sell meat door to door and more. The three-card monte story is worth hearing. So this is funny. And it's free. But the language is explicit. Running time: 1 hour, 17 minutes. Released: Jan. 14.

The Futile Podcast: "And the first word was Jesus" "Deconstructing 80’s & 90’s action movies. Relating them to comics, TV, and cartoons from then and now." Well, not quite. They review the first "Dirty Harry" movie, from 1971. Clint Eastwood as Callahan. He's no cartoon Rambo. He's a 70's antihero. It's seven minutes before any dialogue is spoken. The hosts attempt to decipher the politics of the 60s and 70s, with unintentionally humorous results for old people like me. Running time: 52:16 minutes. Released: Jan. 17. "Turns out he was 15 when they shot it." A review of the recent release "The Reader," based on the book. "This movie is about German guilt." What German movie isn't? Not an action film, unless you count sex scenes. I had to tune out at the spoiler alert. Running time: 29:42 minutes. Released: Jan. 21. "That ain't no cop gun Frank." Dirty Harry II: Magnum Force (1973). The franchise goes downhill (I think) but they like it. Nice dialogue on the nature of sequels. The nice thing about the "Dirty Harry" franchise is that it made Clint Eastwood rich enough to make good movies later in his career. Running time: 27:06 minutes. Released: Jan. 21.

Vomitus Prime 89: C'Mere and 90: Lovin' Nancyful Another reconsideration. I listened to this podcast back in November, and I was turned off by something or other, which drew some reaction in e-mails and on blogs from fans. Hey, it was my opinion. No accounting for taste. Perhaps I have been influenced by the hours of mediocre podcasts I've scanned -- I haven't even written about most of them -- but I'm ready to revise my opinion. It is foul-mouthed, gross, sick and frequently disgusting, but also funny. The regular hosts, Bill and Will, are entertaining storytellers who remind me of people from my own misspent youth. I say this knowing that they will respect me even less for changing my mind. Oh, well. Explicit language, obviously. They aim to shock. Running times: 1 hour, 26 minutes to 1 hour, 30 minutes. Release Dates: Jan. 17 and 25.

Sick and Wrong Podcasts 157 and 158 So after that, I figured I might as well turn to a podcast that bills itself as the No. 1 Source for Anti-Social Commentary. The first one marks the three-year anniversary of this podcast from Dee Simon and Lance Wackerle, which may be pseudonyms. A lengthy discussion of the police shooting caught on video in the BART and subsequent protests in Wackerle's neighborhood. Phone calls from drunk Australians. They also try to answer the question, why make an amateur podcast that makes no money? Apparently, they hoped to impress women, which has failed. They also interview the host of the fromtheville podcast, which stopped for no apparent reason one day. He doesn't seem to have been doing much. In the more recent episode, Wackerle explains why he bought a gun on inauguration day. And there's something about a kangaroo in Los Angeles. Running times: 1 hour 59 minutes and 1 hour 31 minutes. Released: Jan. 14 and 21.

Idiotboxradio 227: My Dad, The Baby! Speaking of Australians, here's one, a really weird and funny one, with a story told in stitched-together recordings of his children saying words and phrases. It's strange. But funny. And strange. The host says: "I think that my kids don't view me as an adult. Looking at it, that belief would have merit. (And before anyone thinks I got my kids to cuss, listen to the editing please...). I have to thank my beautiful girls Ella and Chloe for helping out on this one." Not for children. Running Time: 7:14 minutes. Released: Jan. 19.

Uhh Yeah Dude, Episodes 150 and 151 Like their counterparts at "Sick and Wrong," Jonathan Larroquette and Seth Romatelli are also celebrating nearly three years and 150+ hours of podcasting (I have been listening to the old shows and have about 30 hours left to go). The highlights of this one: chicken pox parties for children ("worst party ever"), the usual freakish true crime and medical tales, and Seth's story about getting an (unjust) ticket for -- shocking -- not wearing a seatbelt. The big news: They have finally revamped the long-inoperative UhhYeahDude.com, with show notes and listener forums. There's even a Wiki. Good on them. And as good a reason as any to quit reviewing podcasts. If most podcasters would put up some show notes or blog posts, and allow for reader discussion, they might be surprised by what happens. I have nothing to say about episode 151, which just dropped, but I am hitting publish and listening now. Looking forward to the part about the dog. Update: the story about rescuing the dog on a fixed-gear bike was great. Running time: 1 hour, 9 minutes. Released: Jan. 19.

Podcast Zeitgeist, Jan. 19

Welcome to the Podcast Zeitgeist list: presented in apparently random order, at inconsistent intervals, its purpose obscure, its usefulness in doubt, its taste questionable, its methods and motives suspect. [See all lists.]

This Week in Tech 177: There's a Little Shatner in All of Us and 178: Call of Doody. I'm catching up here with two episodes. A special guest on the first of these was Star Trek's Geordi LaForge (Levar Burton). Burton held his own as a geek on a panel with Leo Laporte, John C. Dvorak, Ryan Block, and Lisa Bettany. A lot of talk about TVs. (Block: "Plasma TVs are on the way out.") Reviews of the "disappointing" MacWorld Expo and the Consumer Electronics Show. Whether the Palm Pre phone can save Palm (Dvorak: "They're done.") They end with the prospects for another Star Trek movie and a discussion of Geordi's visor. The latest episode, recorded Sunday night, devotes 20 minutes to the news that Steve Jobs is taking a temporary leave from Apple for health reasons, with a focus on news coverage, from Ron Goldman of CNBC to this profanity-laden Gizmodo post. Dvorak predicts that Apple will go into decline in two years. This is followed bya discussion of the Downadup/Conficker worm that infected 9 million Windows computers in four days (download the security updates, people). Laporte is wiggy on this episode ("Conficker? I hardly knew her!"), perhaps because he and panelist Tom Merritt attended a concert the night before by the geek troubadour Jonathan Coulton and the improv duo Paul & Storm. (The "doody" in the podcast title refers to panelist Patrick Norton, who has to change his son's diaper during the show and never returns.) The liquidation of Circuit City. A discussion of digital TV up-converters (Dvorak recommends a model.) Laporte recommends an audiobook: "Predictably Irrational." United Kingdom porn filters are blocking Wikipedia and the Wayback Machine. Are Are Google layoffs and the killing of <a href="">features like Jaiku and Dodgeball a sign of a market bottom? The episode ends with a clip of Coulton's "Mandelbrot Set." Running times: Both 1 hour 20 minutes, give or take a minute. Released: Jan. 11 and 18.

