If you have iTunes or another podcast client, and you like listening to informative material on the Internet, you really must try these podcasts. I’ve actually mentioned a few of them (the TWiT network podcasts) on my previous post, No more Lab With Leo. Let me recommend my favourite podcasts:

• Security Now! with Steve Gibson
• net@night with Amber MacArthur from Toronto, ON, Canada
• FLOSS Weekly with Randal Schwartz
• LSAT Logic in Everyday Life with Andrew Brody
• Tech5 with John C. Dvorak
• commandN with Amber MacArthur
• Make It So explicit!
• and a few New York Times podcasts

Let’s start with Security Now!. This is an excellent podcast discussing security and privacy and all relevant matters to these subjects. I’ve learned a lot about encryption from this podcast. Additionally, it’s always interesting when they talk about how insecure and buggy Windows is.

net@night notes web sites (mostly Web 2.0 social networks) of interest. I first learned about blip.tv from net@night. Unfortunately, Amber MacArthur and Leo Laporte are both users of Facebook, with Leo Laporte at about 5000 “friends”. Anyhow, some of the sites they talk about really do pose great benefits to the users, including blip.tv.

FLOSS Weekly isn’t about dentistry, but rather about Free/Libre/Open Source Software. They discuss open source in great detail, with every week bringing a new topic. Sometimes, they have guests. Most of the time, I fall asleep listening to the guests.

LSAT Logic in Everyday Life is a great podcast which analyzes current issues and talks about logic. I love it because of the logic as well as the LSAT aspects. But mostly, I like this podcast because common logical flaws that go unchallenged are addressed by the host. Not to mention that he achieved a perfect 180 score on the LSAT.

Tech5 is a short, brief overview of every day’s technological news. What I like about it is the amount of current news that I can get from listening to one episode. What I don’t like: the host’s cranky attitude; the host’s incomplete understanding of many tech subjects, leading to misleading criticism; and the excessive amount of opinion as opposed to news. He almost reminds me of Lou Dobbs, except that he isn’t pretending to be patriotic, and he actually recognizes: the good anti-trust legislators in the EU; the good broadcasting (by the CBC) in Canada; and that the Microsoft-Yahoo! deal probably won’t go through as a result of the EU. Besides, he hates Windows and Microsoft almost as much as me.

commandN is also a podcast of recent tech news, except that it is done in a video format, and produced by Canadians. The quality of the video is actually very good — I download the H.264 videos. Watch one or two episodes yourself to gain an understanding of this podcast.

Make It So is a podcast by British people, talking about Star Trek. Recently, one of the hosts suddenly disappeared from the show and their network (Simply Syndicated) without explanation. Now they have another guy who isn’t nearly as familiar with Star Trek. And they are now starting to repeat themselves, talking about subjects they’ve previously recorded. Don’t listen to this podcast if you really cannot tolerate profanity.

I also subscribe to the New York Times’ Front Page podcast, which provides me with a daily update on recent news. It’s a good way to get an overview of the day’s news, without having to read Google News. Excellent when you’ve missed out on the day’s events — or yesterday’s events — and this podcast will provide you with just the right amount of information whenever you want to listen to it.

That’s it for today.