Friday, July 08, 2005

Podcast Using Linux: My simple How-to



The growing number of podcasting alternatives boggles my mind as simple as that is to say. So, I searched for a simple way to podcast. Of course, podcasting isn't as simple as say blogging since all you have to do is be on a page you want to blog and then have google blog this installed in your open source web browser firefox, then right mouse click the page and click blog this.

Podcasting is just a little harder than that because you have to record voice segments and then mix music segways to separate the segments and such. Of course, this complexity is totally up to you. You could just podcast your voice and hope that people subscribe, but a little music is more fun.

So, here is my simple how to:
Registration (all free):
o Register for a blog if you don't have one - I recommend www.blogger.com (google)
o Register for either or both of a www.feedburner.com account and a www.rsscache.com account. Rsscache keeps the number of hits on your blog lower and provides some statistics, feedburner doesn't cache but has neat viewer counters for your blog so that people know you are being read by others.
o Register for a garageband.com account to host unlimited numbers of mp3 files for your podcasts.
o Register another feedburner for your garageband podcast feed.

Software:

This is where it gets somewhat complicated. I used the best desktop/laptop OS in the world: Linux. With my favorite distros (mandriva and some version of knoppix), audacity is a standard install which allows you to simply record audio and export it to mp3. My recommendation is to search google for your OS and software to podcast. One recommended well is ipodderx.

Simplified steps:

1. Record segments.
2. Pick segway music.
3. logon to www.garageband.com and go to "my music" to upload your mp3s for the podcast.
4. use the garageband software to compile your podcast and publish it.
5. Blog your garageband podcast feedburner feed onto your blog.
6. Finally, email your friends your blog feedburner feed to tell them to share your podcast with everyone they know.

One final hint. Put your Podcast up on www.podcastalley.com usine your garageband feedburner feed so that people who don't know you can find your podcast and so that those who like your podcasts can vote for your podcast and get it into the top 10 of its genre or even into the top 10 of all podcasts.

**Note: for my Japanese readers, I don't have an angle on the Japanese equivalent of any of these services especially a japanese www.podcastalley.com. If you know of anything, please use the contact info in "About CrusaderX" to tell me.

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