MacBreak Weekly 123: The Great London Fire The title is a metaphor from panelist Andy Ihnato. Laporte is also joined by Alex Lindsay. The three agree that MacWorld Expo turnout was low, and the show lacked drama. Could Apple's decision to pull out of the convention anger fans and hurt the company? Can MacWorld survive? David Pogue will give next year's keynote. Ihnatko on what organizer IDG should do: "They should treat this like the Great London Fire.It's not the result that one would have wanted, but when you wipe the slate clean, you get to rebuild this city in the world that exists today... If you were to build a really big conference today, you wouldn't do it like a 1985 trade show." Focus on public areas and community. In another blow, CES is looking to have an Apple-centric area. The big announcement at MacWorld, it turns out, was the end of DRM at the iTunes store, but Leo points out a big drawback to the 30-cent upgrade offer: You have to upgrade ALL your songs, even the lame ones you don't like anymore. Discussion of the iPhone and the Palm Pre. There's agreement that no company will dominate the cellphone market. Politicians switching to Mac: the latest, Mike Huckabee. Hacking PC Netbooks to run Mac OS (in violation of the Mac user agreement, it should be noted). BoingBoing has a chart. Apple seems to be (cracking down, apparently irked by a how-to video on Wired Gadget Lab. Leo mentions that the MacWorld Expo swag bag for presenters included $1,800 worth of gifts. They end with some a robust list of weekly picks. Laporte suggests this external battery solution for iPhone. I'm happy with the APC universal, which doesn't have be attached directly to the phone (it charges iPods and other devices too). Lindsay picks the rubber-covered Rugged LaCie portable hard drive, which I also use, for music. It's versatile, carries a lot of data and takes a pounding. The panel also reviews some portable document scanners. And there is a zen moment from Lindsay, talking about how multiple users burn out Firewire ports: "Computers tend to like to have monogamous relationships. You have a lot of people using them, they tend to fall apart." Running TIme: 1 hour, 10 minutes. Released: Jan. 13

"This Week in Media 122: Planned Viewerhood" This week, an interesting discussion about how digital video recorders, video on the Web and similar technology are changing how we watch. Watching a series all at once. Watching sports after the game is over, with fake suspense. No more competing for specific time slots. The viewer chooses. This is all good, but I offer three numbers to consider, the totals in my iTunes podcast subscriptions window: 463 items, 15.8 days, 19.32 gigabytes. That's not counting the regular shows stacked up on the TiVo, and the movies in my Netflix queue. Giving me control over content might mean I never get around to actually consuming it. Another topic: Should online video have closed-captioning for the hearing impaired? Speculation that Apple pulling out of MacWorld was the result of a Steve Jobs tantrum. More MacWorld/CES stuff. I feel like I'm hearing the same conversations over and over on these tech podcasts. May have to cut back. Running time: 58:47 minutes. Released: Jan. 13.

The Dinner Party Download, Episode 14 I'm glad these guys are back. The concept: Win your next dinner party. The Icebreaker is another animals-in-a-bar joke. Small talk: President-elect Obama's old car is on eBay, a Chrysler. Burger King PR stunt: Drop 10 Facebook friends, get a free burger. A Sundance-nominated history lesson with booze. Dr. James Bedford is super-cool. He was the first person to be frozen after death. The cocktail is "Death on the Rocks": Champagne, absinthe and ice cubs of fresh blood orange juice. The interview is Lamont Mozier, the Motown songwriter; don't ask him which was his favorite song. The food segment is about Kogi Korean barbecue tacos. It is sold off a truck that broadcasts its location on its blog and on Twitter. Outro song is A.C. Newman's "There Are Maybe 10 or 12..." A big sound, but interesting. Running time: 15:49 minutes. Released: Jan. 16.

Christian Comedy Podcast: January Week One With more than 160,00 subscribers, the host Mike Williams says, this is the most-listened-to Christian comedy podcast on iTunes. He starts with a squeaky-voiced imitation of that annoying YouTube kid FredThen we hear a few jokes from the "Stephen Wright of Christian comedy," Pastor Tim Jones, with his "weird mental mind." For example: "Remember, if you're standing next to Dracula in a group photo and you try to give him bunny ears, when the film develops it will just look like you're giving the peace sign... I asked her if she was a model and she smiled, thinking it was because of her beauty. But it was actually because she smelled like plastic and glue." I kind of like that one. There's a comedy song about a fiancee with a bad attitude from the new CD by the duo Bean and Bailey: "Who peed in your cheerios? Only heaven knows... Who got your panties in such a wad?" Ahem. You can fast-forward through the hunting bow ads in the middle. Robert G. Lee, a comedy writer for the kid show "Veggie Tales." tells jokes about rasising kids. For example: "If the Apostle Paul had had teenagers, Christianity would have been nipped in the bud! 'We're going to Corinth again? ...Everywhere you go, you're beaten, you're robbed, you're stoned. Do you have any idea embarrassing that is? Why don't you just write these people?' 'That's not a bad idea, young lady.'" Running time: 17:59 minutes. Released: Jan. 4.

Geek Loves Nerd: Teaching Gratefulness James is the geek. Jenn is the nerd. They're married. Their podcast took a holiday hiatus, but now it's back. He also does the Nobody's Listening Podcast, billed as "a clean comedy podcast." He has grown a beard. She thinks it is attractive but the beard sticks in her face when they kiss. They did nine minutes on the beard. Then I started skipping ahead. There was a lengthy discussion about their 11-month-old, their second. I had to bail, and never did hear how to teach a child gratefulness, an important topic. These seem like very nice people. I am not interested in listening to them on a regular basis. This is, no doubt, my own character flaw. Running time: 53:35 minutes. Released: Jan. 9.

