Simple like me...

After my post about the new RSS capabilities in Mozilla Thunderbird, I started looking into the possibility of actually building a podcasting extension for Thunderbird. It turns out that both Thunderbird and Firefox are built on XUL, which is like XML for interfaces, and Javascript, which is pretty amazing, if you think about it.

What this means is that it's pretty easy (once you get your head round the actual programming side) for anyone to put together extensions to the Mozilla programs. Not only that, but using the just-announced Mozilla Prism, it will be very easy to turn any Firefox/Thunderbird extension into a standalone program, and make use of local file storage.

I've been having a play around with the XUL coding, and it seems immensely powerful, and more than enough for most basic data-driven desktop applications - I can't understand why more companies have not used this already to create programs and data-driven websites that act like programs on the users local machine, but from what I can see so far, for my podcasting app it should be more than enough for what I need, for playing MP3s and videos I can use flash, so it should be a pretty good all-round program.

Now to get back to re-learning Javascript!

Shiiiiiiiiiiit.....

Well, yesterday came the true evidence of how popular Ruforia is... So many people downloaded the podcast XML file (only a 100Kb file on its own) after releasing 'Unless You Wear a Rucksack' that it maxed out the bandwidth on my Googlepages, stopping many people getting the podcast for most of yesterday. This is great in popularity terms, but not so great for my server. I'm just going to have to find somewhere else to host the xml file that doesn't have these bandwidth restrictions!

Perhaps this would be a good time to start running my podcast through feedburner, so I at least know how many people are downloading it!

You're having a laugh?!

Somebody at Adobe deserves a slap upside the head with a large blunt instrument - I'm thinking something the size of a planet here.

All I want to do is create a nice box that pops up over the top of a webpage in flash, and allows you to enter some data into a form in order to get some information back from a database. In Flash 8, the XML coding was so rickety, I ended up giving up - sometimes it would load XML from the server, other times it just forgot. Not to mention that it would load everything fine the second time it went through the script, but not the first. That's sure to look professional.

So I decided to upgrade to Flash 9 (or CS3 as Adobe are calling everything these days) to see if it would sort the problem out. After discovering that they'd pretty much completely re-written actionscript, and that my file would have to be re-programmed from the ground up, I found that the new way of working with XML was not only much better, but it worked! W00t w00t! Finally I could select things in my comboboxes, and have the data load straight from the database into flash (via PHP and XML).

Unfortunately my joy was short-lived, as some pillock at Adobe had obviously decided that nobody would ever want to layer form controls over the top of HTML. Having the wmode setting set to "window", everything works fine, but setting it to "transparent", which is what I need to if everything's going to look nice on top of the HTML doesn't show the comboboxes at all. WTF??? In IE it's fine, but Firefox pretty much just keels over and dies the second you try to do this. I've reported this as a bug to Adobe, but nobody seems to be able to find a workaround for this at the moment. Dammit! Flash would be perfect for doing this if Adobe weren't the equivalent of programming gypsies.

The only mention on the Adobe website to the problem that I can work out is this cryptic message about The plugin version of Flash Player does not fire flash.events.Event.RENDER when wmode is set as transparent. (198515). Well, thanks very much, you really cleared that up for me Adobe. By the way, the link on that page takes you to a broken link page. Very professional to say these guys are supposed to be at the forefront of web design, and their own software has a site-wide link checking feature to make sure they all work.

Incidentally, has anyone noticed the download size for Flash has changed from about 70Mb for Flash 8 (when Macromedia were still making it) and 460Mb now Adobe make it? It took me about 3 hours to install it earlier, and still it's riddled with bugs. And they have the cheek to ask $699 for this?? I've seen less infections on a chinese whore with leprosy, AIDS and Windows '98(which is a well known ailment) all at the same time.

Podcasting: Beyond the Basics Pt. I - Autolink from your Website

• Part I: Introduction to Podcasting and XML
  
• Part II: Creating Your Sound Files
  
• Part III: Creating Your XML File
  
• Part IV: Validating Your XML File
  
• Part V: Adding Your Podcast to the iTunes Directory
• Beyond the Basics I: Autolink From Your Website
  
• Beyond the Basics II: Using HTML Code in Your Description

Well, we should have a working podcast by now, and perhaps you've even got it listed in the iTunes directory, along with a couple of others. From now on I'm going to show you my own little experimentations with podcasting - stuff that I've learnt just by having an idea and working out how to do it myself, rather than it being widely known about, or available in any other podcasting guides.

