Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Thing 21- podcasts

I have been doing various things with podcasts over the last several months, so I'm going to try to summarize my explorations and discoveries.
I downloaded Juice, a "premier podcast receiver, allowing users to capture and listen to podcasts anytime, anywhere" but was leary of using it for fear of overwriting the stuff already on my daughter's iPod.
Here's how it works, according to the Juice Help screen:

Juice uses RSS (really simple syndication) to "feed" files to
your computer. RSS usually involves headlines and text, but we've devised a way to have it move audio files. Once you've installed Juice, you can select podcasts to subscribe to in two different ways: Either clicking the selection button to see a directory of available podcasts or enter a URL for a podcast you've found on your own. You can set the scheduling options so that Juice scans for new downloads as often as you like, or you can control it manually. When it is done downloading new files, it adds them to your library, all ready to be played or synched to your MP3 device.


I am having difficulty adding new podcasts to my directory and plan to devote 5 more minutes before abandoning the product. UPDATE: the program must have had a temporary fit, because it now seems to be working very easily- just point, click add and it's added to your subscription list. I picked one at random, so now it is downloading the latest episode of "Verge of the Fringe" whatever that is!)

I have explored the podcast offerings in iTunes which carries a staggering number of podcasts, nicely sorted into categories. You can get free podcasts of many TV shows (I began the download for Entourage, but stopped it when I saw that it would be 24 minutes to complete.

Other podcast directories include Podcast.net, Podcast.com, and Yahoo Podcasts,(I like Yahoo's layout- they make it really easy to browse podcasts- with some hilarious results- I'm listening now to Diggnation- haven't figured out what their schtick is yet- there's also, not surprisingly, lots of porn), and Marv, the Mr. Nice Guy show- relevant due to the fact that he is a self-described reference librarian- I think I'll join his other 61 subscribers and check it out!

That's enough on finding podcasts- soon the issue wwill be getting away from all the podcasts- looks like everyone with a microphone and a computer is podcasting these days!

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