Uhh Yeah Dude, Episode 149 This is not a clean comedy podcast. This is the pee in the Cheerios. It grows increasingly impossible to summarize what Jonathan Larroquette and Seth Romatelli are up to here. There are the usual offbeat topics -- lame celebrities at liveautographs.com (Hulk Hogan, Danica Patrick), that Amish heater infomercial, the drunk woman who called 911 on herself, some tots in trouble, an F.B.I. warning about cybergeddon, and a promising ABC hidden-camera show that outs racists, a belated appreciation for George Carlin and disgust with Adam Sandler. But the highlights are the personal rants and anecdotes: Seth about his experiences waiting in a line for a $14 juice, and several items from Jonathan: women who go out with jerks, a true story of martial arts justice from his school days, and a weird encounter in a guitar store. The promised "Uhh Yeah Dude" Web site is not yet online. Length: 1 hour, 11 minutes. Released: Jan. 13, 2009.

Smodcast: Smod Bless Us Everyone (70), Way of the Master (71), Hello Dere! (72). So, now that their movie has tanked, the director Kevin Smith and producer Scott Mosier are suddenly back with several episodes of this explicit humor podcast. In the first one they riff on Christmas and how people have trouble remembering their movies. "Making moves only seen in Belize." In "Way of the Master," they discuss the sexual possibilities and risks of staying abroad in youth hostels. The title refers to Kirk Cameron's Christian evangelical Web site, "The Way of the Master," which has a test of how good a person you are. Kevin and Scott take the test, and the discussion gets mighty dark. They also brainstorm a science fiction, the "slaptrack," in which everyone has the godlike power -- once -- to banish another person from this reality. And it's pretty weird. For the most recent, third episode, Mosier is traveling in Vietnam, so Smith is joined by another pal, and they spend a lot of time ragging on a third friend who isn't there and talking about breasts. As always, I enjoy the background soundtrack that is added post-production. I skipped two earlier episodes that were basically the DVD discussion tracks for the film, which I haven't seen yet. Running times: 52 minutes to 1 hour, 5 minutes; released Dec. 24, Jan. 9 and Jan. 16.

The Futile Podcast: "It Worked in Cuffs," "It Became Cobra," "It was an Academy Award winning training montage" I'm catching up on this action-movie discussion podcast. First up, "The Spirit." I've been a longtime collector of Will Eisner and his art, and I've been a Spirit fan since I was a kid reading the Warren reprints in the 70s. I've been looking ahead to this movie with dread and anticipation. Now I may just wait for the video. It doesn't sound like the film did a good job capturing Eisner's gloomy comedic world, or perhaps that world just doesn't translate to the screen. The podcasters compare it to the Tim Burton "Batman," "House of Games," and "Rocky and Bullwinkle." A bad trip. "This movie was just strange." Tonal inconsistency and acting problems. There's consensus that the movie failed to pull off breaking of the fourth wall, which they say "worked in 'Kuffs." (I'm pretty sure Eisner invented that technique in comics back in the 40s, but it was a technique he used sparingly.) The futile podcasters digress into a long discussion of sex roles, which was entertaining. The next, short episode is billed as a review of "Beverly Hills Cop," but is mostly a discussion of comedians with a quick recap of Eddie Murphy's career. The third of these podcasts is about Scorsese's "Color of Money," which I probably can't bear to watch again because of Tom Cruise, though this discussion reminded me it wasn't bad. And it made me want to watch "The Hustler" again. Running times: 31 minutes, 11 minutes and 33 minutes. Released: Jan. 4, 8 and 11.

The 40-Year-Old Boy: Episode 43. I dropped into this podcast cold, and perhaps earlier episodes wehre better. The Chicago comedian Mike Schmidt (now in L.A.) talks about ... stuff .. while his producer laughs in the background. (She's like a laugh track. I started to suspect she was a recording.) His Web site explains: "While friends his age are taking care of their kids, it’s all Mike can do just to take care of himself. Come listen to the stream-of-consciousness ramblings of a modern day Peter Pan: awkward, angry…basically, the kind of guy who would punch you in the face for referring to him as a 'modern day Peter Pan.'" In this episode, Schmidt says he used to weigh "500 pounds" and he got stomach surgery to fix it. He describes some medical particulars in excruciating detail then he tells how he got around the limitations of his surgically altered stomach and gained the weight back. The outro song, "Don't Give Up," by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush, lays it on thick and underscores how sad this story is. Great song, though. Running time: 1 hour, 17 minutes. Released: Jan. 14.

Podcast Zeitgeist, Jan. 10

The list this week is tech-heavy and later than usual, mainly because of the "last" MacWorld Expo. {See all lists].

