Playing the Podcast

On the podcast site, you see the following for each entry:

You can play the podcast episode right now, directly from the Web page, or you can download the MP3 file with the episode. You can also subscribe for free to the podcast — automatically download this episode and future episodes — without having to come back to the site again.

If you use iTunes, read on! If you use other podcast programs, skip to the next section!

What is podcasting?

Podcasting is a popular method of publishing audio files to the Internet, enabling people to subscribe to a feed once and receive new audio files automatically. Similar to a tape of a radio broadcast, a podcast “episode” or show can be saved and played back at your convenience, both in iTunes on your computer and on your iPod. You can incorporate the podcast episodes into playlists, and make copies and burn CDs as much as you like.

By subscribing, we mean simply listing this podcast in your iTunes Podcasts pane so that new episodes are downloaded automatically. It’s like a magazine subscription that’s updated with a new issue every month or so. You don’t have to register or fill out any form. You don’t have to provide an email address or any other information. Your copy of iTunes will automatically find us, and download our podcast to your computer.

Subscribing with iTunes

The iTunes Podcast page on the iTunes Music Store lets you browse, find, preview, and subscribe to thousands of podcasts — including this one. You can also subscribe to the Flying Other Brothers podcast from this page. To subscribe, click this button:

Once iTunes opens, the podcast appears as shown below:

Click the Subscribe button, and follow the instructions to log into your iTunes account. iTunes then downloads the podcast episode automatically and switches to the Podcasts pane (below).

Getting New Episodes Automatically

The Flying Other Brothers podcast should now appear in the iTunes Podcasts pane, as shown below.

To check for updates manually, select Podcasts in the Source pane, and click the Update button — which replaces the usual Browse button in the upper left corner of the iTunes window whenever you select Podcasts in the Source pane. All subscribed podcast feeds are updated immediately when you click Update, and iTunes downloads the most recent episodes or all episodes, depending on how you’ve set your Podcasts preferences.

To set your Podcasts preferences so that iTunes can check for new podcasts automatically, choose iTunes>Preferences on a Mac or Edit>Preferences on a Windows PC. In the Preferences dialog, click the Podcasts button to display the Podcasts preferences, as shown below.

You can set the “Check for new episodes” pop-up menu to every hour, every day, every week, or manually. You can also decide what to do when a new episode (podcast) is available — you can set the pop-up menu to download the most recent one, download them all, or do nothing. You can also set the Keep pop-up menu to keep all episodes, all unplayed episodes, the most recent episodes, or previous episodes.

Updating Your iPod

While you can listen to a podcast at any time on your computer, the real value of a podcast is that you can take it with you in your iPod. To control which podcasts should be copied automatically to your iPod, follow these steps:

1. Connect your iPod to your computer, and wait for iTunes to start up and for your iPod to be ready in the Source pane. (If your iPod is set for automatic updating, wait for the iPod to finish its usual updating of songs, calendar information, and contacts.)

2. Choose iTunes>Preferences on a Mac or Edit>Preferences on a Windows PC, and click the iPod button. iTunes displays the iPod Preferences dialog.

3. Click the Podcasts button in the iPod preferences dialog. iTunes displays the iPod Podcasts preferences, as shown below.

4. Set your iPod to update all podcasts, selected podcasts, or no podcasts, and click OK.

After updating your iPod with podcasts, the Podcasts menu selection appears in the Music menu of your iPod. Select Podcasts from the Music menu to see a menu of the podcasts on your iPod. Select a podcast to play it.

Using Any RSS2 Client

If your browser supports RSS2 feeds, you can click on this button:

This takes you to the RSS feed page. Drag the URL of the RSS feed page from the address bar to the RSS2 client’s window.

Another way to do this:

1. Right-click (or CTRL-click) , and choose Copy Link from the pop-up menu.

This copies the link address to your computer’s clipboard.

Note: An alternative: select the text “http://www.rockument.com/fob/blog/?feed=rss2″ (without the quote marks) and choose Edit>Copy.

2. Open the RSS2 client (podcast program), and choose the appropriate menu item to subscribe to a podcast.

3. Choose Edit>Paste to paste the link address into the dialog box of the RSS2 client (podcast program). Then click OK.

That’s it! Enjoy!