Getting a Podcast Player or Aggregator
The first thing you need to be able to listen to our audio content is an mp3/mp4 player or mp3/mp4 plug-in for your web browser. For a player/plug-in combo, I would recommend Quicktime for Mac or PC. If you have a Mac running OSX, it will already be installed. PC users may have to download it from Apples' site. Quicktime will allow you to listen to the Podcast right here at the site or you can download the file to your Windows or Mac desktop and open the file with Quicktime to play it.
Podcasts are nothing more than audio files with a cute little associated file called an RSS file. This RSS file can be read-by and subscribed-to by software called an Aggregator. Apple has a superb audio management application called iTunes. It is an interface for managing the content on an iPod, accessing the iTunes Music Store, and a Podcast Aggregator. There is a version for both the Mac and PC available at Apples' iTunes web site. In each section of our site, you can find a link that says "subscribe to my Podcast". If you are using a Mac, click the "subscribe to my Podcast" link on the KeysCast site and copy the url displayed into iTunes (select Advanced and then "Subscribe to Podcast". Copy the url into the window.) Each time you launch iTunes, the software will look at each of your subscriptions and pull new files available from those sites. If you have an iPod, it will update automatically once plugged into your computer. Programming to go! If you are using a PC, highlight the feed url displayed next to the Podcast you are interested in on our KeysCast site and copy it. (It will also be by the "Subscribe to Podcast" link.) Next, open iTunes and go to Advanced. Select "Subscribe to Podcast" and paste the feed url into this window. You are finished. iTunes will automatically update everytime you launch.
The audio-only version of the show will be posted in .mp3 format. This is fairly universal for both PC and Mac. The audio plus video version of KeysCast will be posted in .mp4 format. Quicktime will play both formats, as will iTunes.
One of the things I noticed today as I explored the PC side of this (which I hated) was that Explorer does a poor job of playing the larger files in the browser. I downloaded a copy of Firefox (Mozilla's browser) and tried the same things and it works as well as Safari on the Mac. I would highly recommend using Firefox as a media-playing browser. Find it here Firefox Browser .
If you have trouble playing any of the files through any browser, download the file to your desktop and play it with Quicktime or any other mp3/mp4 player.
