Recently, a very good friend of mine (@richieclarkie) decided to return to the IT industry after a 15 year absence.

Clearly a 15 year hiatus, is significant in any industry, but especially pertaining to IT, it is arguably exceptional.

Whilst there will always be some core fundamentals to the IT industry, in truth, he is in many ways, starting over.  However, I’m happy to report, he is extremely energised and keen to get back into a more ‘operations’ driving seat.

Knowing I have a near obsessive interest in listening to technical podcasts, he asked me for some suggestions; hence this blog post.

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The New Age Of Education

We live in a time where there is a wealth of educational information, freely available online. Whether using one of the more formal teaching platforms like Codecademy or Khan Academy, or just tuning into one of the many excellent and often extremely professional podcasts available, these resources can at the very least, be a huge compliment to formal education - some could even argue a replacement!

Whatever your opinion, it’s difficult to disagree with the fact that some of these resources, are unbelievably useful for keeping up to speed with this frantically evolving world, we call ‘IT’.

Podcatcher Of Choice

There are many systems available for listening to podcasts, but my current personal ‘podcatcher of choice’ is the excellent Pocket Casts app.

I often have the podcast playback speeded up 1.3 times – the app is clever enough to not raise the pitch, yet enables me to get through shows a little quicker.

Also, a lot of podcasts have adverts - pressing the forward button on the Pocket Casts app, quickly advances the podcast by 30 seconds – very handy!

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Podcast List

Below is a list of the more ’technical’ podcasts that I listen to on a regular basis (at the time of writing), along with a brief description and personal opinion.

• Hanselminutes – General technical content, but primarily web development - this is my top choice - I haven’t missed an episode in about 4 years!
• DotNet Rocks - General technical content, but primarily web development - this is probably my next favourite - I dip into these - listen to a couple a week.
• RunAs Radio – General operations & sys admin content - I dip into these - probably listen to one every few weeks.
• Shoptalk Show - All front end web development (CSS, JavaScript etc) - I listen to this each week.
• Coding Blocks - All development (really good, but quite advanced) - I listen to this as and when they release.
• BBC Click - General technical content - I dip into this if the title looks interesting.
• Herding Code – General coding content - I listen to this as and when they release.
• Software Engineering Radio - All programming content - I listen to this occasionally – in truth, it can be quite dry, but often contains a few gems!
• JavaScript Jabber – JavaScript panel discussion - I listen to this every week.
• Adventures in Angular - AngularJS (JavaScript) panel discussion - I listen to this every week.

There are numerous other podcasts that I sample on occasion, ranging from the Defensive Security podcast to the CodeNewbie podcast, but I listen to these less frequently.

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…A Little Extra!

It’s probably worth mentioning that I also subscribe to the below weekly newsletters, which again, I can highly recommend.

• HTML5 Weekly
• JavaScript Weekly
• Web Tools Weekly
• Web Operations Weekly

Hopefully, you may just spot something of interest in this blog post!