Michael Roebuck's Blog

Several weeks ago I had the opportunity to play with a video iPod for a week. I must admit that it is the cat's meow. So much so, that I bought two: one for the company to share and one for my family to share. (Ok, I don't really plan on sharing mine with the family but it sounds good.) I didn't buy them because it's the hot new trend, but because it's really functional and helps me with work.

We all know we can play our music on these machines and I have a Dell MP3 player which I truly like, but one simple feature turns this little portable hard drive into a daily must have. It's becoming almost as much a part of my life as my cell phone or wife. Let me explain.

PodCasts
A PodCast is simply a digital commentary. Like a radio program. I subscribe to numerous SEO type PodCasts and they automatically get downloaded to my iPod every day and after I listen to them, they get automatically deleted. It's completely hands off and worry free for me. I use an FM Transmitter to transmit the sound from my iPod to my car radio. No wires, no mess! This way, I can drive to work in the morning and listen to "Mr SEO" and drive home listening to the latest news headlines from "The Onion."

I bought a smaller iPod for the employees to share for this purpose. We can listen to podcasts on the way to and from work and when we travel.

Use an FM Transmitter to get the sound from the iPod to your car radio. For my Dell, I used a Belkin FM Transmitter that plugged into the cigarette lighter. I now use an iTrip by Griffin Technology that plugs into the iPod dock connector and runs off the iPod power. No need to plug anything in.

Note though, that many of these podcasts are very informal. I specifically mention Mr. SEO because Joe Balestrino actually teaches as he talks. You will learn something from his podcast is he is quite entertaining. Many of the other podcasts contain more industry gossip, news and fluff than actual content you can use. But you should monitor them as well. At the bottom, I'll list a few of the PodCasts that I subscibe to.

Additional iPod Benefits
Movies
Convert your DVD movies to iPod format: http://www.cucusoft.com. This beautiful program rips my DVD movies so they play on my video iPod. I bought an AV Cable from Radio Shack for about $15 and now when I travel, I can watch movies. When I'm at a hotel or in the motor home, I use the AV cable to watch the movies on the full screen TV. The resolution is not perfect, but certainly good enough to watch a movie. Each movie is about 1GB so on my 60GB iPod, I can carry about 30 movies with me at all times. Completely eliminating the need to bring DVD's or a DVD player with me when I travel. SWEET!!

Why buy an iPod instead of just downloading the PodCasts to a regular MP3 player? That was my first question as well. I would download these podcasts to my computer and then upload them to my Dell MP3 player, but finding them was a pain. Then, when I listened to the podcast I had to manually delete it from my music library. The iPod has a section specifically titled, "PodCast" and all the podcasts are neatly filed away under the respective headings. I have it set to delete podcasts that have been listened to. This way it's done automatically and I don't have to remember anything. Buying an iPod is a huge time saver and convenience.

A few PodCasts I subscribe to
Mr. SEO
Danny Sullivan Daily Searchcast
SEO Rockstars
Wizards of Web