I've decided to break my rule of 1 blog post every 2 months and post 2 blog entries in 1 day.  You get a bonus today, don't spend it all in one place!

As I've mentioned in an earlier post, I moved to Keller, TX about a year ago.  It's a fast growing suburb north of Fort Worth and was ranked by Money Magazine as the top 50th place to live in America for 2007.  While I enjoy my new home and the area and I think it's a great place to raise my son, it's pretty much in the middle of nowhere.  My commute stinks (someone needs to expand 820 between 183 and 35 please!) and typically runs anywhere from 35 minutes on a good day to over an hour on bad days. 

At first I was getting by listening to local sports radio but then I thought of all that wasted time I could be using to improve my skills and expand my knowledge.  I'm a huge fan of continuous improvement and being a student of your chosen craft, so I decided to start listening to relevant podcasts on my commute instead of listening for the nth time why the Pacman Jones signing was the devil's pact or how Avery Johnson gave a thumbs up/thumbs down/thumbs sideways on the Jason Kidd trade.

So I looked at what available podcasts were out there for general programming, .NET development, and agile practices and here's my list below.  If you know of any other that I may have overlooked, by all means leave a comment with your suggested listenings.

1. Hanselminutes - A weekly talk show with Scott Hanselman that goes over not just .NET topics but also other random geeky subjects.  This is probably my favorite podcast right now and even his non programming shows are really interesting.  I loved his "making the impossible possible" show and how the guest stated that you have a short 6 year window to get your kids passionate enough about science to pursue it further before peer pressure and interest in the opposite sex kicks in.  I'm already making plans for what to do with my son during that window ;)
   
2. .NET Rocks! - Another weekly show that focuses on the .NET stack
   
3. Polymorphic Podcast - Focuses on the .NET stack
   
4. Alt.NET Podcast - I'm a huge fan of the Alt.NET movement and actually just listened to the first podcast yesterday during my drive home.  Their first podcast really drove home the need for developers to have a passion for what they do and to continuously improve.
   
5. ASP.NET Podcast - Geared towards the Microsoft .NET Framework and ASP.NET, I haven't listened to this one as much yet.
   
6. Radio TFS - Podcast dedicated to Team System, I haven't listened to any episodes yet so can't really give an opinion.
   
7. Software Engineering Radio - This one isn't .NET specific but still interesting nevertheless
   
8. stackoverflow - This one is pretty interesting. stackoverflow.com is the brainchild of Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror fame and Joel Spolsky of Joel on Software fame.  They're starting a website for developers by developers that aims to be the definitive resource for technical help.  The podcast kinda chronicles their journey.  I've only listened to the first show so far and it's like listening to a really cohesive and tight knit programming team discussing topics during lunch.   (An interesting side note: If you go to Joel's website and look at that image of the Manhattan skyline, I actually lived in the 2nd tall red building right above the "S" in Software during most of my childhood years.  275 Cherry Street, Apt. 21G baby!  And now back to your regularly scheduled bonus blog...)
   
9. The Thirsty Developer - Another .NET oriented podcast with some interesting topics
   
10. ThoughtWorks - IT Matters Podcast - ThoughtWorks is a highly respected consulting company and their podcast covers a variety of topics and is not .NET specific.  Any company that Martin Fowler deems ok to work for is ok in my book :)
    
11. Agile Toolkit Podcast - Podcast focusing on agile development practices, some good topics
12. Ajaxian Podcast - (Added 6/27/2008) Podcast from my favorite Ajax focused site, I have yet to listen to any episodes, I'll give my review after a few episodes.
13. Herding Code - (Added 7/28/2008) Started listening to this one recently, it's a round table discussion of .NET topics.  There's some awkward parts where people just ramble or there's complete silence, but for the most part it's a good listen.

Wow, that's quite a list.  I didn't even realize I've been following 11 podcasts, no wonder it seems like I can never get caught up on episodes.  Remember to leave a comment on any you recommend!  I'll update my post as I run into new and interesting podcasts.