Two years ago I reported on the Podcasts That Can Help You Follow the Tour de France. I thought that article provided a lot of good information, but it's dated now. I'm still listening to podcasts about the Tour, but there have been some changes in the providers and the content of their programs. I thought I'd revisit the issue and tell you which podcasts have been worth listening to so far this year:

1. ITV Tour de France Podcast (13-25 minutes): The granddaddy of them all has maintained its production values this year as well as last. Matt Rendell, Ned Bolting, and Chris Boardman analyze each stage. Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen's race calls of the stage winner crossing the finish line are included in case you hadn't heard it.
   
   This podcast has interviews with leading riders, thanks to ITV's position as a Tour de France television rights holder for the UK.
   
   The analysis has been excellent, with minimal meaningless speculation. This podcast has been produced for three consecutive Tours and has come back each time on the same iTunes URL as it was on during the previous year.
   
   
2. Cyclingnews.com Tour de France Podcast (14-36 minute duration): Peter Cossins, Daniel Friebe and Richard Moore review and analyze each stage. These three men are journalists that come from a web or print background, rather than from television. As a result, they speak a bit less glibly than the ITV hosts.
   
   Cyclingnews clearly has less resources than ITV. Some of their episodes have had a great deal of background noise, as if they were recording in a café or wherever they had the space to set up their equipment. They have access to interview subjects, but often in less optimal situations than ITV. So their podcast must rise or fall on the basis of the strength of their analysis.
   
   I certainly think that the Cyclingnews podcast is worth listening to, but I would always play ITV's podcast first.
   
   
3. Bicycling Magazine Podcasts (6-34 minute duration) : Hosted by Loren Moony, Bill Strickland, and Joe Lindsey. This appears to be a fledgling effort. Although the analysis has been good, production quality has been generally bad, and they don't choose their conference call provider with an ear toward listenability. Also not produced on a daily basis. You never know when this podcast will have a new episode.
   

Missing this year are VeloNews and The Daily Tour Podcast from The FredCast. They produced useful podcasts during the Tour de France in recent years, not this time.

Producing an audio podcast is more difficult than it looks. I can't imagine doing it on a daily basis while covering a grueling event like the Tour. I think all of the three podcasts that I reviewed has provided some useful information. If I couldn't commit the time and had to pick only one, I'd be listening to ITV.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Earlier this month, I estimated the monthly mobile phone service cost of an iPhone 3G at $86. I included $5.00 in this estimate for a bundle of 200 SMS messages, because I had heard that AT&T Mobility was unbundling SMS messages in the data rate plans for the iPhone 3G.

In Apple Phone Show Episode 59 published last Friday, Scott Bourne argued that AT&T has not stated categorically that SMS messages would be unbundled. This is what was published in the shown notes:

AT&T has said publicly on several occasions that they are not done configuring the iphone 3G packages. Scott has asked AT&T twice what the deal is and every time the official comment has been we’re still working on them and we have plenty of time before July 11.

Because AT&T has not completed work on the deals, he is perplexed by the number of people reporting on what the packages look like in their entirety. Many bloggers are saying, "Oh, you get no SMS messages included with the basic package." And while they might very well be right in the end, we don’t know that yet. AT&T hasn’t confirmed what the packages are going to be.

I went back through my notes, trying to remember where I had read that AT&T was unbundling SMS messages in the iPhone 3G data rate plans. It turns out that the CEO of AT&T Mobility, Ralph de la Vega, told Om Malik that SMS messages would be unbundled in an interview that took place at the time of the iPhone 3G announcement:

{Om Malik:} Has there been a change in the cost of data plans?

{Ralph de la Vega:} The data plans are different on the 3G iPhone vs. the 2G iPhone. Consumers will pay $30 a month every month, while enterprises will pay $45 a month. This is what you pay us on other PDA devices such as BlackBerry Curve. The SMS messages are not bundled anymore, and you pay for what you want. Again, the prices are based on what you buy.

From there I went and looked up the current posted prices of SMS message bundles on AT&T Mobility's website and added the 200 message bundle to my price estimate.

