After hearing an Audible advertisement on This Week In Tech over and over again, as well as hearing all the good things they have to say about them, I finally decided to give it a try. What the heck, I had nothing to lose anyway. So I went to the Audible TWiT link and signed up and got a free credit for a book. Signing up is a pretty simple process and requires a credit card but they don’t charge you for the 14 day free trial, and you can cancel before that period is up and not get billed. I had a prepaid card that I used so there was no chance of them taking more money that was on the card, which happened to be about 2 bucks anyway.

I knew which book I wanted to get. Paul Thorrott talked about it during the Windows Weekly Audible ad and when I realized they had Darkly Dreaming Dexter, I thought it was about time to sign up and try out the service. The first season of the television series Dexter is based on this book so I thought it would be interesting to see the similarities and differences these two stories had.

After everything was set up, it was time for me to find the book. To my surprise, it wasn’t there. I knew it was there because I heard them talking about it on the podcast as well as hearing a sample they played on the show. I decided to log out and browser the library without it knowing any of my details. To my surprise, it was there, along with the 2 other books in the series.

I copied the link, logged back in and pasted the link in. They are not allowed to sell this title in my geographical location. That sucks. I signed up to get that book and now I have a credit that I want to spend on a title that I want, and it happened to be that one. I went into my details and edited my address to one in the US and then I was fine to get the book. It was added to my cart and then purchased with the free credit I had.

Now you have to download special Audible software to download, but it also happens to put it in your music library, in Windows Media Player or iTunes. That is good because I want my audiobook in iTunes so I can hear it on my iPod. After downloading the software and setting it up, which was a simple process, I started downloading the audiobook.

The download was about 200MB so it shouldn’t take too long to download. Boy was I wrong. The download was slow as! I had to leave my laptop on overnight just to download it. If I was able to downloading it myself using my own download manager, I could have had that in less than quarter of an hour, not seven or so hours. The software is horrible and a waste of time. I would rather download it myself and import it into my media player myself. I don’t get why they force the crappy software onto me, there is no reason for it.

After all that nonsense I finally had the audiobook on my computer, although it did import to the wrong iTunes library (story about why I have 2 iTunes libraries one for another day.) Anyway, I easily sorted that out and I could finally listen to my audiobook on my iPod. One of the weird things is that the chapters on the iPod are random, they are not the same as the chapters on the audiobook. This generally shouldn’t be a problem for someone listening to the book from start to finish, even if you you do get out of the book, you can always resume from the place your last stopped.

Anyway, I was pretty happy with the book, and the quality of it. I would definitely consider purchasing the other book from audible even if I am not to happy about suing the software they force you to install. After all the griff graff, for anyone else you is considering giving Audible a try, I would tell them to definitely do it. Although if you live outside the US, make sure you set your country to the US and also everyone should use the TWiT promo site so you can get your free book.

I watch a lot of television shows, 24 to be exact. This is a huge number and it is very hard to decide which order to download and watch. The downloading generally isn’t a problem as long as I have access to premium services but having half a dozen or more shows on queue is pretty daunting. This isn’t such a problem to be honest, because just like everyone else, I have my favorites, which take priority over anything else. I am going to tell you my five favorite shows that I currently watch, in no particular order.

Heroes -This is a show about ordinary people with extraordinary abilities. Oddly enough, this is their slogan. Heroes is a show you have to give a chance. It does start off slow but heats up and gets really good near the end of a volume. Volume One was great but it was a little slow. I though it was amazing though and it turned me into a fanboy of the series. Volume Two wasn’t as good in my opinion but still great. I cannot wait for Volume Three because I know it is going to be mindblowing! You have to check out this show!

Chuck - This show has just been picked up in the fall season and has had a successful first half. I’m going to skip the unusual explanation of the storyline because that is what Wikipedia is for. Other than the “geek culture” stuff they try and put in and the unusual storyline, there is one thing that keeps me coming back for more, Yvonne Strahovski. She is smoking hot in her uniform!

Prison Break -This one managed to squeeze its way into my top five. This television show blew me away with the first season but is steadily declining.To be honest, I think they should quit while they are ahead. The thing I loved about this show was the secrets and puzzles that we witnessed in the show. There is a lot of things hidden and the ingenious way they get from inside to outside the prison was amazing. Too bad its not the same as it was then.

Dexter -This is a new show that has come to my attention this year. All I can say is that I wish I found this gem earlier. It really is a amazing show, one of the best I’ve seen, and it didn’t dull in the second season. I did have a small issue with the final episode of season 2 but overall the show is great and I managed to overlook it. If there is any show I would recommend to anyone at this stage, it would be this one hands down. If you haven’t seen it already definitively get the first season.The most intriguing thing about this show is that it is from the point of view of a serial killer. It is a very unique view, one which is not shown on many other shows.

Monk - Finally, a last minute decision, was this show. I remember seeing this show when I was 12 and I though it was amazing. The thing that makes it that was is the brilliant acting my Tony Shalhoub. The humour is how a person with OCD deals with issues and chalenges with life.This is very amusing for any normal person watching. It really hard to describe this show but it is an intersting watch.

There are quite a few great shows that didn’t make the list. I will whip up an honorable mentions list to include those shows because they are worth it. I can’t put every show I watch on my top five list an it is unfortunate so many got cut. You may disagree with these shows and you are entitles to your own opinion. It would be a boring place if everyone loves the same things. If you haven’t checked out any, or all of these shows, definitely do that as soon as possible, they are well worth the chance. Who knows, you might love them just as much as me.