Ok, so I found out about podcasting on iTunes, and I fell in love with it. It was probably the coolest thing ever to happen. Now it's a big thing, and anyone can do it. This will cover just the basics of using MP3 file, tagging them, and uploading them in a directory on a web server with dircaster installed. If you want to get advanced I reccomend getting a book on it. This is only the basics, because I am running a windows computer at the time, and you can only have enhanced podcasting in mac at the time of me writing this... Let's get started.

First things first, you have to get an idea of what it will be about. People don't really susbcribe to shows about everything, so it's good to have a specific topic to talk about on your show.

Next, you will want to have some intro music. Surf around http://www.opsound.org and find some music you like. They don't have much, but you can leagally use it in a podcast.

Ok, you have your topic, and your music, you need an icon now. Make one in the gimp, or paint or something. Make sure it relates to your topic.

Now setting up a server. You may want to get a lot of space before you do this. just the 150 MB here dosen't cut it. Unless you are JUST using trap17 for your podcast. You may want to use paid hosting is what I'm saying.

Now we have to download 'dircaster'. It can be found numerous places, you can find it at http://www.curtisfamily.org.uk/index.php/2005/01/13/77. Follow the directions in the readme (this is EXTREMELY important) and then upload your little icon to that directory.

Now let's do a podcast! Remember that you cannot infringe the copywright law and sing a song like 'happy birthday'. That's just stupid, you'll get fined or jailed. Just remember to keep it clean if you want it to be listed as clean, if not then you can bleep things out... Save it and convert it into a MP3 file. Tag it using iTunes, or Winamp, whatever.

Now we upload it to your podcast directory. Just simpally upload it into your dircaster directory and it will be on there, but what good is it if it is JUST on your website? Get it listed in iTunes or something! (note: linux users may not be able to use iTunes unless they get an emulator, or something like wine to run it.) There are many places you can get it listed. Some examples are feedburner, pluck, yahoo, etc. Just do as many as you want. Fill out the form, pluggin all the stuff and remember the info you got in the readme of dircaster. Now you are set! It may take a couple of days to get it approved, but that's about it, you're set!

To add another file to the directory, just record it, convert to an MP3, tag it, and upload it. It will atomatically update the feed for you. Happy podcasting!!!

i dont really want to do this, but it does look like a nice beginner tut

You also use the program Audacity along with the LAME MP3 encoder (the link is on the website) to make some great podcasts. If you want to do an interview in your podcast, you can also combine the program with Skype.

this seems really cool. I didnt know anyone could just have a podcast. I thought it had to be approved by them or you have to be someone famous. But thanks for this cool tut i would like to try this out.

I´m really interested in podcasting right now. I downloaded Audacity but I´m not sure how to use it. I mean, I want to make a podcast which music, turning the songs on and down to speak and again to go to another song etc. But I´m not sure how to do it, since you can only save one track of voice or audio at the same time... there´s a tool called "envolvente" (I have the program in spanish, sorry) that I think might help to reduce volume gradually in some places, but I´m not able to figure out how it works exactly.

I read lot of tutorials but they usually only say that you have to download the program and record what you want, as it were so easy... which makes me feel a little stupid. Can someone help me?

I'm not really into podcasting and will probably never do it, but as bucksta rightly said, this looks like a very good tutorial, especially for those people who fancy podcasting, but don't know how to.

This post has been edited by sportytalk: Jul 20 2006, 12:40 PM