We are always looking to expand the offerings of LancasterOnline. Please help us with this poll. If there is not an answer, please add your thoughts as a comment. Thank you. We look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Weird News stories and Get Fuzzy. That's the only thing worth reading anymore.
Speaking of weird stories, I'd like to see more 'mugger picks 90-year old 3rd degree black belt as his mark' type stories with dumb criminals. There are plenty of dumb criminals out there doing insanely stupid things and the 'when karma attacks' are even funnier.
The one national radio show I listen to has a segment on this kind of news pretty frequently, great way to start my day.

LOL, I posted a confessional entry about my iTMS addiction the other day that did not get any responses. It made me wonder if Lancaster Online readers are behind the times regarding the digital revolution. At least three fourths of my family, friends and associates have MP3 players, usually iPods. As the early adopter (first iteration of the iPod right after it came out in 2001), I am the one called on for information when purchases are made. Among people with any interest in personal technology, the MP3 player is a must. Fourteen million iPods were sold in 2005 alone. So, I am puzzled that participants here are not effected.

The podcasts I download are news (the WaPo and ABC News have the best video podcasts of news), some law and education blogs, entertainment (Rocketboom, items from Veoh's library and the Sci-Fi channel) and tech (Ars Technica, MacTV, TUAW, etc.)

I would encourage Lancaster Online doing a video podcast if possible. They are going to steal the thunder from audio podcasts this year.

YOU should BECOME A SHAREHOLDER OF ALL THOSE COMPANIES..... JUST kidding..

APPLE
BRMC
INTELL

YADDA, YADDA, YADDA

I still haven't found any podcasts that seem worthwhile. I like that I can listen to pretty much anything while I work and nnot have to worry about the fact that my taste in music is not fit for public comsumption. Plus if I get bored with what I'm listening to, I can just switch it over to FM radio.
My personal opinion is if you're planning to buy an MP3 player, do boat loads of research. iPods are worth it, but expensive. If you're not going to store 15,000 songs, 25,000 photos or a hundred hours of video, look at others. I'm not saying that you'll never need that much space, but do you need it now? If you've got $400 laying around, go nuts, or give it to me that's fine too.
I'd really like to see vehicle and A/V manufacturers get together with all the MP3 manufacturers and decide on a standard so you could plug one cable in and use the controls to select and transfer music/video between the two. Apples already pushing hard on the A/V market.

Actually, I'm running out of space, Solitary. Not on my 60 GB 5g iPod, but on my five-month old PowerBook G4. It has a 80 GB hard drive. The video files for iTunes are eating up space in my iTunes library. I'm going to have to transfer some audio and video to one of my LaCie external hard drives.

Daisy, I do have stock in Apple Computer. And, yes, I am very happy with this year's developments.

I think anyone can find a podcast he likes. Just search one of the podcast repositories or Google.

MP3 players and laptops are hardly an apples-apples comparison.
The software and configs on your iPod are probably in the 5-10 MB range (1/1000 GB) vs on your laptop, there's how many gigs of programs and system files just to do what you want it to do. Also, laptop HD will have a much lower capacity because they're laptops. Move some of that stuff off your machine and onto a server or desktop machine. Move your video on to DVD-Rs.
Also, you may want to look into compressing some of your not-often used, but needed at a moments notice data. Won't do a lot of good for audio and video files, but other documents it can make quite a bit of difference.
Look into a software program called 'clean sweep' it will remove left over crap from programs you don't use anymore.

Podcasts are a waste of time plain and simple, and here's why:

The average person speaks about 100 words per minute.
A good reader can read about 200 words per minute.

So for the average person, listening to someone reading the news takes twice as long as simply reading the same news. In fact, you're probably wasting even more time listening to a podcast since it's harder to skip over items that don't interest you.

Now, I said above, a good reader about 200 words per minute. I on the other hand can read at 500 words per minute. So for me it takes 5 times as long to get the same information that I could just read.

I'd rather just listen to my satellite radio on the way into work. It's more entertaining, you never run out of content, and you never have to plug it into your computer to get more stuff.

I see too many people who are reading while driving, 200 wpm, 500 wpm. Unsafe at any speed.


although I have to admit, I probably wouldn't use it either.

There is no time difference between listening to a podcast or other audio content while doing something else and listening to satellite radio in the same situation. Neither can compare to video podcasts, though. Same amount of time, but you pay more attention and use two senses.

Reading fast is a good thing, John. But comprehending what you read is even better. I've known 'speed readers' who could not tell me the significant aspects of what they read. There are also aesthetic reasons to listen to someone read. Every person at an author's reading could just buy the book and read it, but we want to hear the author read from it. I'm in favor of using and enjoying all the senses.

I was hoping more podcast fans would turn up.

Burnt half of Battlestar Galactica to CDs last night, Solitary. Doing so gave me back 10 GBs of my PowerBook's hard drive.

You might also want to look into a USB hard drive (your iPod basically is one) or jump drive. That should help too.
Other than that, the only other solution I can think of is expanding your laptop hd. I haven't done that on an apple in years. Unless it's changed a lot recently, it's not an average/casual user type task. I'd wait at least six months to make it economically feasable.
Good luck.

You read pretty fast for such a simpleton. Podcasts are for info when you can't read.

For the LOL admin, I'd download a podcast but the article should be more on the level of a Wall Street Journal article, rather than a Lanc. News article. Even I can read those at 500 wpm (while driving).