Old new discovery

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I will try to increase the frequency and regularity of my writing.

The new old thing I've been thinking of and messing around with lately is iTunes. If you have an mp3 player (any kind, not just an ipod), then it is worth checking out. I haven't bought much music lately, but I've been downloading a lot of free stuff. Each week, iTunes offers 2 or 3 free songs you can download, plus some TV episodes and other videos. For instance, I downloaded Bubbly, by Colbie Caillat for free just a couple weeks before it started getting lots of radio play and became so popular.

What I've been digging through lately, though is the podcasts. There is tons of stuff on many, many topics from Comedy, Politics, education (lots of foreign language courses, but I've also seen Psychology, chemistry, grammar, hypnosis, all kinds of things... Photoshop, even), hobbies and games (I saw at least two or three knitting podcasts), and of course, music and technology (as separate categories, but I'm sure there are podcasts that combine them). And it is all free. At least, I haven't come across any there weren't. I know podcasts were the next big thing like two and a half years ago, but if you haven't looked at them in a while, there is more (and probably better) content than ever. Of course, you don't need iTunes to enjoy podcasts, but they do have everything in one convenient place (with a audio and video player included in the application).

And if you're interested in the more academic topics I mentioned, check out iTunes U as well. There is a wide range of content straight from University lectures and seminars from numerous schools (including Duke, MIT, UC Berkley, Yale, Stanford). And again, as far as I can see all this content is free as well.

There is a lot of cool, interesting stuff on iTunes even if you never intend to actually buy anything there. I just wish I had more time to check it all out.