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The podcast section deals with interesting podcasts, and the art and science of creating podcasts for the internet.

(This page is currently under construction)

January 31st, 2009

Common Questions:

What is a podcast?

An audio or video show you can you can listen/watch by downloading with a web browser or other software. You can play the podcast show on your computer or play on a portable player device. With a portable device, you can listen in your car, watch on the plane or enjoy while exercising, shopping, or on the beach while getting a tan. You can manually download podcasts or setup an aggregator software like iTunes, HappyFish & Juice to automatically:

Seek out new shows at regular intervals and download them for you
Detect when your listening device (iPod, MP3 player, Thumbdrive/Player) is connected, delete shows you have heard, and replace them with new shows
Show you a brief description of each show so you can decide if it is worth downloading
Also list more than podcasts, such as news from your favorite news Web sites (if they have RSS), Blog articles and more

What kind of podcasts are there? Are they interesting?

There are TONS of podcasts on almost every subject imaginable, including music shows if you like listening to music.
Podcast search engines will help you locate podcasts that interest you. (see below)

What hardware do I need?

You can:

Listen to audio or watch video directly on your computer
Or, download podcasts to a thumbdrive and listen or watch on another computer
Or, download to a portable player device and listen/watch shows while you (fill in the blank ____)
If you have a PC, you can still use iTunes to listen on your computer but iTunes only works with Apple portable devices.
If you have a PC, it seems silly to be locked into apple portable players, so get any portable player device you want and run it with HappyFish or Juice software!

What software do I need?

The simple set up is to use your browser and manually download a show by going to the podcast Web site.
If you like automation you can use aggregator software. Some are free (iTunes,HappyFish & Juice) and some are not.
Browsers can read RSS Feeds for news, but podcasts are slightly more involved and require software.
If you have an apple computer, go with iTunes.
If you have a PC, you can still use iTunes for your PC computer but you must use apple portable player devices.
If you have a PC, and you are not locked into using iTunes, get any player device you want and use any RSS Aggregator software you want such as HappyFish or Juice. (and there are plenty more)

What does "Subscribing" to a podcast or "adding a feed" mean?

Podcasts have a main Web site page describing the show for people to read. The RSS Index page is different and is not a normal Web site page. The RSS page is read by your chosen Aggregator Software. Geek note > RSS is "Really Simple Syndication" services.
Both "Subscribing" and "Adding a feed" mean the same thing - telling your software where the RSS index page is.
When the Aggregator software "Subscribes" to RSS index for that podcast, it can manage everything automatically for you
If you go to a site and see this symbol: you can right click it, and copy the link. Using your chosen podcast software, you can paste that link into your subscriptions - letting your software know where to look for new shows. That is subscribing.