I really enjoy being on the show, although I know I’m not great at it. I’m not trying to be pseudo-modest, just honest. But it was fun and I got to “meet” a person that I enjoy listening to on the podcast TechStuff, HowStuffWorks.com’s Senior Writer Jonathan Strickland. Cool!

Thanks to Iyaz, with his mad hostin’ skillz, for inviting me to be on. Hopefully I didn’t scare away too many TechVi viewers… I’d like to be on again!

Oh, you can watch the show here: http://tcvi.me/1hr. Don’t forget to pop some popcorn first!

“Not only is it a lame name that would open the oft-ridiculed company up for even more teasing from non-fanboys, but Fujitsu owns the name,” I thought. Apple wouldn’t dare.

Dare it did, and the result was exactly as one would have predicted. The trending topics on Twitter the rest of Announcement Day reflected the junior high mentality I admittedly share with my fellow Internet users: iTampon, MaxiPad and MADtv. The latter was in reference to the comedy show’s 2006 skit making fun of Apple’s naming convention and seemingly dominance in high-tech gadgets. Even they MADtv thought the name ridiculous.

But, sadly, my adopted tech godfather Steve chose to ignore the jokes and label his latest creation the iPad. Seriously, someone should talk with him. And not just the yes-men.

Remember AM radio?  Yeah, me neither!  But I’ve read that they used to have things called “talk shows” on it… for FREE even!

Actually, I truly am a big fan of talk radio and have, ever since I can remember, put up with large doses of static to hear my favorite hosts take calls or opine about nearly any subject.  What better way is there to pass time on a long car ride?

Well, as with many things, modern technology has improved this ancient form of communication with the advent of podcasting.

What is podcasting?

Audio programs of all sorts have been presented on the Internet since its inception.  I remember, back in the early 90s, downloading and listening to quite a few clips of my favorite radio programs and even a few TV shows over a 9600 bits per second modem.  Yes, it was painfully slow, but it was fantastic to be able to listen to a program without having to record it in the first place.  If you missed something, you could just download a clip and listen to it at your convenience.

The evolution of those audio clips available for download has lead us to podcasting.  Simply put, a podcast is an audio or video file automatically transferred to your computer (or to some cell phones).  Instead of visiting a web site and downloading the clip, you “subscribe” to a program and it’s automatically downloaded to your machine.

The podcast itself can contain nearly any type of audio or video program.  Many popular radio shows put out podcasts of their broadcasts or provide a few interesting clips, for example.  Sports recaps, ringtones, comedy programs, original music, independent movie projects, educational shows, tips and tricks, audiobooks, and news programs are all available, too.  And almost all podcasts are completely free to the listener or viewer.

Say you’re interested in scuba diving.  There are dozens of podcasts available that talk about a variety of scuba aspects:  great places to go, new equipment, even some basics for beginners.  Nearly every aspect is covered in some way or another via a podcast.

Getting podcasts

Getting started is pretty simple.  You can listen to or view your podcast on a portable media player, such as an iPod, or directly on your computer.

Either way, the best place to start is by downloading a podcast aggregator, or “podcatcher”, of some sort.  This piece of software makes it easy to find podcasts using a search tool, enables management of your subscriptions, and allows you to play or to transfer the files to your favorite music player easily.  There are many podcatchers available, but by far the most popular is Apple’s iTunes, a free application available for both Windows and Mac OS.

After you’ve installed iTunes, you can click on Podcasts in the list on the left, and then Podcast Directory at the bottom of the screen.  Those familiar with the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) will recognize the interface.  Once in the directory, you can use the search box to find a particular show, topic, or podcaster.

You have several choices when you find a show that looks interesting.  To preview an episode, double click on its title. You can click on Get Episode next to any individual show listing to download only that track or click on subscribe to get the latest episode immediately and any future episodes automatically.  All of the podcasts in the iTMS are completely free, even the subscriptions.

Despite the confusing name, you don’t need an iPod to consume podcasts.  In fact, some people choose to call them netcasts to help alleviate this confusion.  iTunes itself acts as a player for both video and audio podcasts (and other media on your computer, for that matter).  So, you can either watch or listen to the show on your computer or transfer them to an iPod or other media player.

Creating a podcast

Publishing your own podcast — to promote your business, to use as an audio or video blog, or to discuss a particular subject — is a lot easier than it may sound at first.  Most of the software you’re going to need is free, along with several services to help with the process.  We’ll discuss an overview of producing audio-only podcasts for sake of simplicity.

First off, a little planning goes a long way.  Figure out what you want the show to sound like and make some notes so that you don’t forget anything.  To minimize editing, you may wish to practice what you’re going to say before recording.

