Podcast

 “Podcasting” is a way to get content automatically downloaded to your computer or portable audio player. This is a nice convenience if you have a portable MP3 player or if you have a slow connection, or you would just like to regularly listen to the newscast online without having to download it each day. Podcasting software will automate the download process at the times that you define. Once you have things set up, you will always have access to the most recent shows, as MP3 files on your computer or portable device, ready for listening

You need to install a podcast program on your computer, tell it about a podcast feed you want to subscribe to, and it will check to see when new information is available. When a new show is uploaded to the web site, the podcasting software will start downloading the MP3 file in the background to a directory.

Podcasting Program

To get started, you will need to install a podcasting program, which are freely available for Mac, Windows, and Linux.

  • iPodder (Free Software: Windows, Mac and Linux). At the moment, this is one of the most popular solutions for receiving Podcast feeds.
  • iPodderX (Freeware “Lite” version” or $19.95 for the full version: Mac OS X). This is a popular program for Mac users, it is tightly integrated with iTunes, and the interface is a bit nicer than iPodder.
  • BlogMatrix Jäger (Freeware: Windows, Mac). Jäger is a weblog reader that organizes news feeds (RSS) and pocasts together in a convenient “side panel” interface. It works with Podcasting and can automatically add downloaded shows to iTunes or Windows Media Player.
  • iTunes (Freeware: Windows, Mac). This is Apple’s flagship music-playing program, which, starting with version 4.9, has support for receiving podcasts. Note that even though you go through the “music store” to find podcast feeds, there is, as always, no charge for receiving fsrn

Online Services

  • Apply Tools’ Podcast RSS Feed Generator – form based online feed generator
  • AudioBlog – a podcast and videoblog recording service that enables people to post to blogs, post to RSS, upload audio and video, record MP3 files over the web, and phone in a post (to blog or RSS).
  • ClickCaster – easy to use podcasting solution that gives anyone with an Internet connection the ability to create, publish, listen and subscribe to an on-demand Podcast.
  • MyRSSCreator – web-based tool that lets users upload and host their podcast, as well as produce the rss feed for the podcasts. It also creates a podcasting index page, along with a page for shownotes. Users can have the service host the podcast file, or they can host it on their site.
  • Poderator – an online podcast feed generating service.
  • Podcastblaster – A free to use online tool for creating both audio and video podcast feeds
  • PodFeeder – an online service for searching for and sharing podcasts.
  • PodOmatic – a podcasting site that lets users create, mix, host, search, share, and download podcasts. The site provides up to 250mb of free podcast hosting.

You may have heard of the term “RSS” — it stands for “Really Simple Syndication”, and many recent web browsers like Mozilla FireFox have built-in support for RSS “Feeds”. An RSS feed makes it easy for programs to check a web site and easliy find out when new stories or articles were published on a web site. A podcast is really an RSS feed that also contains information about an MP3 file that can be downloaded.

For more detailed history and discussion of pocasting, check out the following resources:

PHP

  • Gregarius – a web-based RSS/RDF/ATOM feed aggregator, designed to run on your web server, allowing you to access your news sources from wherever you want.
  • PodPress – a WordPress plug-in that adds advanced podcasting support.
  • WordPress – includes basic built-in support for podcasts

Online Services

  • MirPod – podcast client with a “virtual iPod” interface.
  • PodFeeder – an online service for searching for and sharing podcasts.
  • Podcast Sender – podcast email notification service

Time-shifting radio recording software  Replay Radio  is designed to let users record radio shows and put them on portable media players.

What is a Podcast?

A Podcast is essentially a radio show that is delivered online. The Hour of Dave is a weekly podcast created each Wednesday evening by Dave Hampton and Charles Carreon, who talk about interesting things, play fun music, and often host musicians and artists from the Ashland scene for live-in-studio recording.

How Can I Listen To The Hour of Dave?

You can listen to the show via the hourofdave.com website — just select the episode from the menu on the homepage. Then play a game in the gameroom.

CLICK THIS RED TEXT PLAY THE LATEST HOUR OF DAVE If you have an MP3 player loaded on your computer, it will start playing the show after a short delay to begin the download. If you don’t have an MP3 player, get Winamp free at www.p2pmovies.net

How Can I Subscribe To The Hour of Dave?

If you are very slightly cutting edge, you will SUBSCRIBE to the show via RSS (Really Simple Syndication) with what is called an aggregator. Once you install an aggregator on your machine, and input the URL for the show into your aggregator, it will download each new show automatically.

iTunes Users: If you have an iPod and/or download iTunes (version 6 or better) to your computer, you can click on “Advanced,” scroll down to “Subscribe to podcast”and enter the RSS url of the Hour of Dave when it appears on the list. As a subscriber the shows can be automatically transferred to your iPod. You could also burn a cd to take with you if you are ipod-challenged.

Firefox Users: Subscribe using the new Mozilla Firefox web browser. Go to “bookmarks” then down to “Manage Bookmarks.”
Then in the new window go to “File” and down to “New Live Bookmark”, then enter the rss feed url.

PC Stalwarts: If you aren’t into iTunes and don’t use Firefox, download an aggregator like ipodder, and you can configure it to download podcasts and copy them to any digital music player or blank cd.