More about podcasting

A podcast is nothing more than a convenient way to download audio to listen to on your own computer or digital audio player. The advantage of subscribing to a podcast is that you will automatically receive new downloads as soon as they become available – you don’t have to keep visiting the web site to see if there’s anything new.

There is a more detailed article about podcasting on Wikipedia.

Podcast software

To use a podcast, you need software that will manage your podcast subscriptions and fetch new audio files when they become available. Below are listed a few possibilities. (We do not specifically endorse any of these and there may be other options just as good.)

iTunes (Macintosh and Windows)
Juice (Macintosh and Windows)
Amarok (Linux)

How to subscribe

The method used to subscribe to a podcast depends on which podcast software you decide to use. However here are some guidelines for commonly used podcast software:

iTunes on a Macintosh

This is probably the easiest case. Click on the podcast icon . A page will come up that lists all of the sermons currently available from the podcast. To actually subscribe, select “Subscribe in iTunes” from the list of actions in the right-hand panel.

Microsoft Windows – drag-and-drop method

These instructions assume that you are using iTunes, but the same method will probably work with other podcast applications.

Don’t click on the podcast icon – there is no “Subscribe in iTunes” button on the page that comes up. Instead, you should launch iTunes and then rearrange your windows on the screen so that you can see both your web browser and iTunes at the same time. (It doesn’t matter if the windows overlap, but you must be able to see at least some of iTunes behind the web browser.) If you can’t resize or move the browser window and the middle button at the top-right of the screen looks like this – [Restore Icon] - then click on this button once so that the window changes size and the button changes to this – [maximize icon] .

When you have the windows suitably arranged, hold the mouse button down on the podcast icon and drag it into iTunes. That’s it.

To subscribe, drag the podcast icon into iTunes

If you find that difficult, try the next method, which works with iTunes also.

Microsoft Windows – copy-and-paste method

Right-click on the podcast icon and choose “Copy Shortcut” (or “Copy link location” if you are using Firefox as your browser) from the menu. Now go into your podcast application and look for a command to create or subscribe to a new podcast. (In iTunes it is on the “Advanced” menu and called “Subscribe to Podcast…”.) Select this command. Probably a dialog will come up next asking for the address (or URL) of the podcast. Where it says address (or URL), paste the shortcut.

Other operating systems

We cannot give specific instructions for other combinations of operating systems, web browsers and podcast applications. However, one of the methods above will probably work, although the wording on menus will probably vary a little.