As I mentioned three months ago, it looks like we may have to stop delivering .m4b (AAC) versions of IT Conversations audio files. Only about 10% of listeners download the AAC files, and the only significant benefit (other than a slight increase in quality as compared to the MP3s) is that they can be bookmarked on iPods and in iTunes. Unfortunately we have not been able to find an AAC “joiner” that will allow us to splice together already-encoded files as we can do for MP3s. (Does anyone know of such a utility?)

A solution would be for one of our enterprising listeners who knows AppleScript to develop a script that automatically converts files of Genre=Podcast to AAC within iTunes, then deletes the originals. A script like that would be great for iTunes/iPod users for all podcasts, not just IT Conversations.

To be honest, the bookmarking functionality should be built into every player, and there’s no reason it couldn’t be implemented for MP3 files as well.