What got me started

My wife has kept a diary on Open Diary (http://www.opendiary.com) for a very long time. I think I even have one on there. I've started several journals, made a few posts then lost interest. I heard a lot of talk about blogs, and figured they were just new forms of diaries. Which I suppose they can be that but many are being used for a lot more. They are used to express one's opinion, share one's knowledge, and organize events. But what made me decide to start one is podcasting.

According to Dan Gillmor podcasting is delivering audio to MP3 players like the iPod (http://www.ipodder.org). It uses RSS, which is a format for syndicating news and the content of news-like sites, including major news sites like Wired, news-oriented community sites like Slashdot, and personal weblogs (http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/12/18/dive-into-xml.html).

Podcasting is very new. Like a month new, if that, and I have a feeling it is going to take off. Some of you may see a small orange rectangle with XML text . That is the link to the RSS feed. You'll have to install an aggrigator to pull the audio. I use iPodder (http://www.ipodder.org), which uses iTunes to store the podcasts and then I can transfer them to my iPod and listen to them whenever I choose.

Right now I'm subscribed to Adam Curry's, Evil Genius', DotNetRocks', three from itconversations, and Scripting Secrets' podcasts. Very cool stuff and a very cool, new emerging technology.