What are you listening to?

A friend of mine, Jeremiah Owyang , wrote an article yesterday titled "Is podcasting an ambient medium? ", which is exactly how I use it.  I listen to podcasts while mowing the lawn, while driving to work and while typing away at the computer all day.  I use podcast as a way to fill in some of the 'dead time' I'd otherwise have during my day.  I also use it as a way of gaining insight into how other people see the world, mainly in the security world, but also to bring me new views on other aspects of computing.  I've learned a lot from podcasts over the last few months and I feel it's helped me grow professionally.

Here are a few of the many podcasts I listen to:

• Security Now  by Leo Laport and Steve Gibson - I've listened to Leo since his early Screen Savers days, and I've read Steve's GRC site for several years now.  One of these days I'm actually going to make it to a TWiT recording session, if they ever have another live show.
• Security Catalyst  by Michael Santarcangelo - Michael is a lead instructor for the CISSP exam and understands the balancing act between the needs of security and the need to continue doing business
• The Gillmor Gang  - This group of A-list bloggers and podcasters is led (can chaos be led?) by Steve Gillmor and includes people like Doc Searls and Jon Udell.  They can get a little far afield sometimes, but if you're concerned with privacy, this is a good podcast to listen to.
• Geek News Central by Todd Cochrane -  This was the first podcast I started listening to regularly.  Todd is also the author of 'Podcasting: The Do-It-Yourself Guide'.  One of my favorite non-security podcast, though Todd keeps abreast of the major security issues.
• In the Trenches  by Kevin Devin and George Starcher - Aimed at the Systems Administrators out there, there's also a heavy component of security in this podcast.  (What I'm listening to as I write this)
• Technorama  by Chuck Tomasi and Kreg Steppe - These guys I listen to for entertainment value.  Okay, it's geek entertainment, but to me it's funny.
• And a couple I just recently discovered:  PauldotCom (Paul is a deep security geek), and the Sploitcast for the really technical discussions.

Last, but not least, some shameless self-promotion:  I have my own podcast, the Network Security Podcast.   I believe podcasting is now where blogging was about two years ago; people know about it, but no one's figured out exactly what to do with it yet.  On the other hand, people are figuring out podcasting much faster than they figured out blogging.  I expect podcasting to pass blogging in popularity some time this year.

What do you listen to and why?  Do you listen for entertainment or education?  Do you concentrate on the podcast or do you work on other projects at the same time?  If you haven't discovered podcasting yet, what are you waiting for?  And if you get bitten by the podcast bug, drop me a link at martin_cw@mckeay.net.