The term podcast, as  noun, comes from a contraction of the iPod and broadcast. Here’s the definition from the Oxford English Dictionary:
A digital recording of a broadcast, made available on the Internet for downloading to a computer or personal audio player.
2004 Cnet News.com (Electronic text) 8 Oct., A network of bloggers is offering up ‘podcasts’
or pre-recorded Net radio shows that can be downloaded as a single file to an iPod.Â
2005 Wall St. Jrnl. (Central ed.) 16 Dec. B1/4 While most viewers stumble across vlogs while Web surfing, others find them on Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes directory, which lists some vlogs, calling them video podcasts.Â
2008 C. PAHLÂ
Archit. Solutions for e-learning Syst. 81/1Â Podcasts are architecturally unique in their relationship to e-learning, in large part because of the many different ways they can be employed.
| Main Entry: |
podcast |
| Part of Speech: |
n |
| Definition: |
a Web-based audio broadcast via an RSS feed, accessed by subscription over the Internet |
| Example: |
There is a podcast directory of offerings. |
| Etymology: |
2004;Â iPod + broadcast |
| Usage: |
computing |
To listen to a podcast all you need is an mp3 player on your computer or digital device. If the podcast happens to be a video podcast then you’ll need to have some sort of media player installed to view it. These are all common on all modern computers/devices, so it is no hassle. But it is much more interesting to subscribe to a podcast, since most of the podcasts follow a regular publishing schedule. That way you can track the podcasts, select the ones to listen to, and usually see a brief summary of what a particular show or podcast is about. To subscribe toa podcast you need to download the necessary software to your computer or digital device. The software is called an aggregator or sometimes it is called a podcatcher. The two most popular of these is Juice and iTunes. The site Podcatcher Matrix provides a comparison of  iTunes and Juice.  To my way of thinking iTunes has an advantage because:
- iTunes naturally works well because it is brought to you by Apple,  the same people  who brought you the iPod. Rmember that podcast is a contraction of iPod and broadcast.
- iTunes includes a player so it’s all one piece, nothing extra to do.
- The iTunes store provides a decent interface to find podcasts. Don’t worry, it’s called a store because Apple would like you to buy music but you don’t have to buy anything to subscribe to a podcast.
If you use Juice then you have the advantage of using an open source project, and they are working on getting a version that works with Linux. But as long as you have an mp3 player on your computer/device then when you subscribe with Juice, the podcasts are played by the mp3 player. I’ve used iTunes for some time and it is my default audio player, so when I tried Juice the podcasts I ‘caught’ with Juice were played by iTunes.
Both iTunes and Juice have ample documentation about how to use them. Part of the reason for their popularity is their ease of use.
When you ‘catch’ a pod cast you are subscribing to an rss feed. That means you’ll be giving a URL to the podcatcher or aggregator to represent the podcast. Then the aggregator contacts the sight that hosts the feed, you get a list of podcasts to listen to and review, and the aggregator software keeps the list of podcasts up to date.  For example, the URL for the podcast  the NPR Business Story of the Day is http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=1095
Searching for/Finding Podcasts
You’ll find podcasts on most sites that deal in broadcasts. For example: NPR, BBC, and CNN each have a portion of their site dedicated to podcasts.
The next places to look are search engines or search tools that specialize in podcasts. One that I especially like  is PodCastAlley because of its design and because  it provides lots of information about a podcast to help you decide whether you subscribe to it. In Web 2.0 fashion the site also lets registered users comment on and vote the podcasts listed. You can search by genre, most popular, or key word. If you are producing a podcast you can also submit the podcast to this site. The site is very nicely done.
iTunes also has a nice interface to searching for podcasts. After you install iTunes and register at the iTunes store  you are ready to go. Start iTunes, click on Store in the menu bar of iTunes, then select Search, and then select Podcasts from the drop-down menu you see after clicking on Power Search. At that point you can search by category, title, author, or description. Once search results are returned they are listed in order of popularity by number of subscribers. This too has a very useful interface. It doesn’t have a feature where users can comment or vote on a podcast.
I wrote this blog entry to help get my thoughts organized about this topic organized for inclusion in a chapter of the upcoming 5th Edition of Searching and Researching.
While you’re waiting, in case you are waiting, get yourself a copy of Searching & Researching on the Internet & World Wide Web, 4th Edition
Tagged itunes, juice, podcast, podcatcher
Paying Attention
When I teach I make a big deal about the notion of ‘paying attention.’ Not only to what is going on in class, but paying attention throughout our daily lives to the connections we come upon that help us better understand what we are wanting to learn. It’s difficult to do and takes some training. or working at to develop the skill. It is also an important part of Zen meditation and mindful behavior.
The goal in my classes, though, is not to teach the tenets of Zen Buddhism, but rather to help students learn the concepts, methodologies, and technologies that we deal with in classes in computer science. This notion of paying attention involves concentration and is the antithesis of multitasking.
Modern operating systems successfully implement multitasking on the computers and many other digital devices we use. Switching from one task to another involves a context-switch. In a computer this means copying information into CPU registers, and this occurs with a time penalty. The same thing happens with humans, we have to shift focus form one item to another. This takes attention away form one task and we have to move it to another. That is the problem. it is difficult to do one task well, to concentrate or pay attention to one item if we are anticipating switching to another.
A policy to help my students focus on one item at a time during class:
What follows are several links to documents that address the issue of paying attention by doing one thing at a time.
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My Midwest Inflight Magazine » Task Mastering
On a typical day you might answer e-mail, scan the Dow to see if your favorite stock has spiked, fill out an expense report and sit in on a conference call—probably all at the same time. A study from Day-Timers, Inc. reported that 62 percent of workers say they always or frequently feel they have to rush through their tasks. And a study by the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London found that when workers are constantly juggling e-mails, phone calls and text messages, their IQs fall an average of 10 points.
(tags: multitasking ineffective)
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About | Slow Leadership
Slow Leadership offers ways of returning civilization and humanity to organizations.
(tags: leadership Slow)
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SitePoint » Why Multitasking is a Waste of Time
Multitasking is great if you want to fill your time doing a lots of things not very well, over a long period of time. Sure you can: flicking between checking your email, Twittering, writing a report, trying a new web app and chatting on Facebook. Are you busy? Probably. Are you productive? Probably not.
(tags: efficiency multitasking management ineffective)
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Human Task Switches Considered Harmful – Joel on Software
When you’re managing a team of programmers, one of the first things you have to learn to get right is task allocation. That’s just a five-dollar word for giving people things to do. It’s known colloquially as “file dumping” in Hebrew (because you dump files in peoples’ laps). And how you decide which files to dump in which laps is one of the areas where you can get incredible productivity benefits if you do it right. Do it wrong, and you can create one of those gnarly situations where nobody gets anything accomplished and everybody complains that “nothing ever gets done around here.”
(tags: programming Development management multitasking switching joelonsoftware ineffective)
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Publilius Syrus Quotes – The Quotations Page
To do two things at once is to do neither.
(tags: quotes multitasking ineffective)
Tagged attention, ineffective, multitasking, paying attentionIt is essential that leaders think more clearly and make better choices, free from today’s constant obsession with meeting unrealistic, short-term expectations.
Slow Leaders are slow only in making irrevocable decisions or jumping to conclusions based on nothing but a quick glance and a belief in looking busy at all times.
The most important characteristics of successful leadership are to be found within the leader, not in college courses or textbooks. This takes time and requires a long-term perspective that is the antithesis of “grab-and-go†management.
Publilius Syrus, Maxims
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