I’m a PC.

Kristina’s experience

“Podcast“. I’ve briefly heard the expression before but without deeper knowledge than it having something to do with what people occasionally listen to in their iPods.

When I finally got myself an iPod shuffle, I didn’t reflect more over it. Until the other day, when Daniel told me about podcast. He said I could get American voices talking in my iPod, for free. Instead of listening to music all day, I could learn something. He had some interesting suggestions. So I thought, why not?

To the story, I would need to add, I am currently using Ubuntu 8.04. The procedure to get the podcast into my iPod Shuffle was as follows:

• In order to use Ubuntu together with an iPod in the first place, gtkpod is needed.
• As gtkpod lacks some features included in iTunes, such as usage of podcasts, yet another software was needed, called gpodder.
• After installing Gpodder, I copied the URL from the Podcast I wanted, and pasted into gpodder. A list of files appeared, or shall I say chapters, from where you could choose how many to download. Almost like a book. Downloaded the file which was then saved into a sub folder under my home folder.
• After saving my second podcast, I discovered that the naming of this sub folder was not related to the name of the podcast at all. Funny enough it was named some sort of jibber jabber. Had to change that manually.
• Last step. Get the folder with the podcast into the iPod by using gtkpod. Then I was ready to go.

Having listened to the first two podcasts in my life, I can admit I enjoy it. It is like listening to the radio except you get to choose the programs. Worth the fuss? Yes, I think so. And you can be certain that I will continue to explore the world of podcasts.

I’m a Mac.

Daniel’s experience

Never tried podcasting before. In fact, I haven’t even used my iPod in a few months but I thought I’d dust it off this week. Only I didn’t feel like listening to music for some reason - I wanted something interesting. Why not try podcasts?

Just like all journeys, this one began at Google dot com. After a few seconds, I found a couple of massive djungles of podcasts and began to search for the perfect one for me. Naturally, I clicked on “Technology” and searched for words like “development”.

After a few minutes of quick browsing, I found something seemingly appropriate - The Web 2.0 Show. Now that I’ve listened to the latest episode, I just love the whole concept of podcasting. For me, it is just so much more productive than listening to music and this in turn also makes it more enjoyable.

Sure, music is art and it’s great - I’m not saying podcasting is better. Which one you prefer will probably depend on the mood you’re in. I’m just saying that podcasting can be more educational, more fun and certainly more thought-provoking.

Here’s how it all worked on my dear MacBook:

• Google “podcasts” to find something suitable and click the subscribe link.
• The podcast is shown in iTunes where we can subscribe to it.
• Latest episode is downloaded and all the others have a button for this purpose.
• We drag the stuff we want to the iPod.

All set!