The first thing I'm going to show you is how to turn on Autodiscovery of your Podcast from your website. It may sound complicated and technical, but all it does is put the little orange button in the address line of your browser so that people know there is a podcast or XML feed available to subscribe to along with the page. Clicking this symbol takes a reader straight to a page where they can preview the XML and subscribe to it if they wish.

To implement this on your website is pretty simple, and only requires one line of code to be added to your HTML. Put this in the <head> section of your web page code:

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Jim's Scottish Podcast" href="http://www.jim-mcjim.com/podcast.xml" />

And that's it! Change the blue sections for the title of your podcast, and the URL of the XML file, and you're good to go! This is a simple trick that's often overlooked, but really improves the usability experience.


• Part I: Introduction to Podcasting and XML
  
• Part II: Creating Your Sound Files
  
• Part III: Creating Your XML File
  
• Part IV: Validating Your XML File
  
• Part V: Adding Your Podcast to the iTunes Directory
• Beyond the Basics I: Autolink From Your Website
  
• Beyond the Basics II: Using HTML Code in Your Description

Step by Step: Making a Podcast, Pt. V

• Part I: Introduction to Podcasting and XML
  
• Part II: Creating Your Sound Files
  
• Part III: Creating Your XML File
  
• Part IV: Validating Your XML File
  
• Part V: Adding Your Podcast to the iTunes Directory
• Beyond the Basics I: Autolink From Your Website
  
• Beyond the Basics II: Using HTML Code in Your Description

We have an episode, we have an XML feed, we've made sure it works, all that's left is to tell the world about it! If your feed is properly working, the description is accurate, you've made a nice picture for the episodes and to accompany the podcast in iTunes, there's absolutely no reason why Apple won't accept your podcast into their iTunes podcast directory. This is probably the easiest part of the process, but it won't happen if even one of the previous steps has not been completed properly.

Here we go!

• Open iTunes
• Click the "podcasts" tab on the left of the iTunes window
• At the bottom right of the iTunes window, you'll see a link to the "Podcast Directory". Click this.
• iTunes will open the iTunes Store Podcast Directory. In the middle of the page (usually) there is a large icon labelled "Submit a Podcast". If it's not there, at the bottom left of this page is a panel labelled "For Podcasters". Click the same link in this panel.
• From here, the process is pretty simple, and iTunes will guide you though it, but for completeness, I'll include it here. You'll be asked for your podcast feed URL. Type the URL of your XML file (exactly as you typed it when testing your XML earlier).
• When you click continue, you'll then be asked to provide your AppleID details (if you're not already logged into the iTunes store). If you don't have an AppleID account already, you can set one up for free, although as I remember, you are asked for a credit card number as part of the process.
• Once iTunes has received the request, you'll be asked for your email address so that once the podcast has been vetted by Apple and approved to be added to the podcast directory, you will be notified.

Between receiving your request, and adding your podcast to the directory, it can take anything up to a week, so now you've done this, hang tight, all the hard work has been done. Apple will get back to you with an email confirming whether they have accepted your request to be added to the directory, and if they have allowed it, they'll also give you a web address so that you can link to your podcast directly within iTunes from your webpage.

Apple will remove your podcast from the directory even if it has been approved if the XML stops working for a few days, or becomes completely inaccessible to the Apple servers.

Whilst you're waiting for approval, you can always submit your podcast to other directories, although don't expect too many visitors from these. Here's a list of a few you might want to add yours to:

• Digg
• Yahoo Podcasts
• Podcast Pickle
• Podcast.net
• The Podcast Directory

There are many others - try searching for "podcast directory" on Google.

Now you have a working podcast, all you have to do is keep making quality episodes, and maybe you can get yours in the iTunes charts! Apple are always on the lookout for quality podcasts, and if they think yours is worthy, they may make yours a "Featured Podcast". There's no way to ask them to do this, it just depends on how good your podcast is, and how many listeners it gets.

From now, I'll be discussing some advanced podcasting techniques, from how to make it easier for people to get at your podcasts, to making the description format much better in web-based XML readers like Google Reader.

