This week on Zune Insider Jessica and Matt had Dave McLauchlan on as a guest. Dave does business development for Zune- basically working out deals with accessory, connectivity, and other partners for not just the device but the entire Zune ecosystem. One of the more interesting stories to me is that he works with car companies and aftermarket head unit manufactures to bring Zune connectivity where the iPod has historically been the only compatible player in the automotive space.

Though, some of you may know Dave from our forums kicking off one of the longest running debate threads starting back in 2006: MTP vs MSC. He now hangs out in the Zune HD forum and does his best to answer what he can pre-launch.

The Scif Fi Guys is a British podcast which covers everything that has to do with Science Fiction and cult TV and movies. Host Stuart Claw and co-host Matt Dillion talks for a couple of hours each week about the latest happenings within those fields and each week there's also an interview with an actor from a popular series. Examples this year are Jack Coleman from Heroes ( plays Noah Bennet) and Colin Ferguson from Eureka (plays Sheriff Carter). The podcast operates with seasons just as TV shows do, and have just recently begun season 3.

This was one of the first podcast I ever started listening to, back when the number of podcasts I subscribed to could be counted on one hand. It remains one of my favorites and now that season 3 is starting it was an easy choice for featured podcast. The podcast is really a must for any Sci Fi or general TV fan out there. Great discussions and great interviews.

Peter Rojas and Ryan Block, also known as the guys behind Engadget and Gizmodo, are currently working on a new website at www.gdgt.com. Instead of having a website with a podcast, these guys now have a podcast with a website in progress. The podcast is a weekly gadget show featuring the two talking about the latest news and happenings in the gadget world. Each show is roughly an hour, available in MP3 and AAC as well as dedicated iTunes and Zune Marketplace links.

While a lot of people argue that Engadget and Gizmodo has lost their mojo in the later years, I urge people not to let that affect how you look at this podcast and the new site. These two know what they are talking about and personally I like the gdgt podcast a lot better than the Engadget one which I've featured on here before. It's a great show and well worth a listen.

Everyone knows Engadget, but what some might not know is that their once abandoned podcast just started up again last year. Joshua Topolsky, Paul Miller, Nilay Patel discuss the latest gadget news and happenings in a ~1 hour show each week.

Their sister site Engadget Mobile also has their own podcast where Chris Ziegler and Sean Cooper focus on the mobile side of technology. Might be a bit too much mobile phone talk if you also listen to the Cell Phone Junkie we wrote about a while back, but if not this one is also worth a listen.

Another Revision3 podcast like last week's Tekzilla, Systm is all about the DIY aspect of technology. Patrick Norton (also hosting Tekzilla) and David Calkins - sometimes with guest hosts like Roger Chang - show you everything from how to set up a home server to how to make your own MP3 player accessories. We mentioned their CMOY amp episode in December and a few episodes ago they showed how to make portable USB batteries for your gadgets. Worth the watch if you have a DIYer in you.

As with Tekzilla, this is also a video podcast and not all players will play them directly. Sony players, the Zune and other h.264 compatible players can use the "small quicktime" files on the site, and other bigger PMPs such as the Cowon A3 are able to play back larger resolution versions of the show.Other players will require that you either watch them on the computer or convert them to a supported format.

Tekzilla is one of many shows done by Revision3, an Internet based "TV channel" that uses video podcasts for distribution. Tekzilla is a weekly show of about 30 minutes covering everything in tech. Instead of news like a lot of podcasts focus on, Tekzilla is based off listener questions and the topics therefor vary a lot, from PC issues to media players. The hosts are Patrick Norton and Veronica Belmont.

Being a video podcast, not all players can play the files directly. Sony players, the Zune and other h.264 compatible players can use the "small quicktime" files on the site, and other bigger PMPs such as the Cowon A3 are able to play back larger resolution versions of the show.

Technically Darker Projects isn't a podcast in itself, but rather a group that produce audio theatre in podcast form. The concept is like audio books, but every character has it's own actor and the quality and mood it creates far outmatches anything you can get from a regular audio book. The series' they do are produced by themselves based off either original content, famous TV series' or books.

Most of the series are either fantasy or science fiction based so some interest in these genres is required. The episodes are released rather slow, with everything from a month to a year in between each episode. While this is a result of the project being a hobby for everyone involved, it does make the listener experience a bit choppy as you forgot what happened the last time by the time the new episode of a series is out. There are however many older series (now finished) that have a full range of episodes that can be listened to start to end. Well worth checking out if you're into audio books and the genres mentioned.

More and more people start moving toward convergence devices such as cellphones for their media needs, email, webbrowsing on the run and so on. With an average of 27392 new models of phones coming to the market every week, it can be very difficult to keep track of what's hot and what's not.

The Cell Phone Junkie is more or less the only show you need for you cellphone needs, covering all the platforms with a focus on smartphones. On top of news there are listener questions and general discussion about the cell phone world and the newly added TCPJ Unlocked side-podcast supplements this with specialized shows for various topics. Great show with two very informed gentlemen at the helm and well worth a listen for anyone that has a cellphone or plan to get one.