• MacBreak Weekly 122: Macworld Expo Live from the floor at Macworld Expo in San Francisco. Leo Laporte gathered some of his stalwarts, following the last Apple keynote (the company is pulling out of the convention, a fact that seemed to hang over this event with sadness). The discussion focuses on the high points of the keynote presentation from Phil Schiller of Apple: improvements to iMovie editing; new iPhoto features like facial recognition, geo-tagging, and integration with Flickr; the new 17-inch MacBook Pro; and the end of DRM on iTunes. General agreement that Schiller is no Steve Jobs when it comes to giving a speech. Many of the panelists are camera geeks who don't use iPhoto, so they are hoping that some of the features will be ported to Aperture, Apple's high-end photo software. No real picks, though Boxee was plugged; some good show notes are here. I also watched a short 5-minute MacBreak video podcast featuring Merlin Mann pestering people on the convention floor. It was amusing with low information content. Length: 1 hour 9 minutes. Released: Jan. 6.
• Mac OS Ken: 01.07.2009, 01.08.2009, 01.08.2009 Ken Ray puts out brief roundups of Mac news six days a week. I used to listen to him every morning, but then it got to be just too much information. Still, he does a great job, so I checked back in for his MacWorld coverage. The first episode this week started out with listener predictions for keynote announcements and fan voicemails, then covered the basics from Phil Schiller's presentation of iPhoto, iMovie and so forth. He seems a tad disappointed at the shortage of new hardware this year from Apple. Thursday's episode featured a conversation with Glen Roberts, product manager for HP Media Smart Server, and about how the high-end product was getting by in a struggling economy. It uses Windows home server, so you need a network with both Macs and PCs, but it is Mac-friendly. Ken talks fast and transmits a lot of data, and he's promising more interviews from the show. He admits to be wiped out and jetlagged. Interestingly, he provides better insights and sounds more awake on the rival MacCast (see below). The final episode featured interviews with Microsoft's Mac Business Unit and the CEO of MarketCircle and listeners' voicemail reactions to the Schiller keynote. Many are not happy with Apple pulling the plug on its Expo participation. Length: Ranged from 10 to 20 minutes. Released: Jan. 7, 8, 9.
• The Mac Observer's Mac Geek Gab 185: Live From the Macworld Expo Dave Hamilton and John F. Braun thought Schiller did a good job with the keynote. They note the auditorium was not full, as it always was for Steve Jobs. An extensive discussion of the technical challenges of covering past keynotes, followed by extensive discussion of how they live-blogged this one. There are several technical interruptions. They get down to business chewing over the same few morsels as other podcasters. Some gripes about the new battery in the 17-inch MacBook, which is not replaceable. They point out that in introducing Tony Bennett, Schiller made a bit of a gaffe, calling the show the "last Macworld Expo." Of course while Apple won't be there next year, the hall is booked. This is a bit of a meandering show with a lot of geeky digressions, but that seems to be part of its charm, as well as the reason I am not a regular listener. Length: 53:38 minutes. Released: Jan 7.
• The MacCast: Macworld 2009 Keynote Wrapup Adam Christianson discusses his impressions from sitting in the audience at Schiller's keynote. He is joined by his fellow podcasters Victor Cajiao (Typical Mac User) and Ken Ray (Mac OS Ken). Ken points out that Schiller made a point that 3.4 million users per week visit Apple stores, which is 100 times the number of people that the company used to reach at MacWorld Expo. "It was kind of harsh... It wasn't even subtext. It was text: 'We don't need this.'" Victor: "It was hurtful." Adam hopes Macworld continues as a community event in future years. They still give his performance high marks. Face recognition in iPhoto "kind of creepy." Cool aspects of geocoding for sorting. This podcast also has the best explanation of the value of the 99-cent Keynote iphone app. Ken thinks the charge is weird. More complaints about the MacBook battery. Compared to the other Macworld podcasts, this was the clearest and most thorough, and also the calmest, perhaps because it was recorded in a quieter location. Length: 1:32:42 Released: Jan. 7.
• Typical Mac User Podcast: Macworld Expo Post Keynote Wrapup Victor Cajaio's podcast. I was dreading the thought of listening to another hour and a half discussion of Phil Schiller's presentation, so I was happy to discover that it was identical to the Maccast above. Length: 1:28:35. Released: Jan. 6.
• This Week in Tech 176: Fat in the MiddleLate in the week, I finally got around to this one, which was recorded before Macworld and the CES consumer technology show, which started on Thursday in Las Vegas, presenting technology fans with a choice. Leo Laporte is joined by John C. Dvorak, Robert Scoble, and the Houston Chronicle tech reporter Dwight Silverman (who said he was skipping Macworld for CES). Laporte blames Twitter and social media for celebrity nerd feuds. They give their predictions, which were mostly on the mark (17-inch MacBook and its non-replaceable battery had both leaked, but the iTunes DRM decision had not). They were rightly skeptical of iPhone Nano rumors. Some discussion of 3D TVs: still too blurry. The value of location-aware laptops.The new Palm Phone and the "fat middle." (Seems like a tough fight ahead for Palm.) On the PC side, discussion of the Windows 7 beta and dead Zune day. At the conferences: The weirdness of being covered by an audience of live-bloggers, heads down, clicking away. Why bother going? It's better to watch the game on TV. They end with an interesting and alarming discussion of remote law enforcement hacking of home computers in England, without a warrant. This somehow segues into Dvorak comparing treatment of Martha Stewart and Bernie Madoff. All entertaining. Length: A manageable 1 hour, 8 minutes. Released: Jan. 4.
• Net@Night: Fly the Friendly Skies Yes, more from Laporte. He's the undisputed tech-podcast king. This one is a sometimes overlooked gem, featuring Laporte and Amber MacArthur talking about cool sites, viral media and online happenings. A previous episode's interview with Mr. Tweet inspired me to ramp up my twittering (both reading and posting). Robert Scoble was on last week talking about microblogging and the real-time Web. This week, Laporte talks briefly about his Macworld presentation about the crumbling mass media monopoly (not available online). Other topics included layoffs at Livejournal, Facebook Connect, the simple hack and security flaw that upended Twitter on Monday (compromising the accounts of Laporte, Barack Obama, Fox News and others). Tip: Don't use dictionary words for passwords, especially if you're an administrator on a network. The hour also features good discussions and explanations of Blip.FM, a sort of social networking music playlist service, and the indie-music sharing service Amaze.Fm. A brief chat with MrCalzone, developer of the Google slapper gog.is (just type http://gog.is/KEYWORD.KEYWORD where each KEYWORD separated by points represents the search terms the person asking you for information should have Googled). Leo notes that he Friend-ed too many people on Facebook and has no room for his actual friends and family members now joining. (Leo, you can drop me.) The viral video of the week is the Onion's overexposed and only kind of funny spoof video (The MacBook Wheel) and an interview with Micah Mazier, host of the podcast of the week, Lucas County Choppers, featuring four air traffic controllers and their motorcycles. Length: 1 hour, 1 minute. Released: Jan 7.
• This Week in Media 120: Cotton, Salt and a Bubble Machine and 121: The Good, the Ad and the Ugly More enjoyable new media discussions from a panel led by Daisy Whitney. I'm catching up here. The first of these episodes included a discussion of the Kindle and e-books, YouTube battles and Hulu, and the greatest nude scenes in movies, and it felt a bit like holiday filler. This week's episode is more informative, with a discussion of some recent smart moves by Netflix, part of a trend that ought to worry cable companies. Semantic distinctions matter: Netflix uses the term viewers understand -- "movie rental" -- instead of "pay per view." The Time Warner-Viacom battle. A discussion of iPhone applications, including the translator that was co-host Alex Lindsay's pick last week on MacBreak Weekly. The panel also discusses what works best for a podcast: a strict format or a loose conversation. Consensus: It depends on the target audience, and the host. Does it make sense for a small business like a dry cleaner to have a podcast? Some on the panel think it could work, with the right creative concept. Lindsay: "If it is not seen as something that is impartial, or somewhat impartial, no one will listen..." He's right. Lengths: 56 minutes; and 1 hour, 4 minutes. Released: Dec. 30 and Jan. 6.
• Uhh Yeah Dude, Episode 148 After all that tech talk, I needed a break. In their explicit comedy podcast, Jonathan Larroquette and Seth Romatelli riff this week on dumb laws, cocaine-loving bees, the hazards of third-hand smoke. idiots who shoot guns in the air on New Year's Eve, the world's stupidest bank robber, the Jan. 16 opening of the Notorious B.I.G. biopic and the movie "Mall Cop,," a drunk woman who hit on Jonathan on Christmas Eve, truck antlers, and the oldest person in the world, Gertrude Baines, 114, who lives around the corner. Way back in Episode 112 in April 2008, they described a visit to her at a nearby nursing home, when she was merely the third-oldest person in the world. She outlasted the competition. Seth: "We totally like lamped at her place... and we have pictures to prove this." Length: 1 hour, 15 minutes. Released: Jan. 6.

