September 2005 brings 2 major milestones for Career Opportunities: The High-Tech Career Handbook, hosted by Douglas E. Welch of Los Angeles, California. Friday, September 2, 2005, brings the 100th episode of the podcast, which focuses on the specific ins and outs of a high-tech career, and September 24th, 2005 will mark its 1 year anniversary.

The podcast has proven popular with people in all avenues of the high tech world, from beginners to those with years of experience because it offers a realistic look at a chaotic and constantly changing work world. Each week, Welch produces two episodes drawing on new and archival material from his print column, Career Opportunities, which has appeared in the San Diego-based Computoredge magazine for 9 years.

A 20+ year veteran of the high-tech world, working at a variety of companies including Walt Disney Imagineering and Hollywood Online, Welch started producing his shows within weeks of the initial creation of podcasting, joining a short list of 10-12 other podcasting pioneers such as Adam Curry's Daily Source Code and Dave Winer's Morning Coffee Notes. Current estimates put the number of podcasts around 9,000 in a wide variety of topic areas.

The Career Opportunities podcast is a member of the Tech Podcasts Network (http://techpodcasts.com), a cooperative group of technology-related podcasts dedicated to promoting the best in technology programming. The podcast, including archives of all 100 episodes, is available on the web at http://welchwrite.com/career/. Listeners can easily subscribe using Apple's free iTunes music software and their new podcast directory by searching on Career Opportunities.

Podcasts are niche, radio-like programs which computer users can download to their computer or MP3 player for listening. Unlike radio, though, the user has total control over which shows they choose and when they listen to them. Listeners can also "subscribe" to podcasts, which allows new shows to be downloaded to their computer automatically. Visit the Wikipedia entry on podcasting for more information. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast)

---