The NYT’s ran an article on Leo and the TWiT Network today.  You can check out the entire article here.  In the meantime, here’s a clip:

Balancing on a giant rubber ball in a broadcast studio and control room carved out of a cottage in Petaluma, Calif., Leo Laporte is an unlikely media mogul.

Next year, the TWIT empire is expected to move into a larger building, down the street from its current headquarters. Mr. Laporte plans to start a morning show this spring to compete with drive-time radio broadcasters.

“It’s not as if I had a plan for all this,” Mr. Laporte said. “It just kind of happened. It was almost as if we had this audience that was waiting for the medium to come along.”

And here’s Andy’s killer review for the Chicago Sun Times. A couple more days and I’ll have one in my own hands! How about you?

UPDATE:  Here’s a series of videos that Andy did in NYC with Fast Company.

No picks this week, just some live coverage of Apple’s “It’s Only Rock and Roll” iPod/iTunes event.  You can check out the new goods here:

• iPod Nano (with video camera)
• iPod Touch
• iPod Shuffle
• iPod Classic
• iTunes

Dell Mini 9 Hackintosh Test Drive from Andy Ihnatko on Vimeo.

Hardware & software:

• Lightroom 2.2 for $263.99 (on Amazon) from Leo Laporte.
• Tiki Towers for iPhone for $.99 from Alex Lindsay.
• Tiffen Dfx Aperture Plugin for Aperture at http://www.tiffen.com for $299.95 from Scott Bourne.

Picks of the Year:

• Silver Efex Pro at http://www.niksoftware.com for $199.95 from Scott Bourne. 
• Transmit at http://www.panic.com for $29.95 from Leo Laporte.
• MarsEdit 2  at http://www.red-sweater.com for $29.95 from Leo Laporte.
• Feeder at http://www.reinventedsoftware.com for $29.95 from Leo Laporte.
• iShowU at http://shinywhitebox.com for $20 from Alex Lindsay.
• Handbrake at http://handbrake.fr/ for free from Alex Lindsay.
• Panasonic DMC-LX3K 10.1MP Digital Camera for $399.98 from Alex Lindsay.
• Drobo USB 2.0 and FireWire 800 for $461.63 (on Amazon) from Andy Ihnatko.
• Flip Mino HD for $203.79 (on Amazon) from Andy Ihnatko.
• Scrivener at http://www.literatureandlatte.com for $39.95 from Andy Ihnatko.

Books:

• Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: A Novel from Andy Ihnatko. 

• Andy Ihnatko was on the “Tech Night Owl Live” show last week.  He comes on around the 1:30:00 mark.  Here’s the episode and here’s the show site.
• For Mac news, commentary and advice, check out The MacCast.
• For those headed to SXSW, you can catch up with Merlin.

No picks on this show but maybe we’ll get some later in the week.

The crew will be hard at work at the Macworld Expo, so look for a few more shows this week. You can see their schedule here: http://www.pixelcorps.com/podcaststudio

http://twit.tv/merlin.pdf

Tune in to Leo’s Twitter feed for a heads up.