Archive for the 'Information' Category

I remember with sadness the day the guys behind iPodderX got their cease and desist letter from Apple in December 2005 and withdrew from the podcast aggregator software scene. It wasn’t long however before we got wind of their new name, Transistr, chosen by a public naming contest. The new Transistr was due to be release by March of 2006, which slipped and then word had it, that a release by the end of 2006 was going to be happening. This cam and went, but tantalizingly, the website still showed their new graphics and “coming soon” message. Alas this has now been replace by a standard TextDrive coming soon page, so things are not boding so well for Transistr.

I did do a whois on the transistr.com domain and it is still registered to Ray Slakinski, one of the people behind iPodderX, so maybe all is not lost. Time will tell.

Chris Penn at the Financial Aid Podcast has just released a great guide to help podcasters get the word out about their show. It’s also a great guide for listeners, giving them a way to help their favorite podcasts become more successful. You can also get a PDF version here.

After weeks of behind the scenes twiddling, New Media Launchpad finally launches, incorporating Podcast Launchpad and Vidcast Launchpad. With two website covering very similar things, it all got a bit too distracting. I’ve also been wanting to cover blogs and many other new media websites and tools, so thought it best to merge everything into one website and take the opportunity to improve the whole browsing experience. I hope you enjoy it.

If you have any suggestions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact me.

So it’s all very well describing all the podcast that are around, but how do you listen to them? The easiest way is to look for the subscribe links on the relevant podcast. This most popular graphic to look for is this one . When you click on it, you may very well end up with a text full of what looks like techy gobbledygook. This is in fact the subscription information your aggregator software needs. There are many different podcast listening solutions and some enable you to have one click subscription, i.e. you just click on the correct link and your podcast aggregator will automatically add the link to your subscribe list. This is all very well, but what happens when you want to remove it? For this reason I prefer the manual method as that way I know I can subscribe to any podcast, no matter what links it offers.

I’ll assume you are using Juice as your podcast aggregator as this is the one I use. Although there are lots of different software solutions, they all essentially handle things the same way, so once you know one, you can pretty much find your way around any one.

So for this example, lets assume we want to subscribe to the Richard Vobes Radio Show as reviewed earlier. The first thing we want to do is go to the website, http://www.vobes.com.
You’ll notice on the top right of the page is the familiar icon. Right click on this and select either “Copy Link Location” if using Firefox, or “Copy Shortcut” if using Internet Explorer, from the menu that appears. This makes a copy of the information we need for our aggregator software. We now need to open our podcast aggregator, which for this example is Juice.

Once Juice is run you will be presented with the opening screen. Click on the Subscriptions tab and then click on the “Add New Feed” button. You will see a screen like this.

Our final step is to paste the feed information into the blank box. We can do this by pressing the [CRTL] key and while holding this key down press the [V] key. Our feed information will now appear in the text box and should read something like this http://feeds.feedburner.com/RichardVobesRadioShow. Now we just click on the [Save] button and we are now subscribed. Now whenever you click on the “Check for New Podcasts” menu option or button, The Richard Vobes Radio Show will be checked to see if any new podcasts are available.

A podcast is like a radio station you subscribe to, so that whenever there is new content, your podcast aggregator (the software that handles the subscriptions) automatically downloads it and makes it available for you to listen to. You can then either listen to the shows on your computer or transfer the shows to your mobile music device (i.e. mp3 player or iPod). Podcasting itself is the very process of making these podcasts, or also the podcast scene as a whole.

There are literally thousands of podcasts to choose from, which if you are new to podcasting can seem a little bewildering. The actual subscribing to podcasts can also be a difficult if you don’t have much computing experience. So the first step is to get you up and running with a podcast aggregator and then to point you to some podcasts.

For all the software mentioned, I will try to give alternatives for Windows and Mac OSX. I will try to also give a Linux option, but will assume you are familiar with install this, as I have no Linux box to test on.

This whole tutorial will also be available as a PDF, so if you want to have a printable copy, this will give you the nicest printable output.

Software
To get the most out of podcasts, you will need some software to handle your subscriptions. That’s not to say you have to use any special software. Many podcasts, allow you to listen to individual episodes right there on the web, using the web browser that comes with your operating system. This is great to listen to podcasts now and again, but to get the real benefit you are going to want to use a podcast client, otherwise known as an aggregator.