I hope you've found this tutorial helpful in creating your podcast, if you have, please be gracious enough to link to it from your website, so that others may benefit from it in the same way (it's best to link to the first part of the tutorial, at this link) :) Thanks a lot, Rufus

• Part I: Introduction to Podcasting and XML
  
• Part II: Creating Your Sound Files
  
• Part III: Creating Your XML File
  
• Part IV: Validating Your XML File
  
• Part V: Adding Your Podcast to the iTunes Directory
• Beyond the Basics I: Autolink From Your Website
  
• Beyond the Basics II: Using HTML Code in Your Description

Step by Step: Making a Podcast, Pt. IV.

• Part I: Introduction to Podcasting and XML
  
• Part II: Creating Your Sound Files
  
• Part III: Creating Your XML File
  
• Part IV: Validating Your XML File
  
• Part V: Adding Your Podcast to the iTunes Directory
• Beyond the Basics I: Autolink From Your Website
  
• Beyond the Basics II: Using HTML Code in Your Description

At this point in the tutorial, we're pretty much on the home stretch: you've made an episode, and uploaded it to the web. You've also made an XML file, which describes your podcast and links to this mp3 file. Theoretically, we should be at the point where we can start threatening iTunes that you have a new podcast to unleash on the world. However, first we need to make sure that there's no mistakes in your XML file which would cause podasting software to fall over and die.

This is where the similarity between HTML and XML ends. If a mistake is made in a HTML web page, the web browser might display the information a little iffy, but it will probably still display it. If you make a mistake in an XML file, the software will just stop reading your file, and nobody will be able to get your podcast. XML is very unforgiving in this sense, which is why it's important to make sure that your code has no mistakes before you submit it to any podcast directories or iTunes.

So what can go wrong with an XML file? Well, most mistakes will boil down to:

• Typing error - even one letter out of place can stop your file working if it's in an XML tag.
• Forgetting to close a tag - this will make anything trying to read your XML file get it's knickers in a twist.
• Not escaping a character. This is something I'm always doing, and it makes iTunes instantly fall over. I'll explain this properly in a minute.

Just in case you're thinking "Well, I copied and pasted the code exactly, there's no way I could have made any mistakes!" - mistakes have a habit of creeping into XML files without you even noticing, and even if you've not made a mistake this time, there will come a time in the future when you do, so this is good to know about. If you're using something like Dreamweaver, there's much less chance of you making mistakes, as it highlights all the XML tags for you, and this makes things a little easier.

Before you give up on podcasting, thinking that you have to go through your XML with a fine-toothed comb in order to be able to find where the mistakes are, don't worry, help is at hand. Because you've already uploaded your XML to the web, you can now run it through a feed validator. This is a web program which will pick apart your code, and tell you about any errors it finds. You fix them, re-upload the file, and then try again. When you eventually get to the point when you have no errors in your code, you've achieved the amazing, and you're ready to test your podcast in iTunes, and then submit it to the directory.

Head over to the Feed Validator here. You'll notice it looks a lot like Google. All you do is type (or copy and paste) the URL of your XML file into the box and press the Validate button. You'll see a list of errors in your XML (and in most cases, an explanation on how to fix them), then a copy of your code, showing you exactly where the errors are. If you've just copied and pasted the code I gave yesterday, you'll probably have 2 errors which are non-critical (ie. they won't stop your XML from being read, but it's advising that you should do something about it):

• item should contain a guid element
  iTunes likes to have a Globally Unique Identifier, to differentiate every single episode of every podcast - however, if this tag is not included, iTunes will just create it's own guid from the mp3 filename associated with the episode.
• Missing recommended iTunes channel element: itunes:explicit
  This is another tag you can add to each episode (or under the <channel> tag, meaning that all episodes will have strong language) to tell iTunes that the recording contains explicit language. This is what it looks like:
  <itunes:explicit>yes</itunes:explicit> - use if your episode does contain strong language
<itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit> - use if your episode does not contain strong language
<itunes:explicit>clean</itunes:explicit> - use if your episode contains no strong language or anything that might be considered offensive in any way.