A great audio tool for both Windows and Mac is Audacity (audacity.sourceforge.net).  This free software will give you a lot of control over your audio recordings while remaining simple to use for newbies.  Use Audacity to record as many segments as you’d like.  Then edit, each track, stitch them together, and add some music, loops, or effects — again, found free with a Google search or two.  Once your podcast sounds awesome, export it as an MP3.

You’ll need some online space to which you’ll upload your file.  Services like PodBean.com offer free hosting for your podcast, and many even have a few useful tools to create and promote your show.  Or, if you already have a website, you can upload the file you created to a “podcast” folder on FTP server.  If you do this, you’ll need to create a “control file”, too.  Check out Poderator.com, a free podcast publishing service, for help with this.

The last step is to let the world know about your new show.  You can submit it to podcast directories like iTunes and Zune.net directly, but I would also recommend using a service like FeedBurner.com.  FeedBurner, now owned by Google, has numerous tools to help track the number of people that listen to your podcast, as well as services to promote your show and submit it automatically to a ton of directories.  And, of course, it’s free.  Yes, I like free.

Getting help

If you want to learn more, drop me an email at kevin@backslashtech.com.  I produce a few podcasts and would love to help a newbie get started.  Podcasting can be a lot of fun, but you can also develop it into a money maker by selling advertising, promoting a product or service, or a number of other ways.

You can even subscribe to a podcast of this very column right here on this site!  Just go to the Tech Today logo at the top of the sidebar to the left (under the Twitter logo).  It’s free, of course.

I recently tried out Seesmic Desktop Preview and was impressed with what appears to be a TweetDeck clone, but quickly found that it lacked Facebook completely.   Now, with that addition, and the fact that it already supported multiple Twitter accounts, I’ve replaced Tweetie once again.

It still isn’t perfect — no Twitter client is — but it offers quite a few features in a well-controlled interface.  It also seems to eat less memory than TweetDeck.

Things I would change about Seesmic Desktop Preview include making the columns adjustable — even allow the ability to stack lesser-used columns.  Also, I just don’t “get” the user list feature.  I was hoping for more of a group feature similar to TweetDeck. I also miss TweetDeck’s “tag cloud”.

Big points, though, for NOT starting the name with “Tw…”! =)

Interestingly, this has presented a fairly ironic solution:  open source.  Ironic because my switch to Mac – a traditionally closed world – has “opened” my eyes to all of the great free software available today.  I have found a great wealth of apps to solve nearly every problem I’ve run across with my Mac.

Who needs to spend hundreds to write a few letters?  Instead of shelling out a bunch of bucks on Microsoft Office for the Mac, I found NeoOffice.  It’s basically a front-end for OpenOffice, the free office suite champ.  It worked okay, but was a bit rough around the edges.

Well, OpenOffice itself has been upgraded to version 3.0 and now is native to OS X.  I tried it out for about eight minutes this afternoon and immediately threw out NeoOffice.  OpenOffice is faster, has more features (and programs), and just plain-out looks nicer.

If you’re a NeoOffice user, I strongly encourage you to download OpenOffice today.  It’s well worth the price!  =)

I would have liked to have seen a bump in processor speed and maybe 4GB standard.  The quad-core Penryn would have been extra sweet.  The memory thing is just a rip-off:  I bought 4GB of memory for my MBP last month for $80.  Yes, $80!  Apple wanted to charge me $180 to go from 2GB to 4GB.  And they charge $400 for that same 4GB kit!

I guess I think that the “Pro” line should push things a bit more.  Get a super-fast CPU and tons of memory to pair up with the admittedly ingenius video subsystem.  Charge a butt-load because you’re Apple.  But make it COOL!

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not complaining!  The value of my month-old laptop is still very high and it makes the sweet price I got all that much better.

A few thoughts…  First off, I really like it.  The build quality is great and it runs OS X lickety-split!  But there are a couple of things that I’m not thrilled with.  For example, the keyboard is a bit odd.  The RETURN key is a little smaller than I’m used to so I continuously hit the ‘ key.  Also, the keys seem to have just a tiny bit more travel than my previous Windows-based notebooks (from various manufacturers).  That will cause a few missing characters until I get used to hit the keys harder.

The other items are things that I knew about – only 2 USB ports, a display that doesn’t open very far, and the lack of a hard drive LED (yes, I know, that’s a “Mac thing” – but it would still be nice!).

That said, I’m falling in love quickly.  The sleep mode is awesome because, well, it works.  I’ve never had a Windows-based PC that actually does what I think it should when I close the lid.  This thing sleeps right away and pops back on the moment I open it up.  VERY USEFUL!

A couple other things I love:  the illuminated keyboard is much more useful than I expected, the battery life is fantastic, and the LED-backed display is the brightest and most vivid I’ve ever seen on a laptop computer.

But perhaps the best thing about it is the main reason I bought it….  It runs OS X!  It’s fun to use.  I think I’m just bored with Windows, to be honest.

