About three months ago I was convinced by some of my fellow co-workers that the TWiT (This Week in Tech) podcast was something that I desperately needed to start following. If not for the information itself at least for my own geek street cred.

Realizing my co-works know my geek tendencies better than most, I agreed that I needed to give Podcasts a second look. I had used them here and there but never really gotten much out of it. In fact, I found that for the most part they just sat around in my iTunes taking up space. So, reinvigorated I subscribed to This Week in Tech, along with a few other Podcasts from my favorite tech websites, notably The Talk Show, and Diggnation.

Then over the course of the next month I started listening on a consistent basis. What I found was not surprising: podcasts were just what my tech diet had been missing — a dialogue by fellow geeks that could finally match my own level of interest in the field. And the best part? It didn’t take hours of reading tech sites and scanning RSS feeds. I would simply turn on a few Podcasts while coding and by the end of the day my level of geekdom was up a few mana.

Well, this was just the beginning, I soon started subscribing to all sorts of Podcasts. And like smack is to a crackhead, the NPR podcast directory was to me.

ESPN, This American Life, The Web 2.0 show, Car Talk, XM Unmasked, etc. My podcast directory started to balloon, in fact it is quite plausible that I was downloading more podcast air time than I had hours in a day. I needed to get control.

I set two rules. First, only subscribe to 10 or less podcasts. Anything more and the overall value of them goes down because I become too flustered trying to keep up. Second, stick to a routine. For me, podcasts are best digested at certain times of the day. Sticking to these general times makes it easier to stay on top of my favorite podcasts without getting behind.

Luckily these rules seem to have solved my podcasting bloat. And I feel strongly that my listening level is right where it should be. Granted certain weeks (like the MacWorld expo week) deserve more attention, but overall my current selection of podcasts seems to match perfectly my free listening time.

I can’t recommend podcasts enough, especially to those looking to be more socially well-rounded. It is a great way to keep up on the latest news in all areas of life without having to sacrifice time and productivity.

As 2008 gets off to a start one thing is certain, it’s election time in the U.S. and the stage has once again been prepped for U.S. Candidates to fire nasty ads at one another, argue about invisible figures in the sky, resolve to fix the same issues from 2004, and of course try and appeal to the youtube generation of young voters.

However, for the first time in history this election has the potential to be dictated largely online. During the 2004 election online video and social networking were still in a growth stage. Today, the landscape for communication has changed, especially with younger generations. For instance, nearly every candidate’s homepage contains links to facebook, myspace, youtube, and flickr.

These web 2.0 voting implications have lead me to a strategy for determining which candidates seem well equipped to appeal to online viewers.

In other words, I went to four big name candidate websites, looked over the content, analyzed the usability, gauged the graphic appeal, and determined what sites deserved the “Imulus web development stamp of approval”.

Barack Obama www.barackobama.com

Pros:

• Cream of the crop visual design and color scheme
• Stylish and function interactive video
• State by state election index
• Nice typography (line-height, heading text, and grid layout)

Cons:

• Annoying splash page (Are we back to 1999? Common now..)
• Lack of website search function, this is a no brainer

The lowdown: Barack Obama’s site is the cream of the crop regarding this years candidates. Packing a smooth flowing design, stylish interactive video, and a state by state election index. This is reflected in Barack’s campaign approach, particularly towards younger voters. Barack wanted a campaign funded by the internet-generation of American’s, and he has given himself every opporutnity of appeal with his website.

Ron Paul www.ronpaul2008.com

Pros:

• Nice issue seciton: offering direct quotes from Ron Paul himself on each issue
• No splash page, yay!
• Informative, easier to read web blog (notice the line-height change from the rest of the site).

Cons:

• Text line-height is unbearably low, no person in their right mind is going to spend more than two minutes reading it.
• Lack of website search function.
• The use of Trebuchet as the main web font lacks a professional feel.

The lowdown: Ron Paul has witty and new ideas for our country, and his site should reflect this. Unfortunately the mish-mash feel doesn’t accomplish what his personality expresses.

Hillary Clinton www.hillaryclinton.com

Pros:

• No splash page.
• Straight forward navigation menu
• Easy translation between English and Spanish

Cons:

• Heavily image intensive
• Sub pages don’t seem as thought out as the homepage

The lowdown: Hillary’s site looks nice on the outside but has some major flaws. First off, while her content is fairly descriptive and helpful you won’t be finding it via search. Second, the site is loaded with images. On our DSL connection it took at least 7 second before the page was fully rendered. For non-broadband American’s this site is probably unusable. Still, it should be noted that the visual appeal of the website is decent and in some places the text is fairly readable. Overall the site is close to what I want but just not quite there.