Podcast Zeitgeist, Jan. 1

There has been a lot of chatter about the podcasting business model, and whether it has been a failure. That talk intensified when a major commercial podcaster, Podango, warned recently that its death seemed to be near. None of this is of concern to me: I leave business models to the money people. My interest is content.I had more free time than usual this week, so the list is longer than usual (in the order I listened). [See all lists.]

Grammar Girl 149: Top Five Pet Peeves of 2008 Grammar Girl (Mignon Fogarty) has a business model, or, at least, some regular advertisers and a dedicated audience of grammar enforcers. The top peeves suggested by her listeners: carelessness with language, misuse of "myself," overuse of the word "tapped," the phrase "baby bump," and the use of "slay" as a noun, particularly in New York Daily News headlines. It's an idiosyncratic list, to be sure, but all these targets are worthy of scorn. (I also listened to the slightly less interesting Episode 150, about podcasting a book. I doubt I would ever listen to a book in serialized podcast form.) Length: 8:33 minutes. Released: Dec. 19.

Make-It-Green Girl 34: The Story of Stuff A sister podcast to the one from Grammar Girl, with the same "quick and dirty" preaching to the converted. Anna Elzeftaway suggests you stop buying so much stuff and suggests holiday gifts that require no products, packaging or other waste. "Make it special without making a footprint." The smug message grates a bit. Length: 5:06 minutes. Released: Dec. 24.

The Futile Podcast: "It's Christmas!" and 2008 in Review Part 1 and Part 2 Some guys sitting around talking about action movies. The Christmas episode focused on the original "Lethal Weapon," with Mel Gibson as a grieving cop with a death wish. I gather it hasn't aged well. What set it apart from the other buddy cop movies of the 1980s was its nihilism. The Gibson character had nothing to lose, while his partner, Danny Glover, close to retirement with a big family, had everything to lose and was indeed "too old for this shit." The sequel was OK but later installments drove this franchise into the ground. Movie buffs may find the two year-in-review episodes of entertaining, with discussions of "Speed Racer," Heath Ledger's final performance in "Dark Knight," "Wall-E"'s sci-fi failures and some picks for best and worst. Lengths: 32 minutes to an hour each. Released: Dec. 23, 27 and 30.

Buddhist Geeks 101: Hollow Bones Zen "Seriously Buddhist, Seriously Geeky." The podcast is part of the Personal Life Media family, whichcame up in an earlier installment that touched on podcast ads.. The episode opens with an ad for a meditation gong, an Audible.com pitch and a request for donations, but then gets down to business with part 2 of a good interview with Jun Po Roshi, a teacher in the Rinzai zen tradition who is the first dharma heir of Eido Shimano Roshi. Part 1 is here. Buddhism is not necessarily a religion, nor is it Japanese, or Chinese or Indian, and translating its practice into western culture is tricky. Key question: what's in your fridge? With a Buddhist knock-knock joke that is amusing if not a knee-slapper. Length: 19:50. Released: Dec. 22.

David's Coffee Stains: Crybaby I downloaded a bunch of podcasts with "coffee" in the title this week, given my interest in that particular addiction. It turns out that "coffee" is a fairly popular word in podcast titles for religious and music shows. So I found myself listening to this one from David Porter, an evangelist (yes, the slash seems to be part of the title). He started out with some interesting observations about the economic crisis that could have been mistaken for a Buddhist explanation of compassion and karma, or a liberal critique of the western economy, but it turned into a more traditional sermon with asides about abortion, same-sex marriage and sin. Length: 18:22 minutes. Released: Dec. 13.

Your Psychic Connection with Jorianne the Coffee Psychic This is also a radio show, apparently. Jorianne uses coffee and cream to divine the future, as her Web site explains: “My connection to reading coffee psychically began early in my paranormal explorations. I was discussing different methods of divination with my sister-in-law’s cousin, who is Hispanic, and she introduced me to the use of reading coffee this way – which is traditional in Hispanic cultures. Being a ‘coffeeholic’ myself, this seemed a natural for me and was my first attempt at learning how to access information psychically.” Listeners call in for readings. The audio quality is not great. The first caller is Wendy, who has several questions. Jorianne: "When I'm looking the coffee here, Wendy, on the question of your marriage, has it been a little stressful? Because the coffee's going backwards here..." Wendy: "Very." Oh my. Gift certificates available. Length: 55:21 minutes. Released: Dec. 17.

