I've Finally Joined the Zero's (as in 2000's)... My first "Drive to Work Podcast Listening Session"

I think I have to turn in my geek cred's... 

My drive into work today was the first time I've listened to a podcast (DotNetRocks #304 with Kathleen Dollard) via a MP3 player.

Yes, I've finally joined the podcast generation. Call me Mr. Geek!  LOL

All in all it was pretty painless and very cool.

Subscribing to Podcasts via the Zune Marketplace is easy (too easy? I have hours and hours now on my Zune to listen too now... :/ ).

Also I really dig how easy it is to subscribe to podcast feeds not on the Marketplace. I've "subscribed" to a number of free college courses available via audio feeds/podcast (from Yale, Stanford, UCLA and a couple more). Once you plug in the URL, the Zune software treats it just like any other Marketplace podcast...

In the car it took a bit to find the right FM frequency and due to the length of my drive, I had to play the "Pick a FM Freq" a couple times... But that's really just a one time game. Now that I have the freq's I should be good.

One improvement I'd like too see on the Zune is user configurable forward/back jump intervals. It seems that the podcast forward/back jump is 15 minutes? I'd like to be able to change that so for podcasts forward is 5 minutes...

I accidentally hit the forward jump about 26 minutes into a podcast. I then hit the back jump which took me to back to 15 minutes into the cast. So I had to listen to 11 minutes that I'd already listened to just so I could "catch up."

 

All in all I'm a very happy camper. I'm SO sold...

 

Update #1 1/11/2007 @ 6:30AM PST:

I am such a Zune nub. I realized yesterday that if you press and hold the forward or back you will fast forward or rewind and can avoid jumping/skipping. Sigh... I hate being a nub (aka noob, newbee, etc)

So in the above podcast listening case, I could have jumped back to 15 minutes in and then just fast forwarded to where I was previously.

BUT my feature request is still valid. It's hard enough driving here in LA, I don't need to be watching the road AND fast forwarding my Zune... A user definable skip interval is still something I'd really like to see.