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Optimizing iTunes for IT Conversations
A number of people use iTunes as their podcatcher—the software that automatically downloads a podcast and puts it on their iPod. If that’s you, please take a minute to change your preferences so that you don’t miss any IT Conversations podcasts.
By default iTunes only downloads the most recent podcast from a given site each day. For most sites, which publish less than once per day, that works fine. For sites like IT Conversations, however, that means you might be missing some shows you’d rather have downloaded.
I try to just publish one show per day to avoid this problem, but on occasion I need to publish two or even three shows on a given day and that means that people who are using iTunes miss out. For example, on Thursdays I almost always publish more than one show for TechNation—usually two and sometimes three. Here’s a screenshot of the iTunes preference you need to update:
Just change it to say “download all” and then you’ll get all of the podcasts in the RSS feed, even if we publish more than one per day. There’s a lot of great presentations coming up from O’Reilly’s MySQL conference, ETel, and ETech. Plus Supernova and another round of Adaptive Path’s User Experience Week later this summer. I may be publishing 7 or 8 shows per week before long. You won’t want to miss any of them.
Posted by windley on July 14, 2007 12:55 PM
Comment from vrtulobjeq at July 17, 2007 7:43 AM
Fine idea, but big problem is doing that will download everything. Some people more so inclined to Browse and choose. Why not simply making them available via ftp sites or heaps of pod casters don't even bother with iTunes and host them on their websites and in fact I might hazzard a guess that most podcast directories exhibit every podcast that cares to list with them. I hope you don't hit me with your aesthetics stick ?
Comment from Phil Windley at July 17, 2007 9:10 AM
True, but doing "the most recent one" will download everything too over time if you check daily.
We DO offer individual downloads and we don't host on iTMS (no one does). The RSS feeds and content are available outside iTunes--that's not the point. You can use any program you like as a podcatcher.
The point is IF you use iTunes with default settings, you will miss things. If that's OK, leave it. But if you want iTunes as a podcatcher and you want to get everything, change the preference.
Comment from Douglas Rich at July 29, 2007 2:59 PM
I'm new to this today. I'm looking for a way to get the audio on my Microsoft Zune. Yea I know, but it was free.
Comment from Phil Windley at July 30, 2007 11:24 AM
I know nothing about the Zune, but in general what you need is a podcatcher--software that downloads audio and puts it on your device. This site has a comparison feature for various podcatchers and you can probably use it to see which will work with the Zune:
http://www.podcatchermatrix.org/
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