There are many different podcast clients available, many of them offered totally free of charge, although many of them do offer a way for you to make donations, which I urge you to do if you find a podcast client you really like.

The first one and indeed the one I use is called Juice - http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/index.php. This is available for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux machines and is currently at version 2.2. To download it, just select which operating system you wish us and click on the relevant link. You will then be given a choice of download sites, please try to select the site nearest to you.

Windows - If you select the Windows version to download, save the file to your computer and once it’s finished, run it. You will be guided through several installation steps resulting in the software being installed on your computer.

Mac OSX - If you select the Mac OSX version to download, save the file to your computer and once it’s finished, double click on the result .DMG file. The mounted version of the DMG file will open, then drag the Juice file to your applications directory. You can then click on it to launch.

Once Juice has launch, you are presented with a screen with four tabs:

• Downloads - This is the place where all your downloaded subscriptions will be placed and from where you have an easy way to listen to them. Just right click on the item you want to listen to and select “Play episode in mediaplayer”
• Subscriptions - All your subscription management is handled through this screen. It’s also an easy way to select items to listen based on the individual subscription. When you first subscribe to a new podcast, only the latest episode will be downloaded, giving you a chance to find out if the podcast is for you. If you enjoy the podcast and want to listen to older episodes, you can do that here, by selecting the podcast and then placing a checkbox next to the episodes you want to download and listen to.
• Podcast Directory - The Podcast Directory gives you a place to find podcasts based on genre or other different categories. Personally I find most of the podcasts I listen to, from other podcasts
• Cleanup - Depending on how many podcasts you are subscribed to, it’s quite possible to end up with many, many episodes, cluttering up your hard disk. This section of Juice, allows you to remove old podcasts.

Now you’ve got the software installed, there’s one more thing to decide on. I assume you want to get your podcasts regularly, when there are new episodes to download. I have Juice set up to check for new podcasts every 8 hours. To do this, select the Tolls menu option and then click on Scheduler. Click on “Enable Scheduler” and then select the “Check at regular intervals” option that’s best for you.

A few other clients I’ve heard of are BlogMatix Sparks, Nimiq and RSS Radio.

Like any software, it’s all a subjective thing, so be sure to find some software that’s a perfect fit for you. In the meantime, give Juice a go, so you can at least take the first rung of the ladder.

You are now ready to subscribe to your first Podcast. The question is, which one?

Jonathon Williams has written a great article on using the freely available Audacity for podcasting. Even if you don’t use Audacity, it’s still worth a read.

Apple has published a great article all about iTunes and Podcasts. You can read it here.

For every review we publish, there is a parental rating. This is very similar to the parental ratings used for movies and I admit it’s no where perfect. Basically You can consider it thus.

• G - Good wholesome entertainment. Can be to listened by all.
• 12 - May have the odd weird subject, or mild profanity, but not swearing
• 15 - May have the odd swear word or sexual reference, nothing obscene
• 18 - May contain very strong language, vulagarities, sexual references and be obscene

I’ve tried hard not to be a censor. I just listen to the podcasts and try to give it the most accurate rating I can. Feel free to let me know if you don’t agree with a rating, I’m always open to changing it if people feel it’s inaccurate.

Many people mistake the term Podcasting, with the need to have an iPod. This is not the case. In hindsight, maybe Podcasting wasn’t the best choices of words, but it’s here to stay, so there’s not much we can do.

In short, to actively download Podcasts, all you need is a Windows, Linux or Apple computer running a Podcast client (aggregator) and an active Internet connection. Actually there are other ways to download podcasts, but we’ll ignore those for the sake of simplicity. You don’t have to listen to the Podcasts on the computer you download them either. You can transfer the downloaded podcasts to your iPod, Pocket PC or other handheld device that supports MP3 files. In fact many of the new CD players support MP3 CDs, so that enables you to listen to your podcasts, without a computer at all, either at work, home or in the car.

Just wanted to say thanks for the feedback so far, I really enjoy reading it. I’d like to just say if there’s anything you want to see covered, whether it’s a podcast, a piece of podcasting software, a news items that’s podcast related or an idea for a feature, please don’t hesitate to contact me at colin@podcastlaunchpad.com.

Thanks, Colin