With all of the horsepower in today’s PCs, is it any wonder that virtualization is finally becoming mainstream?  Many of us have an old PC with Windows XP lying around with a product key on the side of the case.  Why not use that product key to run some finicky software?  Even better, set up a virtual machine to use as a sandbox to ensure that beta software doesn’t destroy your machine.

Most of us don’t use even a fraction of the power that’s available in our PCs.  And servers tend to be even worse!  A recent study shows that CPU utilization is around 6% on the typical small business server.  Six percent!  That means that you have 94% of your hardware sitting around waiting to be used.  (Not really, as CPU utilization is only one component in your machine’s performance, but you get the point.)

Servers can easily be virtualized to increase hardware utilization, decrease energy costs, decrease server closet temperatures, and decrease hardware costs.  WAIT A SECOND!!!  I SELL HARDWARE!!!  Nevermind.  Virtualization is a waste!

Seriously, depending upon the network environment and usage of the servers, you can put many software-based virtual servers on one physical box.  Having three or four servers running at a time is certainly not out of the question.  Pop in some new hardware and you could double that.

And that brings me to another great reason for my recent Mac obsession….  I can easily run Windows and Linux on my Apple machine but I can’t do the reverse.  Oh, sure, there are ways to get OS X to run on traditional PC hardware.  Unfortunately, it’s not easy or time efficient to do so.  If you want to spend a lot of time and energy, you could build a fast computer for cheap that will work fine.  But when you get a Mac, you get the ability to dual boot Windows and OS X out of the box.  Throw 80 bucks at a software company and you’ll add the flexibility of running virtual machines.  That’s a great deal in my book.  Or should I say “in my MacBook”?   =)

I predict that the uptick in the sales of Mac hardware will continue for the foreseeable future.  The machines are generally well-built with high quality components.  The lines aren’t refreshed as often as I’d like, so when the computers reach end-of-life, they aren’t necessarily a great deal.  But the perception that Mac is so high-priced is largely incorrect.  And with the advent of good, cheap, useable virtualization, the lines are blurred and the barriers are destroyed.

It will be a very long time before Windows isn’t the leading OS.  That has to do with tradition more than anything.  OS X is better in almost every measurable way and, since it’s based on a Unix core, is very scaleable.  But it may not hurt to take a look at the Mac and learn a little AppleScript….   =)

The service took the better part of a day to get setup correctly.  After getting my contacts perfect on my iPhone, I synced them to Address Book on the Mac only to find out that the format was slightly different on the two devices.  I spent a fair amount of time editing contants for companies, for example, to “file” correctly.

Then, thinking that everything was going to align perfectly again, I synced with MobileMe…only to find that the format was just a bit different again.  Arrggg!  My APPLE Mac, my APPLE iPhone, and my APPLE MobileMe service all have different formats for contact information?!?  Come on, now!  Seriously.

The fun didn’t stop there.  I got all of the APPLE products looking nice and then (bravely) decided to bring Microsoft’s tools into the mix.  You guessed it!

This is why it took so long to get my contacts groomed.  All 504 of them (down from 628 after removing duplicates, etc.).  I played that game a few times until everything was perfect.  I won’t even tell you how much of a hassle syncing the calendars was!

But, for all of that pain in the butt configuration, MobileMe has turned out to be exactly what I was looking for.  My email, contacts, and calendars (all four of them) are all perfectly synced and available where ever I’m at – on my Windows Vista laptop, my Mac Mini, my iPhone, and even on the web.  Nirvana does exist!

Don’t get me wrong, I still have some problems, but I’ve learned to live with them.  For example, if I read several messages on my iPhone and delete them, they may pop back up a minute or two later.  A simple tap of the Refresh button trashes them again – and for good this time.  I shouldn’t have to do that, but it seems a small price to pay to be able to use all of the great Mac apps like Mail.app and iCal and still have the ability to use my laptop to read filed emails.

Let’s hope Apple continues to work on MobileMe to make it more consistent and reliable.  Otherwise, “Exchange for the rest of us” is going to look more like Microsoft Bob….

Wow.  There are add-ons that do all sorts of cool things for Firefox.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure you can find programs that do the same or similar things in Internet Explorer or Safari.  But the way that the add-ons are presented and actually ENCOURAGED in Firefox makes them very easy to try out and use.

And I really like the interface on the Mac. It’s clean looking with a smart layout that is very intuitive.  The largest button on the toolbar, for example, is the most often used one – the back button.  You can use a Google-Reader-like star to record the current page as a favorite instantly.  A double-click on that same star will allow you file it away in a folder for all you weird people that actually organize things.  In addition, the browser seems to be quick to load and use.

Unfortunately, the Windows version I immediately put on my Vista laptop left a lot to be desired.  The interface, while it attempts to imitate the Mac version, is clunky in comparison.  And it seems to be quite a bit slower than Internet Explorer.