Urban Coffee 100: Homecoming Dave and Seth are back. I didn't know they were gone. After taking a year off, this discussion of politics, technology, music and other topics is getting a fresh start on live video and live audio as well as this podcast. I was looking for an actual coffee podcast so I only sampled a bit of this episode and a little of #101, released on Dec. 29. More inside jokes about people I don't know, though the account of identity theft held my interest for a bit. I'll check back on this one. Length: 1 hour, 7 minutes. Released: Dec. 10.

Hot Coffee Show, Episode 6: We're Under Attack! "An improv comedy show roller skating through your neurons." They seem to be having a good time, but I didn't find it particularly funny. Maybe it was the material: Hugh Jackman hosting the oscars, the losing Detroit Lions and some kind of musical about cafeteria bullies. There was a lot of hard-to-follow cross-talk. Maybe I'll check back when they get some more episodes under their belts. Length: 21:37 minutes. Released: Dec. 17.

WFMU's Coffee 2 Go With Noah An underground podcast of hip-hop demos. I'm not a big hip-hop fan but this isn't half-bad. Also hard to summarize. There was an interesting one from Datin called "Man Vs. Machine" that sampled Pink Floyd's "Welcome to the Machine." Points for originality. Nothing to do with actual coffee. More info at the links from WFMU and Noah Zark. Length: 39:57. Released: Dec 3.

Audio Coffee Podcast "The following show may contain traces of nuts." An electronic music mix that started out mostly upbeat, fast-paced, unrecognizable (to me, at least). I shut it off around 1:10 when the music got slow and dreary. Not my thing. Some might enjoy it. Length: 2 hours, 27 minutes. Released: Dec. 7.

Bellissimo Coffee Podcast: Barista Exchange Actual podcasts about actual coffee seem to be dying off, (see the CoffeeGeek podcast review last week), and here's another example. Just one episode this year -- this one in March -- after a burst of activity in 2007. This episode promotes the newish Web site, Barista Exchange, discussion forums for professional baristas. I would just go check out that site and skip this episode. Length: 20:09 minutes. Released: March 31, 2008.

Coffee Now Podcast This coffee news podcast one started up in a brief burst, came out every two weeks for six episodes, then vanished in June. In this final episode, the host, Jezza Hardin, reveals some "disappointing news" -- that he has lost a piece of his coffee machine. "You realize we are now two podcasters about coffee that do not have coffee machines at home." His friend and co-host Craig replies: "We've got them, but they just don't work." Followed by a discussion of bad baristas and six-month-old headlines (people who roast their own beans at home -- who knew?). Length: 51:36 minutes. Released: June 20, 2008.

Coffee Convo 48: Reloaded! Another death in the coffee podcast family. After a year of podcasting, Tony Gettig signed off in November: "What started as a joyful expression of my love for coffee has turned into a taskmaster that I simply cannot live with anymore... Go hop on Barista Exchange or CoffeeGeek. There is more happening on those sites than the Convo could ever provide. Go on, try it, you’ll like it. :) You might even see me on one of those sites. Better still, start your own show." Too bad; this was a fairly well-produced podcast with some knowledgeable discussions and anecdotes by coffee professionals. At this point, I got a little down about the state of coffee podcasts, but I did sample these other defunct ones: the Portafilter.net podcast, which ended a long run in March, the Morning Brewcast, an intermittent one with poor audio quality, and something billed as "the Starbucks Podcast" on iTunes that was entirely in German. Length: 1 hour, 25 minutes. Released: Nov. 30.

MacBreak Weekly 120 & 121: "And One Less Thing" & "WWPD" If anyone has a business model for podcasting, it is Leo Laporte, and this is a flagship in his tech talk empire. While Laporte has an outside radio gig for income, he has also built a professional, multimedia webcasting operation that attracts advertisers as diverse as Visa, Audible, Drobo, Cachefly and various software makers. I missed listening to the first of these MacBreak shows last week because I was traveling. Alex Lindsay of Pixelcorps took the helm again, from Japan, joined by the tech journalist Andy Ihnatko near Boston, Scott Bourne (who left Podango earlier this year) from Gig Harbor, and the video podcaster Don McAllister from England, all through the miracle of Skype. Much of the discussion focused on Steve Jobs's decision to skip MacWorld this year, and plans by Apple to pull out of the convention altogether starting in 2010. Jobs and Apple no longer want product announcements to be held hostage by the convention schedule, and its artificial deadlines, Ihnatko argues (expanding on this Sun-Times piece.). There's talk of the Jobs succession as well. For episode #121 this week, Laporte returned from France and the host's seat, with the same lineup of panelists. There's more MacWorld advance talk, where MacBreak will be a live podcast. More about Steve Jobs and the ill health rumors. Consensus on the panel is a) skepticism about the rumors, b) none of this is good for MacWorld's future but c) the show is still a good educational program (of course, all these panelists are MacWorld speakers who get free tickets, loaded swag bags or speaking fees). A lengthy discussion of iFart Mobile, the No. 1 iPhone app. The iPhone Nano rumors. Some of the panel's product picks are listed here, including a cool translator iPhone app, Lingolook, pitched by Lindsay in #120. Length: Ranging from a tidy 52:55 minutes then back to Leo's expansive 1 hour, 20 minutes. Released: Dec. 24 and Dec. 30.

This Week in Tech 175: Highlights and Lowlifes 2008 More from Leo Laporte. Is podcasting ready for clip shows? I'm not sure it works for something as ephemeral as a tech news show, but that's what this is. I wouldn't really recommend this for anyone not familiar with the topics or the hosts. Leo is clownish, John C. Dvorak is grumpy, Jason Calacanis is full of know-it-all bravado. And so forth. Length: 1 hour, 31 minutes. Released: Dec. 28.

