First, save a spot on your calendar for this month’s MMOOS (Maine Macintosh Owners & Operators Society) meeting. We’ll gather next Tuesday, October 16th, at 6:30 PM, in Bldg. 25 at Thornton Oaks Retirement Community in Brunswick. See our web site at mmoos.net for directions.

This month we’re focusing on podcasts. Podcasts (merging the words “iPod” and “broadcast”) are video and audio presentations that are available via the internet. Podcasts can inform, entertain, instruct, and amuse, and run the gamut from National Geographic to National Public Radio to The Economist. Next week we’ll look at some of our favorite representative podcasts, and learn how and where to find and manage them. We’ll discover that you don’t need a “pod” of any kind to enjoy podcasts – you even watch them on our TV. Should be fun – hope to see you there.

In other pod-related news, we here at the MacMaineiac are mourning the passing this last week of one of our favorite tech toys. Sadly, despite its obvious enormous popularity, the brown (yes, it’s the color of what you’re thinking) Zune is no more. It’s now black, and sports an 80 GB hard drive. The price is $249, same as the 80 GB iPod “classic”.

Besides the larger hard drive, the new Zune expands its wireless capabilities. Well, sort of. The old Zune could “squirt” (I didn’t make up this term – Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, actually used it) music to another Zune. The new Zune can communicate wirelessly and squirt music, video, and photos back-and-forth with your PC and the new Zune software as well, but only if it’s plugged in. Yes, you heard it right. Wireless, but only if it’s plugged in. I guess it depends on what your definition of “wireless” is. Your potential. Our passion. Right.

Microsoft also expanded the Zune line to include a flash RAM based model. In typical Microsoft fashion, the new flash Zune is basically a heavier, fatter, less attractive version of the iPod nano that Apple just replaced with a lighter, slimmer, more beautiful and capable iPod nano. The new flash Zunes come in two “sizes” – 4 GB of memory for $149, and 8 GB for $199 (same prices as the new iPod nano, of course). Four colors are available: red, black, pink, and a shade of green that, well, looks like baby poop.