For now, I’ll stick with Internet Explorer on the Vista machine, but Firefox has replaced Safari on my Mac’s dock.

But it definitely is cool.  I have been looking for a seemless way to sync my calendar and contacts between my iPhone, Mac, and multiple Windows PCs.  The best way I’ve found so far is through a clunky mess of services such as Calgoo or, most recently, Google Calendar (with their new Outlook syncing tool).

The MobileMe service solves these issues and allows for email and photo syncing as well.  Oh, and don’t forget about the 20GB worth of online space that can be used to share and sync files and folders.  Cool stuff indeed!

When you update your calendar, for example, on your iPhone, the information is pushed immediately over the cell network to any other devices you have sharing the service.  Immediately.  So I can have ALL of my contacts, calendar and email shared on my Mac, my laptop, my iPhone, and my home computer.

This is way handy as I now have to manually update this devices – plug my iPhone in the dock, sync my Mac with the Google Calendar, etc. – or just do without.  Normally, I keep all of my info current on the laptop as I take it home most nights and generally sync my phone with it.  That’s a pain for those short days at the office that I just want to hop on the Mac to handle email or whatever without plugging in the laptop and waiting for Vista to load (which can be a painfully slow process).

Instead, I’ll be able to just wake up the Mac, use Mail.app (which is INFINITELY quicker than Outlook) to deal with my email, update iCal, and everything will be synced automagically with Outlook on the home computer, my iPhone and my laptop when I turn it on next.

To top all of this awesomeness off is the fact that all of this information is also available through a slick “ajaxy” Web 2.0 interface.  I can hop on a friend’s PC (or Mac, or iPhone, or Linux machine, or Wii, or PS3, or…) and pull up my personal calendar in old-fashioned Google Calendar style.

I can’t wait to spend my hard-earned money on this worthwhile service.  Now I just need to figure out a great new email address.  It’s going to be ________@me.com.  Suggestions?  Leave a comment!

When did I become an Apple fanboy, you ask?  Well, I wouldn’t go that far.  One of the things I “really like” about the Mac is the fact that I can run Windows apps through Parallels.  It’s so cliche, I know, but it IS the best of both worlds.  By purchasing a Mac, I got some quality hardware – maybe a little expensive, I understand – and the ability to run pretty much anything out there.

Using Boot Camp, I can boot into Mac OS X, Windows XP, Windows Vista, or almost any flavor of Linux you can imagine all at the touch of a button.  All of that functionality comes with the Mac for free.  And if you don’t want to be bothered with all of that “rebooting into a different OS” jazz, plop down 70 bucks on a piece of virtualization software (like Parallels) and you can have BOTH operating systems open at once!

(For maximum fun, try Coherence mode.  I have both the Mac OS and Windows taskbars on the screen at once.  Click on the start button to launch a PC-based program or the Dock for a Mac app.  Way cool indeed!)

Now, keep in mind that my first computer was a Commodore 64, NOT an Apple II.  I was the geeky kid with the “My Commodore eats Apples for lunch” t-shirt.  Really.  So, I wouldn’t call myself a fanatic about Apple products.  But they have slowly invaded my digital life.  An iPod nano turned into a newer iPod nano turned into an iPhone turned into a Mac Mini….

I’ve been using computers for almost my entire life and I know my way around the Windows registry and such.  So the allure of Mac isn’t necessarily the “don’t look behind the curtain” ease of use.  I would say it’s the simplicity.  And those aren’t the same thing.

When I talk about the simplicity aspect of my Mac, I’m talking about the fact that most applications install by simply dragging the app into the Applications folder.  I’m talking about UNinstalling that same app by – you guessed it – dragging it OUT of the Applications folder and into the trash.  Why does Windows require a trip to the hidden Control Panel, display a warning or three about how this will permanently remove your beloved program from the system and question you, the user, if you really want to remove this DLL file or if it’s used by another program, to do the EXACT SAME THING?!?

Now, my Mac isn’t perfect.  Remember the whole Parallels thing?  I need that to run a few apps that I either can’t run or didn’t want to repurchase for the Mac.  In fact, I use QuickBooks for the accounting system for my business.  I could either buy a Mac version for an extra $200+ or buy Parallels for $70 to run my already-owned PC version.  Duh!  Come to think of it, I really should blog about how great Parallels is!  In time, in time.

I’ve grown tired of trying to find a video driver for my PC laptop that doesn’t spontaneously change resolutions every third boot.  It’s depressing to see how much of my day is wasted by the excruciatingly long time it take Outlook to download 10MB worth of email spread out in 100 messages.  And why isn’t Time Machine available for the PC?  Seriously.

Well, enough of my thoughts.  I mean, I’m acting like this is my blog or something!  I just wanted to a write a little love note to my Mac.  I’m not giving up my PC – I just want BOTH.

What OS do you like best?