Uhh, Yeah Dude, Episode 147 In the comedy news category, it's back to my old standbys, Seth Romatelli and Jonathan Larroquette, who were working overtime before Christmas to get episodes out through the end of the year. This is the last episode of 2008. High points include Jonathan's account of getting a ticket for driving while holding a cellphone, the human nose as a sex organ, a discussion of modern pinball technology, PETA's person of the year and Doc Ellis's no-hitter on LSD. They have 150 more episodes to go before the world ends under the 2012 Mayan prophecy. I saw it in my coffee cup. Seatbelts. Length: 1 hour, 7 minutes. Released: Dec. 29.

Podcast Zeitgeist, Dec. 19

Here are more quick takes on podcasts that caught my attention this week, in the order I listened. [See previous lists.]

• Night of the Living Podcast 122. A cast of men and women discuss all things horror around a table in Cinncinnati. Not that you would know that is their focus for the first 15 minutes or so of the episodes I've heard. They tend to open with off-color, off-topic discussions. For example, this week featured recordings of farts, birthday messages to people you probably don't know and Andy Rooney impressions. Fifteen minutes in, the horror discussion started, with news about VH1's "Scream Queens" reality show, a riff on surviving zombie attacks, an extended negative review for the straight to video flick "Primal," about a killer sasquatch, then some reader voicemails. They crack themselves up a lot, and I'm sure someone finds it fascinating, but I'm not enough of a horror fan to stick with it. Length: 1 hour, 52 minutes. Released: Dec. 14.
• The Bob Thurman Podcast #66 The Tibetan scholar riffs in another dharma talk aimed straight for your hypothalamus, with some discussion about the Indian demon Mara, who is a tempter, the god of pleasure, "sort of a superdude cupid" as Thurman puts it, and how Mara is in some sense a Bodhisattva sent to test other Bodhisattvas. Thurman tells a story about an enlightened king giving away his eyes to be transplanted to a beggar -- it turns out to be a test, and he the king's sight is not lost. Thurman says his Sanskrit teacher couldn't stand Buddhists -- "they're a bunch of damn goody-goodies." He relates the Buddhist story of the king to the story of Abraham and Isaac in the Bible. Sacrificing the firstborn. One way to break the cycle of attachment, he says, is to be willing to give up what is most precious in your life. At the end of parables, even the Buddhist ones, all is saved when you pass the test with your willingness to forgo attachment -- "usually." Good advice for print journalists in hard times, perhaps. Length: 14:24 minutes. Released: Dec. 13.
• Uhh Yeah Dude, Episode 145 Intro: M83. A solid hour of riffing on weird news, like items from the world of horrifying science: Poor children's brain activity resembles that of stroke victims. Fat people eat more and get seconds at Chinese buffets. "Thanks, science." Top baby names of 2008. Gavin? Bryce? The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles has banned smiling in driver's license photos. They urge listeners to watch the late-night TV shows, which have been particularly bad lately, and mock the latest laughable Burger King ad campaign: Whopper virgins. Getting plastic surgery to look good at your funeral. Fox apologizes for full-frontal NFL shot. Why is gasoline, which was $4 a gallon, now cheaper than orange juice? "It'd be like you went into Starbucks and you ordered your drink and they said that'll be 50 cents." Complaints about the post office. Jonathan is scammed by a credit agency collection guy. A discussion of H. Salt, a SoCal fish and chips place. Jonathan: "As a vegetarian, it is one of the few things I get a hankering for." That's why I went back to eating fish a few years ago. Sorry, fish. Outro: Peter Tosh. Length: 1 hour, 32minutes. Released: Dec. 13.
• This Week in Tech 173: Dvoracanis Leo Laporte plays host to Sarah Lane, John C. Dvorak and Jason Calacanis. Topics include: Zinc air batteries from Energizer and battery life in general, bad iPhone battery performance, chargers for the Tesla, Google's use of humans to improve search results, and the top tech stories of 2008. Blu-Ray fails to grab market share. Dvorak and Calacanis disagree about who works harder, Americans or Asians. The Nintendo Wii: a girlie console? Australia cracks down on the Internet, and The Simpsons. Spectrum auction leaves Google a happy loser. And a discussion of the resolution of the Google Books fight causes Calacanis to say: "Google is not evil but lacks empathy." Audible ad around the 1-hour mark kicks off 10 minutes of commercial promotions. But I'm in a forgiving mood for the holidays, and one of the promotions is for a free installment (on Dylan's "Highway 51 Revisited" ) from the Continuum Books 33⅓ pop music series I mentioned here. It is a good series, and nobody paid me to say that. Length: 1 hour, 34 minutes. Released: Dec. 14.
• The Futile Podcast: "Truck drivin' arm breakin' and arm wrestlin'" Is there such a thing as an action-movie nerd? Maybe the right word is geek. Description of podcast: "Deconstructing 80’s & 90’s action movies. Relating them to comics, TV, and cartoons from then and now." They get pretty quickly into the Sylvester Stallone arm-wrestling movie "Over the Top" (1987). The two guys say it feels like a made-for-TV movie, with the lesson, you have to take what you want in life. High point of film comes with interviews of actual professional arm wrestlers. It's an amusing enough discussion, but the main hosts seems to be eating and talking with his mouth full. "A really, really awful version of 'The Color of Money.' ... We did the poker movie, and we did the pool movie, what about arm wrestling?" I might listen to this show again, depending on the movie under discussion. It looks like some of the earlier podcasts have more participants, mostly but not exclusively men. On the blog, there's also this apology for excessive misogyny, a common feature of a lot of male-dominated podcasts, as I've mentioned before. On the plus side, it has some of the features of a good podcast: brevity with several engaging personalities talking with expertise about an obscure topic they love, in this case, action films. Length: 23:24 minutes. Released: Dec. 17.
• "60-Second Earth, Santa in Danger: Polar Meltdown" First, I will note again that this show, despite the name, is longer than a minute. Second, I will note that this particular episode is a rapid-acting depression pill from Scientific American. Except that it doesn't cure depression. It makes you feel worse. You see, the icecaps are melting, and there's not a damn thing Santa can do about it, "no matter how green his elves are," children. Aaagh. Sponsored by God. Length: 1 minute, 20 seconds. Released: Dec. 11.
