Technically Speaking

Ok. Its fess-up time. Ever since I got my iPod, I’ve loved listening to podcasts. I listen to podcasts more than I listen to music. I have a couple of really good podcasts that I love, but I’m wondering what I should add to my list.

Here is a list of podcasts I subscribe to (meanings of fonts discussed below):

Audio-only

• BYU Recent talks
• Grammar Girl’s QnD Tips
• Legal Lad’s QnD Tips
• Newsweek OnAir Podcast
• NPR: Car Talk’s Call of the Week
• NPR: Most E-mailed Stories
• NPR: Shuffle
• NPR: This I believe
• NPR: Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me
• PotterCast: Harry Potter on the Air
• Tech Writer Voices

Video Podcasts:

• CNN In Case you Missed It
• CNN Paging Dr. Gupta
• Eye to Eye with Katie Couric

Of these podcasts, the ones in bold are my favorites that I try not to miss. The ones in italics are the ones I listen to when I’ve listened to everything else already. The other ones I listen to when I have time, but I don’t feel bad about missing an episode or two.

If you like Car Talk, you should definately get the Car Talk Call of the Week podcast. Its about 5 minutes, and it is very, very funny. Die hard Harry Potter fans would enjoy the Pottercast podcast; it is a weekly one that takes about an hour. The BYU Recent Talks is a recent subscription for me. They publish talks given at BYU weekly devotionals. I’ve listened to a couple of these, and wonder why I didn’t take better advantage of the weekly devotional when I was at BYU.

Okay. Enough of my rambling. What do you listen to? What are your favorite podcasts? Do share!

This blog is always a work in progress. I frequently make minor tweaks that affect small usability features, and occasionally, I make more visible changes.

Today you can see the result of my most recent redesign of my blog. Structurally it’s pretty similar to the previous layout; this time around, I widened the body of the blog a bit; I didn’t love how narrow the column was, so I tried making the whole thing a bit wider. As part of that, I picked a new background color and a new blog header image.

I’ve also tracked down a bug in the sidebar that has been driving me crazy for months; I couldn’t get my links sections to appear properly; that has been fixed.

I’ve also implemented a new rotating profile image. There are currently four different profile images; one is randomly selected when the page is loaded; if you want to see a different profile image, just refresh the page. (The profile image is at the top of the sidebar.)

There have been a couple of other tweaks and changes. I want to publicly note that the header image, as noted in the new copyright statement is derived from a work licensed under the Creative Commons Share Alike license. Therefore, the header image is also released under the same license. That header image is the only image that is an exception to the site’s copyright policy; all other images and all other content on the site is protected by copyright.

I hope you like the changes. Let me know what you think, either in the comments, or by sending me a message.

At the end of January, it came time to renew my annual STC dues. If you are a technical communicator, you really ought to consider joining STC — the Society for Technical Communication. I’ve been an STC member since I was in college; I’ve even attended an STC conference in Vancouver a couple of years ago.

When I got my first job after college, I was able to talk my employer into paying my STC dues for me. Now I have a new employer, and I had to convince the VP of Engineering that STC is a valuable organization, worthy of our corporate funds.

I already submitted my ideas and got the funding approved, but I want to ask you technical communicators out there: What value do you find in the Society for Technical Communication? What benefit does STC provide to your employer?

Post your thoughts first, and I’ll add my list later.

I don’t wax political often on this blog, but when I heard this morning that the United Kingdom is preparing to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2007, I asked myself the following question:

Does this have anything to do with Prince Harry’s planned deployment to the region? Or is it simply a political move to allow Tony Blair to bow out on a high note with the UK citizens?

Probably a bit of both, don’t you think?

[Going back to minding my own business and not commenting on politics…]

So you’ve seen our photogallery. Did you know that we are also posting short movies of Nathaniel online? Here is today’s installment:

If you want to see more videos, go to http://s142.photobucket.com/albums/r99/paulpehrson/