Archive for the 'Information' Category

The Democracy player has now officially been renamed to Miro, which means that the new official webpage is http://www.getmiro.com. I’m a big fan of Democracy, having it installed on my Mac Mini, which is nestled next to the flat screen TV in our living room. I’m looking forward to all the exciting things that Miro will bring with it.

GigaOm, NewTeeVee and Joost are excited to invite you to experience the next generation of television

Get your invitation to Joost today and you’ll enjoy a TV-like experience enhanced with the choice, control and flexibility of Web 2.0. Joost can be accessed from your PC or Mac with a broadband Internet connection and offers broadcast-quality content for free. Get your Joost invite 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.

Our new sister site Vidcast Launchpad is now launched at http://www.vidcastlaunchpad.com reviewing all the best in vidcasts, video podcasts and IPTV. If there’s anything you would like to see covered, do not hesitate to contact us.

So it’s all very well describing all the vidcasts that are around, but how do you view them? The easiest way is to look for the subscribe links on the relavant podcast. The most popular graphics to look for are and a variation of . 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 vidcast aggregator solutions and some enable you to have one click subscripiton, i.e. you just click on the correct link and your vidcast 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 vidcast, no matter what links it offers.

I’ll assume you are using Juice as your vidcast aggregator as this is the one I use. Although there are lots of different software solutions, they all esential 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 Screencast Online Show. The first thing we want to do is go to the website, http://www.screencastonline.com/.
You’ll notice on the bottom left of the page 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 aggregator, which for this example is Juice.

Once Juice is open 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://libsyn.com/podcasts/donmc/_static/scoipod.xml. 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 ScreencastsOnline Show will be checked to see if any new vidcasts are available.

A vidcast is like a TV station you subscribe to, so that whenever there is new content, your aggregator (the software that handles the subscriptions) automatically downloads it and makes it available for you to watch. You can then either watch the shows on your computer or transfer the them to your mobile video device (i.e. Pocket PC, video player or iPod). Vidcasting itself is the very process of making these Viddcasts, or also the Vidcast scene as a whole.

There are literally thousands of Vidcasts to choose from, which if you are new to Vidcasting can seem a little bewildering. The actual subscribing to vidcasts 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 an Aggregator and then to point you to some vidcasts.

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

There are many different 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 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 rusulting 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 Ipodder 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 lastest 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 and vidcasts based on Genre or other different categories. Personally I find most of the vidcasts I watch to, from other Podcasts
• Cleanup - Depending on how many vidcasts 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 vidcasts.

Now you’ve got the software installed, there’s one more thing to decide on. I assume you want to get your vidcasts regularly, when there are new episodes to download. I have Juice set up to check for new vidcasts 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 thats 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 vidcast. The question is, which one?