• CommandN Episode 161 Unlike the audio podcasts above, this is video, which means you will hurt yourself or others if you try it while driving or walking to work. It is also Canadian, and the recent episode is inexplicably taped outside, so the hosts, Amber MacArthur and Jeff-somebody look cold. This is their gift guide. Canadians are a little behind the times in technology. They lust for iTunes and Kindles. The show is short, but it moves too fast to really focus on anything. Discussions tend to be superficial. I'd suggest skipping this altogether and listening to Amber's far superior audio podcast with Leo Laporte, Net@Night, which I haven't reviewed yet, though I like it, and nobody paid me to say that. Length: 8:12 minutes. Released: Dec. 6.
• Wired Gadget Lab 20: This Ain't Your Grandma's Motor Home Another video. A couple of 20somethings test-drive a high-tech modified Airstream RV. "Dude, let's take it to L.A." Oh, ha ha ha. Good thing gas prices are dropping. They make the trip, with footage from a pit stop at the world's weirdest urinal. Seriously? What does it have to do with this review? Nothing. They give the vehicle a 6 out of 10. Which is better than the podcast itself. I'm not really sure why I even watched this. Oh, it was short. And now I can put the whole series in the trash bin, because video eats up a lot of hard-drive space. Length: 7:10 minutes. Released: Dec. 5.
• "This Week in Media 119: Adverteasing" Back to audio. This proved to be the most though-provoking show of the week, with a disturbing view of podcast advertising practices. Daisy Whitney of TV Week leads a discussion with Alex Lindsay, Susan Bratton of Personal Life Media (35+ podcasts), plus two others with complicated names that nobody spelled out, a media ad buyer and an active podcast sponsor. It starts off with a focus on how so many podcast hosts personally pitch products, as in radio, a practice that advertisers like. Lindsay nods to the church/state wall between content and ads, saying he avoids getting involved in deals and that he only pitches products on his tech podcasts that he uses and likes. I guess we have to trust him on that. He says his advertisers pay on a CPM basis (cost per thousand views), not based on revenue sharing or for favorable content. He does disclose that Scott Bourne, his co-host on This Week in Photography, personally sells ads for that show. Around the 28-minute mark, Bratton reveals even more flexibility: "...We'll also do a program that includes the CPM audio ads, plus things like, we'll post on the blog, we'll Twitter this information, we'll do a review of your product, whatever it might be, and then we're compensated in some way, typically a flat fee" to cover the hourly work for that. So, here is the followup question, which was not asked: Are reviewers free to give the product a bad review? Has it ever happened? Podcasters and bloggers on the Laporte/Lindsay podcasts often talk about how objectivity and fairness are outmoded journalistic ideas, but these practices arose to avoid this kind of problem. How do ad-supported podcasts (and blogs) ensure editorial integrity? If a camera gets a good review on Bratton's Digital Photography Life, how do I know it's an honest review, if the camera is made by an advertiser? I don't. How do I know if I'm getting the real deal, if the content creator is a financial partner with the sponsor or is taking freebies? I don't. Length: 53 minutes. Release date: Dec. 16.
• Digital Photography Life, Episode 5 So, after that discussion on This Week in Media, I listened to one of Personal Life Media's podcasts, on photography, a topic that interests me a little. This episode opens with an ad for Smugmug, a photo-sharing site that the co-hosts Scott Sherman and Michael GW Stein "talk a lot about on the show," according to the ad. (Popularity isn't everything, but for reference, here's how SmugMug compares to competitor Flickr in terms of overall traffic.) Twelve minutes into the show, Scott and Michael were still talking about the podcast's photo contest, which entails e-mailing entries to the show's Smugmug album, where the entries will be displayed. Then they discussed the prizes -- bags donated by another sponsor. Then they asked listeners to leave five-star reviews of the podcast on iTunes. If you actually want to hear about photography, I recommend fast-forwarding to the 18th minute, for the start of a mildly interesting discussion of the new Nikon D3-X, audaciously priced at $8,000, followed by some good tips for taking holiday party pictures. This all seems to be aimed at beginners, with the Nikon discussed for the shock value. The hosts are amiable and sound like nice guys. But Smugmug is certainly getting its money's worth. The hosts slip in another ad toward at the end for a camera bag, then ask listeners to send holiday party shots to them via Smugmug (there's another ad for the site at the end of the show). Then listeners are again urged to write a five-star review on iTunes or to at least go there and rate the positive reviews as helpful. Scott: "Those reviews will move to the top of the list, so the negative reviews are not the first ones people see when they check out the show because that is just not helpful when it comes to building an audience." So I go to iTunes. The first review I see is for two stars: "Posted a lengthier review last week but for some reason it is not showing up here. To summarize, I used to be a huge fan of the old show but over time it became more boring... Shows are long usually due to senseless banter being included. The hosts wander off topic a lot and don't stay focused." Maybe he has an ax to grind. The average rating is 4.5 stars. Length: 59 minutes. Released: Dec. 8.
• Macbreak Weekly 119: MacBreak Mania Alex Lindsay filled in for the traveling Leo Laporte, with guests Andy Ihnatko, Frederick Johnson, Ron Brinkman and Paul Kent of the upcoming MacWorld Expo. Topics: animated "Get a Mac" holiday ads, more Apple netbook speculation, fate of Apple TV and Mac Mini, iTunes vs. Amazon music store, and granular information about the MacWorld Expo, including a discount code (first 100 got a free pass and the rest get $20 off: RIDP1641). Alex read the Audible and Drobo ads, but kept them mercifully short. In the picks segment, Inahtko, a free-lance tech writer for The Chicago Sun-Times, spoke favorably of Slingbox products, which let you play your media library (and DVR content) on any TV, even away from home. Works best with a hard-wired network. More MacBreak picks here. Length: 1 hour, 8 minutes. Released: Dec. 16.