During my 25-minute commute each day I almost always listen to recorded radio: NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered, both of which I record daily using Replay Radio. I run the Replay Radio client software on my TabletPC, which sits in the passenger seat and is connected to my car's audio system through a cassette adapter. For the past two years it has revolutionized the way I spend "down-time" in the car. Through a couple of tricks, I'm able to listen to most of what I care about in each 2-hour NPR broadcast. First, I skip the radio segments that are redundant (e.g. news updates each half-hour) or boring (yet another car bomb report from Iraq). Then, I use the Windows Media Player's fast audio feature that lets me listen in 1.2x real time (i.e. I listen to a 60-minute show in 50 minutes with no loss in quality). I carpool a couple times a week but that's the only reason I don't do this every single day.

Well, lately I've extended that experience to the rest of my life with more aggressive use of podcasting on my MP3 player. Instead of just music, I keep my player loaded with hours of various lectures and interviews so I always have something interesting to listen to when I'm in a situation where it's impractical to read. For example, this weekend I listened to several hours of podcasts while doing lawn work and while running errands in my car. [You can keep track of what I listen to if you follow my personal blog].

This technology really is amazing. I'm going to look around for a client for my Treo . I especially want an easy fast-forward and skip feature with bookmarking -- important features missing from my MP3 player. The 1.2x real-time would save me a lot of time too, especially on longer podcasts.

The other thing I'm looking for is a really good Podcast directory. I get much of my Internet news through Findory, and they have a directory there, but it's not as useful as I'd like. Later I'll post some of my suggestions for how it could be improved.