Buzz Out Loud Lounge forum: After years of listening I must say goodbye

I fully understand your viewpoint. I think you have two things going on here. Part of the problem with the inaccuracies and ill-preparedness you perceive has to do with the topicality of the show. If news breaks, they feel they need to cover it. The problem is that they're not necessarily fully versed on the nuances or ramifications of particular topics, or even that well informed on a particular area at all. Hey, no one knows everything. But on those occasions, bring in an expert to lay it out, and hopefully one without a bias. Or, be upfront and refer to the news, but tell the audience you want to analyze what's going on before simply regurgitating views of other tech geeks with a blog. Definitely don't try to fake your way through it. There's no excuse for deciding to cover a topic that no one has really done their homework on.

To wit: I was listening to a recent episode of "The Real Deal" with Tom and Rafe. They've adopted this new format where they take live calls and try to answer emails on tech topics, some of which are tech hardware/software questions. I cringe sometimes when I hear the advice given, such as one of them suggesting the use of a hub to extend a network vs. a much smarter choice of using a switch. I'm sitting there shaking my head wondering why they are doing this when their expertise doesn't really fall into that area. Again, play to your strengths. By way of contrast, they recently had one of the originators of the mp3 format on, and that was very enlightening (to the extent that I could understand his German accent, lol).

As far as the topics not being relevant, that's simply a matter of the choices you've made. The old saw attributed to bank robber Willie Sutton applies: When asked why he robbed banks, he's purported to have said "cuz that's where the money's at". They're going to talk about topics that concern the greatest numbers of listeners. For all the benefits of Linux, it's (knowing that "it's" is a misnomer) still a very niche OS in the mainstream world, Ubuntu or no Ubuntu. Same for a lot of open source software.

I'll take your point that ethernet hubs are getting harder to find, but while they may both perform the same function in adding ports to the network, switches do so intelligently --directing traffic to specific ports while hubs simply broadcast/repeat traffic to every device. Hubs generally work in half-duplex mode while switches generally operate in full duplex mode.

Now, in a small home network, is a hub vs. switch going to make that much of a difference? Maybe not. But that's not the point. The point is that if some non-tech-savvy person writes in with a question about how to add additional ports to their network because all of the router outputs are used up, one would expect that the tech person would direct them to search online for the most appropriate device. In the year 2010, a hub isn't that device. Note that the other host of the podcast correctly used switch vs. hub without drawing further attention to it.

And this is just one of the examples I've heard. On another listener question, one host simply said "I'm out of my league on that one. I don't know anything about it". That's laudable for candor, but makes one wonder what the exercise is all about. My point is not to disparage the hosts, but to say that they should play to their strengths in presenting a podcast. Answering tech hardware questions off the cuff in a live phone call or an email that hasn't been researched is a recipe for misinformation, and that doesn't reflect well on anybody.

I think I can relate to your issues for I tuned you out after about your third or forth sentence. Your viewpoint would have been more enjoyable if you added the "it's not you, it's me" phrase.

That is your opinion bye bye

Unfortunately I dig what he's saying, at least part of it. Buzz could be better if it once again focused the voice and emails on callers that leave accurate "well actually" voice mails.

I love hearing the corrections, but the problem is that we're hearing fewer "well actually" voice mails, and more cute personality driven voice mails (which are not the show's strong point).

Leave the cute voice mails to John Tesh, and give us informative researched "well actually" voice mails. I say well researched because many of the "well actually" voice mails played recently have been incorrect and the well actually callers are not taken to task.

I listen to learn and to be entertained, in that order. Tim maybe feels the same way.

(Still) love the show.

Time is limited and I find myself turning to BOL less and less these days. There are *many* ways to get the tech news, but *few* ways to get opinions I trust (or can calibrate, at least). As BOL moves toward reporting and away from their strength (interpreting/analyzing), I find less value in listening. No criticism, but I do think that BOL is deemphasizing their real strengths. For me, that creates a weaker value proposition and I'm naturally migrating to other activities.

First off, I can at least comprehend what you all are writing- I've been listening since day 1, and the podcast has definitely morphed over the years- but I feel as if your opinions are based on a false assumption of what BOL is as a podcast.

Buzz Out Loud: "Each episode, five times a week, the crew analyzes, interprets, and argues about what all this technology means and what it's doing to us."

What I don't see on the page is: "Each episode, five times a week, the crew reports the tech news of the day, no bull, no bs."

You can call me nit-picky but you can't be mad when you buy a prius and then you can't tow your boat with it. Buzz Out Loud is fun, light, and gossipy (BUZZ). You get news but its more an EDITORIAL from some big tech personalities. the end.

If you are looking for the news, perhaps you should look here:
http://news.cnet.com/daily-podcast/
C|Net News.com's Daily Podcast.

Hopefully this helps clear things up for you guys.

-Dr. Karl