Click on an ad. I get money!

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Dummy's Guide to Podcasting

So I assume you have some understanding of what blogging is. It's all around us. You're reading it now. Right now. This is a blog. Every once is a while, when the planets are aligned and the sun is exactly the right hue of beigey white, I sit down and share some little corner of my brain with you. I do this by logging into my Blogger account, clicking on "New Post", typing out my entry and hitting "Publish". Well, what with computers getting smaller and faster and generally more able to do magical mysterious things and all, it was only a matter of time until some bright spark said to himself, "Instead of typing out my blog" he (for it was almost certainly a male) said, "why don't I hook up my microphone to my fancy-schmancy computer and record my blog". And thusly podcasting was born. Hoards of people began to sit down at there computers and record their own little radio programs and publish them on the internet. Eventually, hoard of people began to download these little radio programmes to their ipods and MP3 players and listen to them. Finally, the world of radio was no longer restricted to the properly trained and talented.


Well, I saw this lumbering bandwagon stagger past and I said to myself, Tom, I said Tom, we have to get aboard this thing. Well, like an idiot, I jammed my microphone into my ibook, recorded five minutes of absolute dribble and shared it with the world. Some of the more devoted readers may remember my short-lived "Close Encounters" shows. They were shameful and embarrassing and now no longer exist. I decided to take a more intellegent approach. I sat back and spent a couple of months listening to other podcasts. I took notes and I searched for some niche I could deposit my genius into. Out of this period of soul-searching, Ten with Tom (TenWithTom.com) was born. TWT is a ten minute podcast. Many shows are thirty to sixty minutes long and subscribing to them can be a real commitment, but Ten with Tom is only ten minutes. Who doesn't have ten minutes? Nobody, that's who.


If you would like to listen to podcasts, there are a few different ways, but I'll describe the way I do it.


What you need first of all is iTunes. It needs to be iTunes 4.9 or later. You can download this program from Apple.com. Here's how to subscribe to Ten with Tom:


  1. Open iTunes

  2. Click on the Advanced menu

  3. Scroll down to Subscribe to Podcast.

  4. In the box that appears type (or cut-and-paste): http://feeds.feedburner.com/tenwithtom

  5. Click OK


Now, you are subscribed to Ten with Tom. You can listen to Ten with Tom by clicking on Podcasts, over in the left-hand menu and double clicking on the Ten with Tom episode that takes your fancy.


Stay tuned to Sandgate Road, late this week, when you've had time to listen to my entire back catalogue, I'll run through a few of the Podcasts I listen to.


Thanks for reading, don't worry, TWT and SGR will co-exist. There will always be a SGR.


Oh yes, only 11 days until I'm married! I'm so excited!


Tom.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home