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November 03, 2004
Podcast Review: Tech Shorts
This entry posted in:
3 stars
, I do not subscribe
, Podcast Review
Format: radio show
Content: talk with some music
Rating: 
What I'm going to do: listen on and off
Typical Length: 35 - 40 minutes
I believe Richard Wifall of Tech Shorts qualifies as a full-on geek (I hope that's not an insult). I mean, this fellow has a computer in his car that syncs with his home network over wi-fi. I can't think of much that's geekier than that.
Richard's geekiness works to our benefit for the most part; he talks about a wide variety of technology subjects, from gaming to media technology to gadget commentary, in relative detail. One draw-back that I see is that his commentary is a little behind the news; he's talking about things that have been in the tech media for several days. It's difficult to keep up with all of the news, but given the very wide array of tech podcasts available and the frequency of publishing, timeliness is going to be very important - listeners often aren't going to want to listen to something in podcast A that they heard about 2 days ago in podcast B.
He's getting a lot of his music from Magnatune, which is a good choice for legal music. Some of the music is a little distorted at the top end, which is a little surprizing; the source sounds OK on my device and Richard is encoding at 128mbps, which should be satisfactory.
Richard's vocal sound is a little empty and tinny, and so is some of the music (this both on my audio device and on my better quality headphones on my laptop), but his vocal balance is good for the most part and his technical handling of fades and the like is competent. He's chosen to do with out a musical bed for the show, but for this type of show that's probably just fine.
Subscribe to mp3s.
Tagged: podcast podcasting review
Posted by cori at November 3, 2004 07:52 AM