Podcasting

"Podcasting" is a derivative term, combining "iPod" and "broadcasting." However, you don't need an iPod to listen to or watch our podcasts, you just need some software.

How It Works

Podcasting is an automatic mechanism by which multimedia files are transferred from our server to your computer. You can then listen/watch them on your computer, or on your iPod.

The first thing that happens, is we post a new file to our website, for example, an audio recording of Eric and Lonnie's latest update from the ice. This file is one "episode" of the podcast. We then update another file on our site, known as a "feed" which will tell your computer where to locate the episode. This feed, or list, is published in RSS format. It provides information about the episode, such as publish dates, titles, and accompanying text descriptions of the series and each of its episodes.

So How Do You Listen To It

The Web address of our feeds can be found using the orange buttons on the left side of this page. To get the link, right click on the buttons and choose "Copy Shortcut" (if you are using Internet Explorer - other browsers may use different terminology). Or you can click on the link. What you see on the screen is the XML mark up for the feed. The address bar in the browser will display the link that you will need.

You enter the web address of the feed into a software program called an aggregator. This program retrieves and processes data from the feed and downloads the audio to your computer. It will automatically notify you when a new episode is available, and it will download it for you. Some aggregators, such as iTunes, also can make the newly downloaded episodes available to a your portable media player, your iPod in most cases.

Here are two popular iPodder software programs you can download for free and run on your computer, but there are many others:

Juice: http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/

Itunes: http://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/

To learn more, consult a Website like About.com: http://radio.about.com/od/podcastin1/