After three years living in San Jose, I was proven wrong on my assumption that it was impossible to commute in San Jose using public transportation. After careful examination of VTA time tables, and several trial and error attempts, I am now commuting to work, having found some good things about commuting:

• usually it takes me 40 mins door-to-door. Not too bad, considering that the driving time was something between 15-30 minutes, depending on the luck with the 21! traffic lights between home and work (other than that, the drive was a monotonous 9 miles straight, right turn, 1 mile, arrived);
• instead of losing 30-60 minutes driving to work every day, I actually found myself with 1h20 of free time to do some productive stuff like reading or listening to podcasts.

Of course there are always drawbacks:

• the bus runs every 15 mins, light rail every 12 and shuttle bus to IBM about every 30 mins. If I get it right, I get from one place to the other in 40 mins. If I get it wrong a.k.a, lose the first bus or lightrail, it takes at least 30 mins more (have to catch next shuttle, if I get there on time).

But the goal of this post is not really to dicuss about VTA’s schedule, but instead about podcasts, more specifically, IT podcasts. I have been alternating between reading and listening to podcasts during the trip, and the podcast I have been listening to is Software Engineering Radio. It is an excellent podcast, and I’m still in episode 30, so have a lot to go (they have 103 as of today ). However, I’m looking for other series to mix up with this one, and also because I might skip some of the episodes that are not of my interest.

So, what IT podcasts do you listen to and what do you like about them? I recently added two series to amarok, but haven’t listened to any episode yet:

• IBM developerWorks podcasts
• Jon Udell’s interviews with innovators

Don’t forget to leave your comment and let me know what are your favorite IT podcats!