Something else that is very important to watch out for when coding your XML is making sure that you have escaped your characters. This is nothing to do with writing a novel about Colditz or anything even that exciting, unfortunately. Basically, in XML there are certain symbols which have special meanings, and if you want them to show up the way you intended, you have to substitute them with little codes. You've seen this already, without realizing it, probably - take a look at this snippet from yesterday's code:

<itunes:category text="Places &amp; Travel"></itunes:category>

The category shows up in iTunes as "Places & Travel", yet in your code, it's "Places &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp; Travel". This is because the ampersand symbol has a special meaning for programs trying to interpret XML, so by substituting the &amp; code, you're telling it that you actually want the ampersand to show up in the text, and not to interpret it as a piece of programming. Here is a list of symbols that need to have these escape codes in place of them:

Character	name	xml
&	ampersand	&
<	less-than sign	&lt;
>	greater-than sign	&gt;
’	apostrophe	'
"	quotation	&quot;

Try to be aware of these characters when coding your XML, as even one without the correct code substituted instead will stop iTunes (and most other podcasting software) from being able to read your file. I usually find it helpful to do a find-and-replace on the & symbol before I publish a new episode of my podcast (Ctrl-H in notepad/found under the "edit" menu in most other editors).
Once you've validated your feed, and it's not throwing up any significant errors (remember you'll have to save your file in your editor, then upload it to the same place as before, then put it through the validator to check the new version), it's time to test it in iTunes to see if it works, before we submit your podcast to the directory.

• Open iTunes
• Click Advanced (on the menu bar) > "Subscribe to Podcast..."

• Type the URL of your podcast, and click ok.
• You'll be taken to the podcast area of iTunes, and iTunes will start trying to get your podcast. All being well, you should see a spinning orange icon next to your podcast title, indicating that it's currently being downloaded:
  
  
  

  If it's not worked, and iTunes has found an error in your XML, or can't find the URL you're pointing it to for the mp3 file, you'll get an exclamation mark next to your podcast:
  

  
  

  In this case, you need to go back to your XML code, find the problem (or problems), correct them, and try this process again. If your code has validated ok, then chances are you've either not escaped a symbol somewhere in your code, or you've put the wrong URL to your mp3 file in your code. Pay special attention to these things.
  

If you got the spinning orange icon first time, congratulations! You now have a working podcast! Next we'll look at submitting your podcast to the iTunes directory, so you can start getting some listeners!

• Part I: Introduction to Podcasting and XML
  
• Part II: Creating Your Sound Files
  
• Part III: Creating Your XML File
  
• Part IV: Validating Your XML File
  
• Part V: Adding Your Podcast to the iTunes Directory
• Beyond the Basics I: Autolink From Your Website
  
• Beyond the Basics II: Using HTML Code in Your Description

Step by Step: Making a Podcast, Pt. III

• Part I: Introduction to Podcasting and XML
  
• Part II: Creating Your Sound Files
  
• Part III: Creating Your XML File
  
• Part IV: Validating Your XML File
  
• Part V: Adding Your Podcast to the iTunes Directory
• Beyond the Basics I: Autolink From Your Website
  
• Beyond the Basics II: Using HTML Code in Your Description

Now that we've got an mp3 file stored somewhere on the net, we need to create our XML file, so that iTunes and other podcatching software knows where to find and download this mp3 from.

First, let's have a look at what an XML file actually looks like. Below is some typical XML podcast code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" version="2.0"> <channel> <title>Jim's Scottish Podcast</title> <link>http://www.jim-mcjim.com</link> <language>en</language> <copyright>Jim McJim, 2007</copyright> <itunes:subtitle>A weekly changing podcast on the ever changing weather of Scotland</itunes:subtitle> <itunes:author>Jim McJim</itunes:author> <description>Have you ever wondered what the weather was like in Scotland last week? Wonder no more as Jim McJim takes you on a whistle stop tour of Scottish Weather through the ages.</description> <itunes:image href="http://www.jim-mcjim.com/jimsporran.jpg"> </itunes:image> <itunes:owner> <itunes:name>Jim McJim</itunes:name> <itunes:email>imjim@jim-mcjim.com</itunes:email> </itunes:owner> <itunes:category text="Places &amp; Travel"></itunes:category> <itunes:keywords>Scotland, Weather, Jim McJim, Rain</itunes:keywords> <item> <title>Aberdeen</title> <itunes:author>Jim McJim</itunes:author> <link>http://www.jim-mcjim.com/aberdeen26062007.mp3</link> <itunes:subtitle>A quick look at Aberdeen's greyness through the ages.</itunes:subtitle> <description>Don't be fooled by Global Warming and El Nino, Aberdeen has always had crummy weather, as we set out to prove in this weeks installment of Jim's Scottish Podcast. Jim is always taking suggestions for where to do his Scottish podcast on next, and he'll happily tell you exactly how rainy it's been just about anywhere in the country. Contact Jim on imjim@jim-mcjim.com.</description> <enclosure url="http://www.jim-mcjim.com/aberdeen26062007.mp3" length="57099128" type="audio/mpeg"/> <pubDate>Thu, 19 Apr 2007 11:14:18 GMT</pubDate> <itunes:duration>59:12</itunes:duration> <itunes:keywords>Scotland, Aberdeen, Rain</itunes:keywords> </item> </channel> </rss>

