Passed my driving test!

Wow, I finally passed my driving test about after 3 or 4 tries! It is quite difficult to pass in this country, they can fail you for very simple mistakes like forgetting to turn your indicators off when stopping or taking off.

In any case, I’m glad I finally passed, now I need to learn about cars and what to buy, etc. I’ve just never been into cars, but I feel I might become an avid car enthusiast. I do like to tinker with technical things, the more geeky the better

PSPCasting?

Having written about podcasting in the last post, I was reading this month’s [Wired](http://www.wired.com) magazine when I came across the word pspcasting and was perplexed I hadn’t come across it before. It’s basically a way to use RSS again to sync a video file from a feed and then convert it into a format that the PSP can play back. Some good info on it is [here](http://www.pspvideo9.com/pspcasting.html), [here](http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/03/pspcasting.html), and [here](http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000033038817).

Some superb testing for virus infections has been done by the F-Secure folks on the Toyota Prius. For now, they have disproved the myth that the car can be infected with a bluetooth virus such as Cabir. Read the full post on their blog [here](http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/archive-052005.html#00000553). Further down in the same blog they have pictures of what it looks like when your phone starts to get infected with Cabir. The easiest solution in this case? Walk away from the immediate vicinity and the annoying pop-up should disappear. It’s not always obvious, especially for the average phone user, but this will get rid of that annoying pop-up.

On Driving

So I’ve decided to learn driving. I don’t fancy the thought, it must be said. When it comes to where I stand on the issue of cars, I don’t think I approve of them. I saw a futuristic hydrogen powered car on [Top Gear](http://www.topgear.com) a few days back and I wish I could buy that right now. Unfortunately only the prototype is available and it cost 5 million to make. They say we should all be driving one in 10-20 years and I must say I can’t wait.

Being completely oblivious to the automotive industry and driving in general all my life (I blame public transport) I find the idea of me contributing to the global pollution rise quite shameful. Do I really need a car, I ask. Unfortunately I think I do. I’ve happily gotten by on public transport so far and my dad used to drive us around everywhere when we were younger but lately I’ve started to realize that having a car around would help immensely with the weekly shopping and getting around and going places in general. The prospect of waiting around for a bus (perhaps in very cold or wet weather) just puts me off the idea now. Well, no turning back now … I’ve already bit the bullet and signed up for my driving lessons …

For those of who you still aren’t familiar with podcasting, a good and simple primer is on the [BusinessWeek BlogSpotting](http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/blogspotting/archives/2005/05/a_little_about.html#more) site. My personal take on it is that podcasting is like **selective offline radio**. **Selective** in the sense that you, the listener, decides what to listen to and **offline** because you don’t have to listen to it live. You can download the shows to your favorite MP3 player and listen to them on the go. **Radio** because the experience of listening to a podcast compares favorably to listening to a radio show.

Of course, that just sounds like any other audio downloading you may have done in the past. The essential difference with podcasting is that it uses RSS so you can **subscribe** to a feed and are notified in your feed reader when the feed is updated. If you aggregator supports enclosures, it can automatically download the mp3 files for you. It’s quite cool when you get used to it and if you have a suitable mp3 player. I regularly listen to podcasts nowadays, and I really love the **[IT Conversations](http://itconversations.com)** podcasts. Listen to the [Dean Karnazes](http://itconversations.com/shows/detail506.html) podcast about the BadWater Ultramarathon. It’s definitely an eye-opener and very inspiring. Yes, it’s not about IT, but still interesting. Go to [PodcastAlley](www.podcastalley.com) if you want to find some interesting feeds to listen to.