The Good Geek Guide

For a while now I’ve been thinking about starting a new regular feature on upyourego.com called the Good Geek Guide. Basically it will be a human edited directory of cool things.

Then I decided that would be too much of a nightmare and would just take over Up Your Ego, meaning the tech news style posts I like to write will get lost in a mass of media reviews.

So I’ve decided to host it somewhere else instead. Ladies and gentlegeeks I give you ‘The Good Geek Guide’. I’m currently working on the wordpress template and settings and should be ready to launch in the new year.

To start with this will be nothing more than a series of podcast reviews but will eventually expand to blogs, community sites, gadgets and more.

This is a big goal for a bloke on his own, so if you’re interested in contributing to the Good Geek Guide, a human edited review service for anything geek friendly - send an e-mail to ryan@upyourego.com or comment on this post.

While you’re waiting

While I’m working on the human edited podcast directory, basically a guide of podcasts I like and have reviewed instead of an automated one, can I point you in the direction of a directory that is between the two ideals.

The Digg Podcast directory seems to have been launched as part of the latest design refresh and, although slightly clunky is a very good way of finding the best podcasts. Especially given that there doesn’t seem to be any method to the iTunes directory madness.

In the meantime here is a list of the podcasts I’m currently listening to on my iPod (the short description underneath isn’t an example of what a review might be. These are podcasts I listen to regularly and like a lot, not ones I’m trying out to write about for the first time):

BBC Radio Newspod
Digital Planet
In Our Time
Jamie’s Podcast
MacBreak Weekly
Newsnight
Russell Brand
Snowmail Podcast
Start the Week
this WEEK in TECH
Today programme podcast

This isn’t all though

As you can see from this list, with the exception of the Today podcast they’re all weekly at best. This is because I sometimes can’t update my iPod every day for one reason or another, so daily podcasts tend to build up and get out of date very quickly.

The list above isn’t the complete one either, it’s a list of the podcasts currently on my iPod, there are others that I’ve already listened to this week or are currently off the air.

I also regularly subscribed to podcasts, listen to an episode or two, decide it isn’t for me and then unsubscribe.

This is where the idea for the human podcast review comes in. I’m going to scour iTunes and other podcast directories for shows (from big media to bloke in his room) to listen to.

When I’ve listened to it I’ll write a review based on a number of criteria including ‘how quickly does it get annoying?’, ‘does the voice make me want to stick hot pokers in my ears?’ and ‘does it actually have a theme or are they just rambling?’.

Now rambling isn’t a bad thing and a podcast won’t necessarily lose marks because of a ramble BUT if the ramble is pointless and not funny or interesting then it will get marked down.

If you have a podcast you’d like to hear my pointless opinions on then email ryan@upyourego.com with the details.

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