On air

Have you got an MP3 player yet? Are you struggling to fill its endless gigabytes of memory with Artic Monkeys, or the Ring Cycle, or whatever tickles your aural fancy? Have you thought of putting some of that memory space to better use? If you join the merry world of podcasting you'll be able to update yourself on all sorts of things while you are driving, stuck on a train, or relaxing in the bath.

Since I last mentioned podcasting on this blog I've come across the Guardian's podcasts. They vary in length from under 5 minutes to almost an hour. As well as keeping up with the latest UK and foreign news, politics and sport, you can listen to items on science and technology or life style. One of today's life style offerings looks at the current fad for drinking bottled water and asks if there is any real benefit. If the Guardian isn't your cup of tea then the Times has podcasts on sport, music and arts. The Telegraph podcasts page offers business and arts stories, and a link to a page of videos.

BBC radio continues to offer a range of general interest podcasts, along with help on getting started.

Podcast.net is an online directory of podcasts. The science and nature/medicine listing currently has over 200 entries. A quick glance down the list shows the range and scope - podcasts for medical students on useful themes with added music (the breast cancer item has music from the film Titanic, apparently), FAQs on travel and blood clots from the Vascular Disease Foundation and an update on flu.

My main quibble with this site is that when I tested it today it was painfully slow, and gave up the ghost totally at one point.

Podcastdirectory.com has podcasts from the (American) National Institutes of Health and there is a wide range of podcasts on PodcastBlaster, where the science and medicine subsection looks more useful than the health section, which appears to be devoted to fitness and dieting. The site also offers a history of podcasting and tells you how to create your own podcasts.

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Bookmarks

Bookmarking is a way of making a quick link so you can find a website again without having to remember the URL or Google for it every time you want it.

When you are in Internet Explorer, for example, there is an option to bookmark a site or "add to favourites". If you bookmark lots of sites then you can subdivide your list of favourites into folders.

This is fine until you find yourself at another PC - because you are in the library, or at home, or in an Internet cafe. At that point your bookmark is stuck there on another PC and you have to Google for the website you want.

One solution is social bookmarks. This is a way of using (usually) free software to make bookmarks that are then stored on the Internet, rather than on a specific PC. That means you can access them wherever you happen to be. It also means you can share them with your friends or colleagues.

Online bookmarks can also be subdivided, although you use "tags" - descriptive labels - rather than folders. You can look at other websites that other users have tagged with tags you use to see if you can discover more sites of interest. You can also put a gadget on your toolbar that you can bookmark sites you visit in one click.

The library website uses one of these social bookmarking systems - del.icio.us - to make up a set of quick links. I just set up a link once to each page of tags and I can change the bookmarks on the pages as often as I like without having to update the library website each time. You'll find more social bookmarking facilities listed on Phil Bradley's very handy website.

Gadget users are a fickle lot, and I've got bored with del.icio.us. I forget to go and look for the things I've put on there, I forget to update. I'm now adding bookmarks to my iGoogle page. That means they are to hand whenever I'm on the Internet and I don't have to remember an extra password. I can organise them using labels and I can add a site fairly quickly to my bookmarks. As I'm starting from scratch again I don't have many bookmarks. I have yet to find a gadget that stops me bookmarking so many things that it starts being quicker to Google for a site than trawl through all my bookmarks....

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Blogroll

Suddenly there are a number of issues I'd like to post about. Rather than blather on at length about all three here's a quick posting on other places to visit in the blogosphere.

The Lancet has a blog looking at a range of health issues, from online early release of papers to press conferences. (Did you know - a listing on a blog of other recommended blogs is known as a blogroll.)

Blogs I've previously mentioned here are the Food Standards Agency blog and Ben Goldacre's entertaining and though provoking Bad Science blog. Intute has a health and life sciences blog and the BMJ has a rash of bloggers.

Blogs are online journals, diaries, ramblings, rantings and ravings. They might amuse, annoy, inform or mislead. One way to keep track of a number of different blogs is to subscribe to an RSS feed from the blog, where available. You can then set up a feed reader, such as Google Reader, subscribe through Internet Explorer if you have version 7.0, or use iGoogle and keep everything on your internet home page.

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Listen up!

Where do you find time to keep up to date? It's true, you can read journals in bed, in the bath or on a train, but they are no good if you are driving or jogging. Unless you buy your own copy of the journal you'll find you are stuck with reading it in the library, and even online access ties you to your desk and PC.

One of the answers is to listen to podcasts. These are mini broadcasts on the internet that you can listen to online or using an MP3 player. You'll normally have to subscribe, register or pay to access podcasts. Listening online still ties you to your desk - it's the ability to takeaway podcasts on your MP3 player that really frees you to listen anywhere and everywhere.

Johns Hopkins University has medicine podcasts on its site. They are aimed at the general public, but don't let that put you off. The offerings for week of 23rd November included the effect of obesity on PSA readings, the benefit of pedometers and ultrasound in the diagnosis of ovarian mass.

The New England Journal of Medicine is an old hand at this technology. It offers a range or podcasts and videos. Each week there is an audio summary of the journal, as well as interviews and other material.

Closer to home Dr Mark Porter's splendid Casenotes programme on BBC radio 4 is available in podcast form.

While researching this post I came across MyMedicalPodcasts This looks quite new, and there doesn't seem to be much on it at present. The contributors and editorial board are doctors based at London hospitals.

Finally, Powys Local Health Board (part of the NHS in Wales) has links to health podcasts on its website.

Google for medical podcasts and see what you find. However, as with anything on the net, don't forget to ask where the information is coming from and what bias it may contain. Anyone with some basic kit can create a podcast, and stick it on a website, calling themselves Doctor Whoever and claiming to be a leading consultant somewhere or other. Be as cautious with podcasts as you would with any other piece of information you find on the internet.

If you're curious about podcasting the BBC has some basic information. If you don't have an MP3 player there is still plenty of time to start dropping hints to Father Christmas.

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