It’s great to hear that Don McAllister is quitting his job at a corporate IT firm to focus on ScreenCastsOnline and his new EuroMac Podcast full time.

ScreenCastsOnline is an innovative video podcast that shows you how to use your Mac to its full potential. Each week Don guides you through something new, whether it’s using RapidWeaver or how to get the best out of .Mac, and you can watch how it’s done on your screen or iPod.

Don has found that it takes a lot of hard work to create and maintain the show and that if he wants to take it to the next level and have any kind of work/life balance, he needs to do it full time. I fully understand!

To achieve this Don is now adding Extra! subscriptions that provide exclusive premium content, the ScreenCastsOnline DVD, high definition versions, ad-free shows, monthly newsletters and much more. Check it all out at ScreenCastsOnline.

Best wishes and congratulations to Don for making the jump!

Update: Great to hear Don on DSC #359 and Adam being so encouraging about Don’s plans.

So what’s more significant – that “podcast” has been declared 2005 Word of the Year by the New Oxford American Dictionary, or that Ricky Gervais has started podcasting?

“Podcast” is certainly my word of the year, since it has kept me in food and cigarettes, but I still have to explain it to anyone foolish enough to ask.

However, for the wider world of podcasting, at least from a UK perspective, having Ricky Gervais podcasting is going to attract a lot more attention (with any luck, anyway). I’ve yet to listen to his show, so I’ll check it out later. I’ve heard mixed reports.

I look forward to the day when I don’t have to explain podcasting. But my mother understands it. Sort of.

I get a great mention on the 11.16.2005 MacCast about 5 minutes in. I met Adam Christianson at the Podcast Expo and it’s funny because he says he was thrilled to meet me! Well, I was thrilled to meet him – and it was cool that it came about quite by coincidence. That’s the problem with podcasting, unless podcasters have been snapped for magazine articles or get on TV (like Dawn and Drew) you don’t really know what anybody looks like. I expected Adam to look, I don’t know, more like a geek! He’s a really great guy and we talked for ages. Anyway, listen to that whole show and it sounds like Adam met just about everyone!

Also, I’ve mentioned that I met Adam Curry (that other Adam, yeah) at the Expo and told him that I flew with Virgin Atlantic for the first time, because the Gate Gourmet strikes were crippling British Airways at the time and he was raving about Virgin Atlantic on his show, so I decided to check them out. He asked for some audio feedback, so I sent that in and you can hear it on DSC #281.

I actually recorded two versions (OK, twenty-two) and I was hoping Adam would be able to use the better, second version that I posted where I didn’t “um” so much, but he didn’t – and the audio fucked-up on his show too, but that wasn’t my problem. This audio business is hard, especially when, like me, you talk about as badly as you type but have no delete key – you podcasters are welcome to it!

I also get a mention on The.Point No. 43 – no surprises that I met Paul Figgiani as I was originally set to do a Feeder demo during his session (but I decided not to). Sounds like Paul met some very interesting people too.

Someone I actually didn’t get to meet was Leo Laporte, despite wanting to and despite Leo wanting to meet me. He and Adam Christianson mentioned Feeder on Leo’s KFI Show #195, which was broadcast live from the Expo.

So there you go – famous at last! 😉