At first it looks like a complete mess, but if you look closely, it actually makes a lot of sense - XML was designed so that computers could interpret it, but it was also designed so that the average human could look at it and see exactly what was going on as well. You could pretty much copy and paste that snippet into a blank notepad document, change it to the details you need, and use it as your XML if need be, without even reading the next part.

If you've programmed a web page using HTML before now, the XML will appear very familiar to you - the difference between them though is that whilst HTML describes everything that goes on in a page (including pictures, formatting, backgrounds, tables etc.), XML only describes the data, and leaves the formatting up to the page hosting the XML document, or the program or device it's being shown in. You'll notice, like HTML, that each snippet of data is held between two "tags", which describe what data is contained in that tag. There is always an opening tag: <data> , and a closing tag: </data>

Now we know the basics of an XML file, let's pick apart the above example, tag by tag, so that we can better understand what's going on with this file.

• <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
This tag must always be at the start of every podcast XML file - it basically just tells any program reading this file that it's an XML file. Never change this tag, as anything trying to "tune in" to your podcast will just get confused.
• <rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" version="2.0">...</rss>
  This is what is known as the "namespace" tag. Every XML file must have one, and it tells any program reading the file what each tag means. For just a standard podcast, use this tag, as it includes all the information needed for the iTunes tags, as well as standard podcast tags.
• <channel>...</channel>
This is where the podcasting magic begins. This tag just tells us that everything between these tags will be a new podcast. You can put more than one channel into an XML file, but I wouldn't recommend it. You'll notice that just about everything else in the file is enclosed in these tags.
• <title>Jim's Scottish Podcast</title>
This is the title of the pocast, as it will show up in the podcasting software.
• <link>http://www.jim-mcjim.com</link>
This is just the website associated with the podcast. If there's the option to link to a website in the podcasting software, this is where it will take you.
  
• <language>en</language>
This is the default language for the podcast. In this case it tells us that it will be standard English. We could be more specific and set this instead to "en-gb", which software would interpret as British English. There is a list of different values for different languages here.
• <copyright>Jim McJim, 2007</copyright>
Pretty self-explanatory, who holds the copyright for this podcast. This might be a single person, as in this example, or it might be a company.
• <itunes:subtitle>A weekly changing podcast on the ever changing weather of Scotland</itunes:subtitle>
The iTunes subtitle: gives an annotated description of what the podcast is about in iTunes. There's a couple of other podcast directories that read this value as well. It's best to be as concise as possible when setting this, as it may be the deciding factor as to whether someone listens to your podcast, or passes it by.
• <itunes:author>Jim McJim</itunes:author>
Another iTunes specific tag - this is the Author or main producer of the podcast. This will usually be the same as the copyright holder.
• <description>...</description>
This is where you can be as descriptive as you want on what your podcast is about. iTunes shows this description on the individual podcast page, as do most podcasting websites.
• <itunes:image href="http://www.jim-mcjim.com/jimsporran.jpg"> </itunes:image>
This is the image that iTunes will show in the podcast charts, and on the individual page describing your podcast. This must be a JPEG, and it is most effective if it is square. Your podcast will get much more exposure if you have a decent image.

