The thing that I have been quietly nervous about is that the amount that i have been using it exceeds the number of daily hours recommended to get the most out of the iPod battery life. Before the podcasts I really had no expectation of listening to more than a couple of hours a day of music. Now however I need to listen to that much just to keep up with all of the feeds that I listen to.

As a result I have been seeing the battery time get gradually shorter and shorter, with the battery indicator sometimes displaying half full before suddenly crapping out at the most undesireable times. This is particularly annoying when I am out for a run, 20 minutes into a 60 minute course when suddenly my head is assulted with the silence of empty speakers.

These shortened times between re-fueling are now becoming a more noticeable issue. I listen to about 2 and a half hours of podcasting now before the battery winks out. At the end of the week I will be traveling overseas (more on that later) which would be a great opportunity to blast through some backed up podcasts while I am on the plane but if the battery craps out before we taxi out I will be very disappointed , to say the least.

I have been a regular listener to you show for a while now and I love it, particularly the Doc Neeson and the Chrissie Amphlette interviews, being from Australia myself.

But you gota go easy on the product endosements. This is the reason i left radio behind. Put the ads on the website, mention it once in the sho but then let it go!! If i wanted to listen to a vodka comercial i would be subscribing to the absolute podcast.

Help me stay subscribed. I’d really appreciate it.

–nick coster

This morning I climbed out of bed and crossed the mental barrier of the cold and the dark and managed to get out for an 11k run before work. This is something that I have never really done in the past. I feel good now though so I think that it was worth it.

I have also been trying something else new. As I mentioned in an earlier post I have discovered the emerging world of podcasting. One of the problems that has emerged is that there is so much content out there that I would like to listen to that I just cant get through it as fast as I am downloading it. With the runs over the weekend I have strapped on my ear buds, clipped on the iPod and set off with the pod voices in my head. This has been great!! This morning I was listening to Endurance Radio, Dawn and Drew and the Rock and Roll Geek, while yesterday I had a dose of IT Conversations hosted by Moira Gunn and Dave Slusher. I am finding this to be a great way to get through the podcasts that I want to listen to and a really relaxing way to run.

I have previously sworn off listening to music while I run simply because it screwed with my rhythm, but listening to talking shows (even it if they have a bit of music) allows me to listen intently while relaxing into the run. I certainly seem to reduce the mental game of beating fatigue because I am just not thinking about it at all.

All in all it puts the fun back into the training and removes any potential boredom. Not to mention all of the information that I am exposed to as I listen.

This is not to say that there is any thing wrong with the iPod. I bought the silver mini. It feels nice in the hand, the interface is simple and it holds as much music as I can listen to without getting bored. I am not much of a music fan. I tend to get a tune in my mind and I can play it to death, and I prefer to listen to one album at a time. For most artists this just doesn’t work when there are only 4 good tracks on an album, so they get ignored. I really like artist that build an album from beginning to end. This is the reason that I still love Pink Floyd. Their albums feel like a single song that goes from beginning to end.

The end result of all this is that I don’t feel the need to add a whole bunch to my iPod to listen to. So I have about 2GB floating around idle.

Last week I read a recent copy of Wired magazine and there is an article on podcasting. Now when I first read this I didn’t really think much of it. I figured it would be a great way for the shock jocks to publish a world of crap without having to worry about normal broadcasting laws.

Podcasting is basically recording a ‘radio’ style program save it as an mp3 so that it can be downloaded. Ok so far not a big innovation. The last big step that makes it difference is that these tracks are wrapped in a RSS feed, so that other applications can pick up the tracks and make them available as up to data content.

I followed the idiot-proof steps from the mag and started to download some radio feeds.

What I have discovered is a whole new world of content. Adam Curry who is interviewed in the article is amazing to listen to. He is an evangelist for this new format, but seems to carry his enthusiasim without boring the hell out of me. What is really cool is his belief in the value of the listener, and how important they are.

So far I have listened to Adam Curry, Dr Karl, Triple J’s – Hack show, Paris Hilton promoting her movie, movie reviews, American idol commentary, and that is all i have had a chance to taste so far. This makes my music redundant (at least for now). So now i am looking for the content that will fill my head. Now I love my iPod even more.

I hope to get back to more audio feeds. See ya!!