As I've said before, getting a MP3 player is only half the battle - the other half is getting content. Music is of course the main use for any player but there are other alternatives, like audio books and podcasts. In this new article series I'll be presenting a podcast every article which I find to be worthy of a mention. It's often difficult to navigate the jungle of podcasts out there, with some podcasts not being in production anymore, others being recently abandoned and so on. First off is my personal favorite, Mobile Tech Roundup.

Mobile Tech Roundup is a podcast done on a "random-weekly" basis (meaning normally every week but no specific schedule) by James Kendrick and Kevin Tofel from jkOnTheRun and Matt Miller from ZDNet. The content of the podcast is naturally mobile tech, be it laptops and cell phones or MP3 players. They discuss the news, new products and other related topics and each show last about 35 minutes. It's a nice way to keep up with the latest in tech and they also review a lot of products which they talk about on the show. Check out the show on the official site.

As a huge podcast fan I find Revision 3 to be God's gift to podcast users. For those that don't know, Revision 3 is basically a TV channel based on podcasts, with weekly high quality video podcasts covering a lot of things. Tekzilla is the most known one for tech users such as ourselves, but they also have several other shows - including Systm.

Systm is a show that covers DIY. They've had episodes on everything from waterproofing thumbdrives with epoxy to scanning objects in 3D with a laser pointer. The newest episode however features something much closer to home for us on ABi - how to build a CMOY amp. CMOYs are basically the cheapest, easiest DIY headphone amps you can make and for those of you in a country with radio shack stores it should be a very nice first project for anyone that wants to go into DIY. Hit the link below to watch it being done on Systm.

[Systm Episode 81 - Soldering Your Own Headphone Amp]

I'm now 5 weeks into my summer job and being in a job that allows for using an MP3 player I have been searching around for stuff to listen to the last few weeks. Music is all good and well, but when it's 6 hours a day 6 days a week you do get tired of your "favorites" playlist rather quickly.

My way of thinking has always been to happily pay for something as long as it's a reasonable fee for something I can actually use. 10 years after the first MP3 players reeked havoc in the music industry one would think that there's been some steps made in the right direction when it comes to legal content for our beloved players, but has it really or are we still more or less left to illegal downloading if we want the good stuff? Read on for a look at what's available in the realms of legal content now in 2008.

Podcasts are available in ridiculous quantities around the net ranging from tech news to transsexual talk shows and everything in between. Podcast downloaders have been around for a while in software form like iTunes and Juice, but the first one requires actually using iTunes and the second failed rather epically when I tried it as it didn't even detect any MP3 files in the RSS feed I gave it. Software downloaders of course also reuires the computer to be on and the player to be connected and it's not really that automatic if you still need to fulfill those criteria.

The CastGrabber is the first standalone podcast downloader for pretty much any MP3 player on the market and it might just make it that much simpler to get updated podcasts automatically. Its basically a box where you plug in an Ethernet cable and the USB cable of your MP3 player and it will do it's thing without further hassle after the initial setup along with charging the player. It's all very easy and according to the website you manage everything online with no complicated processes whatsoever. It all sounds well and good, but there is very crucial (for many, including me) feature missing - WiFi. Since you can only connect with an Ethernet cable, that means that it simply won't work unless you place it directly beside your router. I'd imagine a lot of people would use this at work, on the nightstand or similar places and that's not exactly the most common place to put a router. Either way, nice piece of hardware that might just be worth the $120.

[CastGrabber Home Page]

Having used a Cowon D2 for over a year I must admit that I was losing hope in the manufacturers' ability to make useful firmware updates that actually fix stuff and add useful features instead of breaking what's already there and adding "scicntific" calculators. Luckily it's not just Samsung that knows how to do firmware and the latest update to the Sansa Clip shows that there is still hope if a player doesn't have everything you want at release. Read on to find out what's new in 1.01.29

I ran into this podcast today called “What You Ought To Know” that features an video short of a particular topic. In the latest episode on MP3 player abi>> gets a really nice nod. What You Ought To Know Guy (sorry I didn’t get your name) says, “So if you want to get your hands on your own MP3 player we recommend searching two sites… ‘cause you really only have two choices: apple.com/ipod or anythingbutipod.com. That pretty much covers all the bases.”

Watching a few of the other episodes I do detect a little iPod/Mac bias, but you can’t ignore the fact that it is a great podcast- informative and witty. One complaint though guys. I went to add your podcast feed to my Zune but it is not compatible. Could you maybe make a feed for the “everything else” crowd? No, you don’t necessarily have to cross over and go WMV (although that would be great and cover more of the “everything else”), but how about doing three qualities of QuickTime like Diggnation does? The 320x180 m4v would be drag and drop compatible with Sony Walkman/PSP and Zune Players. So what do you say? Can the 20% of us get your quick witted tidbits of knowledge?

[What You Ought To Know on MP3 Players]

Update: Zune compatibility added [1-click].