• <itunes:owner>
<itunes:name>Jim McJim</itunes:name>
<itunes:email>imjim@jim-mcjim.com</itunes:email>
</itunes:owner>
More iTunes specific owner information. Again, this will usually be the same as the copyright holder's details.
• <itunes:category text="Places &amp; Travel"></itunes:category>
This is the category that your podcast will be placed under in the iTunes directory. Some other podcasting websites also use this. There's a full list of what you can set this value as here.
• <itunes:keywords>Scotland, Weather, Jim McJim, Rain</itunes:keywords>
Words that people might use to search for your podcast in iTunes. Try to think of as many words as possible, but keep within the realms of what your podcast is about. The more words you choose, the further down the "relevance" list your podcast will appear, so be as specific as possible. Seperate each term with a comma.
• <item>...</item>
This is the next tag you need to pay attention to. Everything between a set of <item> tags describes one episode of your podcast. You can many item tags in one XML file. You'll notice that a few of the tags contained within this one are the same as for the podcast itself - these fulfill the same function, but instead of describing the podcast now, they're describing an individual episode.
• <link>http://www.jim-mcjim.com/aberdeen26062007.mp3</link>
For each episode, include a link tag which is the URL of the mp3 file associated with this episode. This will allow people looking at the podcast on websites to go straight to the mp3 file, and stream or download it. It's less helpful for an episode link tag to go to the podcast website.
• <enclosure url="http://www.jim-mcjim.com/aberdeen26062007.mp3" length="57099128" type="audio/mpeg"/>
This is where the real magic happens - the tag which tells iTunes and other podcasting software where the episode mp3 file (or video file) is contained. Change the value in the quotes next to url to the URL where you stored the mp3 file. The length value is the size (in bytes) of the file (right click the file in windows explorer, and go to properties so get this value). Type is the type of file this is, in most cases this will be an mp3 file, but it could be a video file. The following table shows other file types values this might be:


  File	Type
  .mp3	audio/mpeg
  .m4a	audio/x-m4a
  .mp4	video/mp4
  .m4v	video/x-m4v
  .mov	video/quicktime
  .pdf	application/pdf

• <pubDate>Thu, 19 Apr 2007 11:14:18 GMT</pubDate>
The date this episode was produced. It must be kept in this exact format, or your episodes will most likely end up in the wrong order.
• <itunes:duration>59:12</itunes:duration>
The duration of the episode, in hours:minutes:seconds. In this case the episode is 59 minutes and 12 seconds long. It's important to set this right, otherwise iTunes will list your episode as having no duration.
• <itunes:keywords>Scotland, Aberdeen, Rain</itunes:keywords>
Keywords applicable to the individual episode.
• </item>
</channel>
</rss>
These close the episode, channel, and XML file, respectively. Remember that after the closing item tag, and before the closing channel tag, you might have one or more item tags, each with their own title, description, enclosure etc. tags within them, and all describing seperate episodes.
  

This is pretty much a bare bones XML file, which as stated earlier, you could copy and paste into notepad, change the values so they are applicable to your podcast, save it as "podcast.xml" (or similar - just make sure that your filename ends ".xml" - in the "save as type" chooser in the "save as..." dialog box, you might want to change it to "*.*" instead of "*.txt", as this will ensure that notepad doesn't change the file extension), and upload to the web. This is the bare minimum of tags that are required to get your podcast into most podcasting directories, and iTunes, but there are other tags as well, these are listed in the Apple technical specifications here. Some of the iTunes tags just double up on tags that are already described here though, which is why I've chosen not to include them. iTunes is big enough and ugly enough to work out what should go where without you having to put the information in twice.

Next I'll take you through the process of validating your XML file to make sure it works in iTunes and other podcasting software, before we list it in the iTunes directory.

• Part I: Introduction to Podcasting and XML
  
• Part II: Creating Your Sound Files
  
• Part III: Creating Your XML File
  
• Part IV: Validating Your XML File
  
• Part V: Adding Your Podcast to the iTunes Directory
• Beyond the Basics I: Autolink From Your Website
  
• Beyond the Basics II: Using HTML Code in Your Description

Step by Step: Making a Podcast, Pt. I

• Part I: Introduction to Podcasting and XML
  
• Part II: Creating Your Sound Files
  
• Part III: Creating Your XML File
  
• Part IV: Validating Your XML File
  
• Part V: Adding Your Podcast to the iTunes Directory
• Beyond the Basics I: Autolink From Your Website
  
• Beyond the Basics II: Using HTML Code in Your Description

Ok, there seems to be a lot of information out there on the internet on making podcasts, but nothing that really makes a lot of sense - I basically had to cobble together information from a lot of different sources in order to get mine up and running, so I thought I'd make a guide on how to produce your own podcast from start to finish, including the all-important getting it in iTunes steps. I'll also show you how to make your accompanying textual information for each episode to look nice in not just iTunes, but HTML readers like Google Reader as well, which is becoming just as important as iTunes.

