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I believe I am inherently passionate about technology. Passionate about it to talk, listen, write and keep abreast with everything that is happening in the technosphere. I wouldn’t want to miss an event, let’s say like launching of a new OS or a nextgen device that keeps a tab on the health of your car remotely, whatever that may be. I can’t seem to want to miss anything. Some may label it as “craziness or geekiness”. And I am fine with it.

For all technology stuff, I’ve been watching Techmeme ever since it’s launch. That news aggregation site feeds the most of my tech news hungry brain. However in order to do the same for specific technologies that I play with at work, I listen to podcasts. In the beginning, I tried subscribing to all my favorite techie blogs in Google Reader and then J&K them. (J and K are keystrokes to navigate through Google Reader). But I found myself missing so many good articles and could never get caught up.

That’s when I started listening to podcasts. What a great way to feed my hunger. Awesome. I am hooked to it ever since. I can’t believe I found dotnetrocks and hanselminutes through the iTunes search bar. I mean I should have stumbled upon them first on the web. Anyway, it’s been close to 8 months now and I can’t wait to listen to the next episodes.

dotnetrocks podcast has a very nice format. It begins with Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell greeting each other and checking out on how-abouts. Then Carl dwells in to ‘better know a framework’ that introduces you to one class/method/namespace/feature of the .Net framework. Ofcourse it’s not a lesson, so you are required to go check more on it later. I’ve sometimes wondered, well can .Net do that? Then Richard reads out a listener email that he has picked. Later a guest arrives and both Carl and Richard interview him/her on the technical expertise that the guest may have. With witty and sometime hilarious conversations, it’s such a relief to go back to work and I actually have been considering work more entertaining and enjoying. Even the topic that I think I am least interested in, I do tend to gain and enjoy as I listen in. Thanks to Carl and Richard.

Carl’s pwop productions also produces DnrTv a screencast+interview, again a great format and you get to know a technology so up close and personal that you could never get out of a book, or a classroom. It’s fun. My favorite episode as yet is Mark Miller’s ‘The Science of Great UI’.

Carl also produces Scott Hanselman’s podcast Hanselminutes, which is a weekly discussion, where Scott sits with industry experts and technologists to talk about some really interesting perspectives. His shows are always mellow, easy-going and really beneficial, there’s a lot of learning that happens as you listen in.

A recent addition to my listening has been the StackOverflow podcast. This is a conversational podcast between Jeff Atwood of CodingHorror and Joel Spolsky of the uberpopular JoelOnSoftware. This is a more opinionated, very engaging discussion that gives you a smorgasboard of what these two techies are intersted in talking about. It has no set format. Also they discuss a few questions from listeners in the show. Recently ITConversations has been producing this podcast, and as I am a follower of both of their blogs, I have been listening in, since their first ever podcast was put up about 11 weeks ago.

So to sum it up, I’ve been enjoying and getting entertained by listening to these shows during my daily commute, thus keeping me upbeat when I begin my work, and also when I reach home in the evening. I definately recommend all these shows to anyone who is passionate about technology and trends.

Have a great week ahead.