Going Vogue

As a high-tech web kind of guy, you might suppose that I was down with all the latest gadgets. For example, if you saw me pacing in the hall, waving my hands and apparently ranting into the air, you might think I was having a lively discussion over the blue-tooth headset tucked into my other ear. But no, sometimes I just go off like that. In fact, I use the cell phone in my pocket more often as a worry-stone than as a communications device, and I'd be just as happy if it had a rotary dial and plugged into the wall. I text frequently--but I do it at my desk with an extended keyboard. It's called email, I believe.

Nine years after the introduction of the iPod, and five years after I started podcasting NCPR programs and stories, my first personal iPod was under the Christmas tree this year. What finally put me over the edge was the latest feature they built into it--an fm radio. I sure have missed my old Panasonic pocket transistor from the '60s. In honor of that antique mobile device, I have loaded my iPod Nano up with Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna, the Beatles, the Byrds and Bob Dylan.

But time does move on, and even if I don't adjust too nimbly myself, the rest of the world is going mobile. NCPR needs to go along for the ride. This week, we finally worked out most of the kinks to get NCPR's broadcast stream, newscast and podcast news audio onto the NPR mobile platform, which makes it available to users of iPhones, Nokia phones, Android and other mobile computing devices. If you are so en vogue as to possess one, you can find us in your mobile device browser at this address: http://m.npr.org/stations/show/WSLU