First I'll explain a little about what a podcast actually is, for people that don't know - a podcast is basically like an internet newsletter - every time a new issue is produced, your computer automatically downloads the latest one. The difference between a podcast and a newsletter though is that a podcast can contain audio and video, meaning that you can set your computer up to automatically put the newly downloaded episode onto your mp3 player (no, it doesn't have to be an iPod, although Apple have made all this very easy with their iTunes software). There are podcasts on virtually anything, from just simple audio/video blogs to your favorite bands and language courses, and the best thing is that most of them are free! The beauty over traditional streaming internet media is that once you've subscribed to a podcast you like, you don't really have to do anything else to get any new episodes as they're produced, they come to you!

What you will need to make your first podcast:

• A text editor. Notepad will do, but if you want to use something more suited to web programming like Adobe Dreamweaver, it's up to you. I wouldn't recommend Microsoft Frontpage, as it seems to get in the way more than it helps you to do this.
  
• A sound/video editor for creating the episodes. Personally I use Adobe Audition 1.5, version 2 is out now, but for what I do, a lot of the features aren't necessary. If you got Nero with your CD Burner or your computer, there's a sound editor built into it. You'll probably also need a microphone, or some other way of getting sound into your computer.
  
• Some space on the internet somewhere. If you don't already have some, go to Googlepages for 100Mb free.
• iTunes is helpful, but not essential (most people who listen to podcasts do so through iTunes, so making your podcast iTunes compatible will increase your listenership by a huge amount). iTunes is also free, and is useful for adding album artwork to your episodes.
  

Before we start on what goes on behind the scenes in a podcast, you need to think about what you're going to put on your podcast. Remember there are so many podcasts out there already, how are you going to set your's apart from any other that's out there? This is something that you should really try and work out before you start producing anything, if you have a clear creative focus, people will know what to expect from your podcast, and are more likely to subscribe to it.

Now a bit of information about what actually makes the magic of a podcast happen. A podcast consists of one XML file, and many sound/video files. You're probably already familiar with sound and video files on your computer, so I'll save you an explanation of that. An XML file is basically a contents file: it just tells the computers subscribed to the podcast the location of each sound/video file, plus a description of the content of the files. It's this file which we'll be concentrating mostly in this tutorial. You'll have come across XML files more than you think as you browse around the internet - any time you see this symbol in your web browser (at the end of the page address if you have Firefox, or usually on the button bar if you have Internet Explorer 7 (Microsoft have only just cottoned on to the fact that this is actually usful). If you click this icon in Firefox, you'll see a lot of the information that makes up the page, but without any of the formatting. You'll also be able to tell Firefox to subscribe to this information in Google Reader, meaning that every time the information is updated, it will get listed in your Google Reader, and you'll be able to get all your interesting stuff in one place, instead of having to go to 100 different websites for it. The XML file basically contains just the information on the site, without any formatting information, which means that the same file can be used in Google Reader, or your E-mail program, or your mobile phone. It's up to the software itself to decide how best to display this information. Even this blog has an XML file, automatically produced every time I write a new entry. If you were to subscribe to it in Google Reader, this is how it would appear:

All the information is the same, but it's presented in a much more structured and information-centric way (much like usenet groups used to be presented in days of yore, but with websites, instead of discussions), along with any other subscriptions listed to the left of the page, and without any of the website branding and images getting in the way.

Tomorrow I'll show you what a raw XML file looks like to us mere mortals, and how to create a podcast using this magical technology, for now, try going to a few of your favorite websites, and try subscribing to their feed by clicking the orange icon (if they have one), you never know, if you have a blog on the internet, you may have already created your own feed without realizing it!

On to Part 2...

• Part I: Introduction to Podcasting and XML
  
• Part II: Creating Your Sound Files
  
• Part III: Creating Your XML File
  
• Part IV: Validating Your XML File
  
• Part V: Adding Your Podcast to the iTunes Directory
• Beyond the Basics I: Autolink From Your Website
  
• Beyond the Basics II: Using HTML Code in Your Description