- What is a podcast?
A podcast is like a broadcast, except that there are thousands available -- from rock 'n' roll music to political talks to spiritual messages -- and you can listen to any of them whenever you want. Nearly all are free.
Although the name derives from the iPod portable device, you can use any MP3 player -- or you can listen on your PC with no portable device at all. In addition to listening to MP3 files you can also view video on your PC.
If you've got a slow Internet connection you can download audio or video files overnight and play them the next day.
- How do I get them?
First, you'll want to download and install a podcast receiver. Among the most popular and best are iTunes and Juice (formerly iPodder). You probably already have a player. Musicmatch Jukebox and Windows Media Player both work quite well. If you pick up iTunes, it has its own player built in.
Once you've installed your receiver, here's the link you need to copy and paste in the Feed URL entry: http://suncath.org/sermons/audio.xml. Right click on the link and then select "Copy Shortcut" if you're using Internet Explorer or "Copy Link Location" if you are using Firefox or Mozilla or Netscape. Then paste that link into the "subscribe to feed" entry in the podcast receiver software. Notice that if you left-click you will just get a page of gobbledygook because your browser doesn't recognize it; your podcast receiver will know what to do with it.
If you're using iTunes it may work better with this link:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/SunshineCathedralSermonsAudio,
as feedburner.com adds some iTunes-specific information.Now you're ready to go! Just locate the downloaded files, double-click the one you want, and enjoy. Or transfer them to your portable MP3 player to listen on the go just as you do your music tracks.
To get videos use this link: http://suncath.org/sermons/video.xml. When they're downloaded you can view them with Windows Media Player, and probably your favorite DVD player can handle them as well if it plays WMV format videos. The feedburner.com link for videos is:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/SunshineCathedralSermonsVideo
- How does it work?
Podcast feeds are RSS (Really Simple Syndication) -- just like online SunBurst -- hence the orange RSS button. This means that you can also subscribe to text with an RSS reader, such as Bloglines. You don't really need to know any more, but if you're interested http://www.ipodder.org/whatIsPodcasting can fill in a lot of the details.
Online podcast subscription services:
