I had a problem. I subscribed to too many podcasts.
Now, I will admit this is not, at first blush, that big of a deal. However, one of the downside of a digital lifestyle, the digital debris tends to stack up. I listen to podcasts because my day job does not allow streaming. Thus, podcasts have become my daily radio, and the set up is rather nice. However, podcasts are easy to subscribe too, especially if you use iTunes to manage all your music needs (I like iTunes and iPods, and it is not because I am a Mac Cult member).
As the weeks past I found myself downloading a ton of podcasts, and really not listening to them. Finally, last weekend when I saw the number of podcasts I subscribed to, and the number of episodes I had waiting to be listen to, I realized that I had to take control of the situation. Hence, I culled the herd.
Prior to last night I had 45 different podcasts I subscribed to, and on average had 6 episodes waiting to be listened to. Looking closely, I noticed that some of these podcasts either had the most recent episode waiting to be listened to, or had no new ones because I had already listened to them. Seeing the obvious I went to work.
Now currently I listen/subscribe to only 8 podcasts. I do not see this getting above 10, for the foreseeable future.
Now I think I will turn my attention to the numerous RSS Feeds I have in Google Reader.
Those who know me, know I am the biggest Mac Cultist, fan in the world.
Macs are the perfect tool for what I do, and since making the switch all those years ago I have never regretted it, nor wished to go back. When working on a WinTel box I break out in hives, and find the productivity I have on Macs, gone. I do not hate Windows, or the various PCs supporting it, I just do not like it. Nothing wrong with that.
That being said, a few months ago a friend gave me a Dell Laptop. Why? I do not know. He said he wanted to see of I would switch. I also think he was playing a sick joke, after all he knows my love of the Mac. Still, I took the laptop, and tried it.
I hated it. I also dispised Vista. The laptop, despite the plastic, was heavier than Ariana’s 17″ Mac Book Pro, and heavier than the 13″ PowerBook and 13″ iBooks we have as well. Vista, was…well let me just say it was everything that I thought it would be, and everything that drove me to switch all those years ago.
I was going to give the laptop back, but then I decided to try something. A long time ago, around 2002, I had an old IBM Thinkpad that I installed Ubuntu on. I liked it, but Ubuntu and Linux did not do anything for me. Now that I had a test machine, I decided to give Linux a try. Not to switch, but to experiment. I was really curious, and had heard good things about the recent build. Downloading and building the install disc was a breeze. Instillation was even easier.
Once installed and set up, I started using it. I’ve been using Ubuntu for close to four weeks now, and my verdict is simple. I like it. I do not like it enough to switch over and replace my Macs. Nor, does it make me give up on getting the new Mac this summer, and buy a ugly PC just to install Ubuntu. It does make me want to use the Dell laptop as a backup device. When working on a project, I tend to get out of the house and go to a local coffee shop and write. I can see me taking the Dell running Linux and being productive. In all, I am glad I decided to try Linux, and if I was not already a Mac fan, I could see myself moving over to Linux as a full time replacement of Windows.
