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A couple of weeks ago, one of the longest-running problems of the Internet began to get better.

Hi folks. We’re back after a short hiatus. Tech Podcast #112 will explore the decision by Sharman Networks, the Australian company behind the file-sharing program Kazaa, to go legit. Sharman will be forced to pay big music companies more than $115 million, and will begin to provide legal download services. We’ll also hear about how wireless technology is helping Greek fire fighters detect and fight forest fires. And we’ll finish off with some avant-garde war music by Lebanese blogger and sound artist Mazen Kerbaj. All that, plus music from Spunkshine and deadmou5.

One of the more interesting new cellphone services hardly bothers to invite you to talk on its phones.

One of the most painful things to listen to in podcasting is a steady stream of “ums” and “ahs” interjected into an otherwise intelligent thought. I do it more than I’d like to. I’ve heard some cases where a person collecting his thoughts said “um” no less than 20 times in a 15 second stretch. You can fix this during editing, but it’s hard to reconstruct the flow of a sentence if it happens to much and editing out the “ums” isn’t much fun. The best solution is to learn how to speak without saying “um” in the first place. Mother Tongue Annoyances has a solid set of suggestions on how to eliminate “um” and “ah” from your speech. It takes some additional thought on your part while speaking and it won’t happen overnight, but a little additional effort in improving the way you speak will make your podcast sound better and make you sound smarter while people are listening.

Windows Vista — Microsoft’s years-late successor to Windows XP — has moved from being a speck on the horizon to a figure in the middle distance. It’s still far enough from stores to be easily ignored by most customers, but close enough for enthusiasts to chatter away feverishly about its features.

Due to technical difficulties, Tech Podcast #111 did not make it to you on Friday. Sorry about that. Still, here it is, and we take you to Egypt, where we’ll hear about bloggers’ on-going efforts to use the internet as a medium of critique and communication. Also, German Chancellor Angela Merkel starts a video podcast, and hardly anyone pays attention. Then, some comics start doing re-mixes of the podcasts, and now everyone is downloading them. We’ll also look at China’s ambitions in space. And we’ll end with an update on one of the Tech Podcasts’ favorite bands, Amplifico.

Back in early 2002 I voiced an entire 2 hour AM radio show using a Plantronics USB headset microphone and an old 166 MHz PC. Not ideal recording conditions, but the show actually sounded quite good considering the limitations of available gear. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been testing out the new Plantronics 550 DSP Ultimate Performance Headset. So far I’m impressed. The earphones offer great audio output from a comfortable design that I can wear without getting annoyed that I have headphones on. I get up from my computer often enough that I never kept them on to the point where I was feeling any ear discomfort. The microphone positioning is flexible to the point where you can get a good microphone position without getting too much plosive impact from P and B sounds. While there’s noise cancellation built-in, the microphone is still extremely sensitive and picks up things like the click-clack of fingers on a keyboard, which means you need to eliminate extraneous noise if you’re recording audio for any kind of published project. I don’t have a way to test latency in lab conditions, but there seems to be almost no noticeable lag. Overall, I’m giving the 550 DSP a big thumbs up for both speech recognition tasks and for doing things like solo podcasting efforts. You’ll get great sounding audio from recording directly to a PC application like Audacity or Adobe Audition, speech recognition apps will effectively capture your voice and if you use voice applications like Skype, your friends will be pleasantly surprised at how well your audio sounds. At $60 from most online retailers, this headset microphone combination is a steal.

Tech Podcast #110 takes a look at how much, or how little, has been done to improve mobile communications in London in the year since the transport attacks on July 7, 2005. Also, North Korea finally launches those missiles. What did they learn? What did we learn? Then, we’re off to run with the bulls in Pamplona. Well, we’ll sample some software that can predict how you’ll fare against the horned followers. Finishing things off is a report from Cambodia on an incredibly homemade train system. All that, plus a Spunkshine remix, and Clark announces he’s leaving The World and the podcast for a wee while.