John McCain www.johnmccain.com

Pros:

• Website search!
• Navigation that is fast and responsive
• Straight forward content sections

Cons:

• Frustrating high contrast color scheme
• Cluttered

The lowdown: John McCain is the only of the four websites I’ve looked at that contains a search. And while it is located at the bottom of the page, at least it’s there. However, the color scheme of the site is hideous. It tries to reflect his military history but ends up just creating a high contrast hard to look at interface. Further, the line-height and page text is a bit cluttered. McCain also uses a splash page, which I disagree with. However, his search function, and navigation give him a stamp of approval.

Technology moves fast – but sometimes, not that fast. “Old”, outdated books on languages and technology often have valuable insight or content. These books may be a couple years old or a previous edition – or a book from an obscure publisher or author that never received the publicity it deserved. On Amazon.com, these books tend to be cheap and sometimes plentiful. And they are potential treasure chests of information and code.

I have found Amazon.com to be an invaluable resource for these types of books as I explore different programming languages and techniques. Here’s why: Amazon’s reseller program offers tons of books – often used, perhaps a version older – for super cheap. This may not be news for most people out there, but how valuable these books can be to your learning may be.

For example, I’ve found the out-of-print “Beginning ASP.NET 1.1 in C#” By Matthew MacDonald to be an excellent summary of programming ASP.NET in C#, and still widely available. It’s also good for brushing up on Mono’s ASP.NET implementation, too, which is somewhere between 1.1 and 2.0. ASP.NET (actually .NET) is one of those technologies that the basic, foundational skills learned in in “early” versions (Microsoft still supports early versions such as 1.1, “For as long as their clients demand”) are usually very relevent and compatible with later versions, too. And the enterprise installations of early versions of ASP.NET is still incredibly high.

Also, if you increase your skill set by reading code, there is no shame or nothing “inherently wrong” with the code in older versions of books. They can be as relevant as ever and can be good examples to learn from. Legacy code doesn’t update itself – so it pays (literally, sometimes) to know and understand how older code works, too. Speed of adoption can lag behind the latest releases of books, and its likely you will come across older code at some point as a programmer, if not daily or weekly.

I have “old” books I’ve picked up from Amazon.com on subjects as diverse as ASP.NET, C#, PHP, SQL, Python, Linux, Apache, and a handful of other subjects. And many of them have been invaluable references to the code or technology they explain.

Google’s blog hosted a pretty fiery critique of the proposed Microsoft buyout of Yahoo. Particularly focusing on MS’s history with building and promoting proprietary systems in the PC and OS market.

Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies…

In essence, Google is concerned that MS’s monopolistic tendencies and proprietary history will lead them to stifle innovation on the internet. Potentially suffocating the openness of today’s web and in the process hurting users.

However, I feel that a number of Google’s concerns aren’t completely valid. First off, Microsoft has shown a somewhat surprising trend towards standards in recent history. The passing of the Acid test for IE8 is just one example. Another is their documentation and developer support, the MSDN is surprisingly full of information for people looking to work with Microsoft applications. In fact, Imulus’ web development is primarily based around the .NET framework, even though every person in the office owns a Mac.

The truth is Google actually has a pretty big monopoly in certain areas of the web (advertising). And they are constantly making acquisitions (jaiku, you tube, double click, android) that give them a stronger fist. And while Google does seem, for the most part, to be committed to their “don’t be evil” slogan they are by no means a white light in the sky.

Now, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a huge fan of Google, I am. In fact, I use almost every service they offer and I respect their dedication to multiple platforms and browsers. Not to mention their documentation and support for google product API’s.

Still, I think their bold criticism of the Microsoft/Yahoo bid is a bit out of line. Especially considering how different Yahoo’s culture is from Microsoft’s. If anything, MS being interested in purchasing a company that runs on open source programming (mainly PHP) and hosting (RedHat linux) is a refreshing thought. I mean, if MS did acquire Yahoo are they really going to reprogram every app to be in .NET? Doubtful. If anything it seems that MS would have to embrace an even more open culture than they already do.

I haven’t quite made up my mind on whether I’m a fan of a MS/Yahoo deal or not, but I definitely think it deserves a fairer shake than Google is giving it.