JMeter is a cool open source tool for evaluating the load performance of web servers. You can setup scripts that have computer-controlled users login to a web site, do something, and then log out, and log the results while it's doing it. This allows you to easily simulate a few hundred people hitting a site simultaneously, which is something I need to do at the day job.

Things take a horror tinged turned in this week's podcast with reviews of Midnight Syndicate's retrospective horror music album Out of Darkness and the horror-movie inspired board game Betrayal at House on the Hill by Avalon Hill.

Elsewhere in the podcast as for feedback from geek parents about the merits of getting a notebook computer vs. a desktop computer and start looking for some craft/mommy podcasts for my wife to listen to on her spiffy new 30 GB white iPod. Finally, Net News has the welcome return of the Harping Monkey's Round Table podcast, which ends its hiatus just in time for me to start doing home improvements again.