Lots of other writers came to the same conclusion I did. But the panelists on The Apple Phone Show were adamant that their contacts at AT&T say no final decision has been made on this issue.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Alltop just launched a new podcasts category. You can find it at:

http://podcasts.alltop.com/

It looks like they are initially focusing on NPR and business-related podcasts, as opposed to the technology podcasts that I am typically subscribed to.

After looking at Alltop Podcasts, I subscribed to:

• The Web 2.0 Show
• Startup Story Radio
• PRI's The World: Technology
• World Cafe Words and Music from WXPN Podcast via NPR

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Until I listened to this week's edition of This Week in Tech I had no idea that the Transportation Safety Administration had a blog called Evolution of Security, that Blogger Bob was one of the authors, or that they had posted a reassuring video of the process they used to test a MacBook Air with a solid-state drive.

As I said to my friend Henry Scheuer when I emailed a link to this video to him, a couple of things stand out to me:

1. Bob X-rayed the MacBook Air, but doesn't show us any of the pictures, because it's "sensitive security information".
2. The TSA blog only provides the video in Windows Media format, so actual Mac users can't watch it unless they find it on YouTube, as I did.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In Episode 45 of Tekzilla Daily, Patrick Norton pointed out a website called System Requirements Lab that can help you determine if your PC has the minimum or recommended hardware and software necessary to run dozens of popular PC games.

I tried this myself and the way it works is to download either a signed Java or Active X component which collects information about your PC and compares it to System Requirements Lab's database of minimum game requirements. If you pass those requirements, it also tells you if your PC meets the recommended requirements for the game you chose. If your machine comes in above the minimum and below the recommended requirements, then certain features of the game will appear degraded or won't operate at all.

I asked System Requirements Lab if my Dell Latitude C810 can run UEFA Champions League 2006-2007. The site told me that my machine failed the CPU minimum requirement, CPU minimum speed, and video card minimum requirement test. It recommended that I buy a new machine, and referred me to a customized list at CNET.com. I guess it's a good thing that one is already on order.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I am a big fan of This Week in Tech, MacBreak Weekly, and The Apple Phone Show. They are all excellent podcasts that are have very high production standards.

What I'm most impressed with is the sound quality of each of these shows. I think that Leo Laporte, the host of TWiT and MacBreak, and Scott Bourne, the host of The Apple Phone Show, each have tremendous backgrounds in radio and TV program production, so they've had time to figure out what equipment and services work best.

I decided to do some research and see if they had ever published any how to articles on the craft of podcasting. Here's what I found:

• PodcastGearGuy.com: Scott Bourne has a blog on the subject of podcasting equipment and software called PodcastGearGuy. This blog hasn't seen a lot of entries since he started hosting The Apple Phone Show, but it makes good recommendations about semi-portable sound isolation booths to help you get clean audio, and digital recorders which podcasters use as backup devices when they are doing a multi-person podcast recording using Skype.
• TWiT's "Podcasting Equipment" Article: Leo Laporte does a good summary of the technology and services he was using during the mid-Summer 2006. I hope he updates this article if he changes his setup. From occasional mentions of different gear in his podcasts that I've listened to during the past few months, it seems like the setup he describes is pretty up-to-date.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been listening to The Apple Phone Show since before the iPhone launched. I think this is the one podcast that I'd recommend to all iPhone owners.

The Apple Phone Show provides a good balance of features, news, and discussion about the iPhone in a concise format. Host Scott Bourne and his regular guests (most frequently Andy Ihnako and Chris Breen) cover all of the important developments in the market each week with a minimum of rambling. (This seems to be a particular problem for some of the other popular, technology-oriented podcasts).

This show could easily make the jump to syndicated terrestrial radio or satellite radio, if the right channel for it existed.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've dramatically increased my consumption of podcasts since I bought my iPhone back in June. I thought that I'd share some of my thoughts on podcasts that I listen to regularly and those that I've listed to that aren't worth my time.

Podcast reviews will appear in their own category on Operation Gadget beginning today. Let me know what you think of the reviews by emailing me or posting a comment. Thanks.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)