Back to the Remaining Half of Task 5 & Task 6

OK, I tried to listen to one of the French lessons by podcast. Unfortunately, dial-up is such a slow connection that if I try to download the podcast in mp3 format, the pop-up download info says it will take an hour. If I try to listen to it from the Internet without downloading, then the speaker's voice is interrupted every few seconds while the computer is "fetching" more information from the server ("buffering"). ANNOYING! So much for that idea for now. I did listen long enough to know that I can do it, but that's all I could stand.

I had a similar problem with task 6. I can't watch a video without pauses interrupting continuously. On my break at work, the pictures streamed in, but without speakers and headphones, there was no sound. Another problem: I find a lot of the videos on YouTube crude and offensive (even just the titles), so I'll put the panda one on my blog too despite the lack of originality. At least it will be good practice.

Conclusion: Technology is not for the poor.

Half Finished Task 5

I found the feeds for some podcasts and added them to Bloglines so that they show up in the sidebar on my blog. All three of the ones I chose were French lessons. I'd like to learn the basics of French pronunciation and a simple vocabulary so I can understand phrases I come across in my reading. However, I haven't listened to any of the podcasts yet via Windows Media; that will be the real test!!!

I didn't know that podcasts were available to people without iPods. That's pretty nifty.