Creating Your Own Podcast for Private Use

Contributed by gernblanston  
Tagged: Web application programming  

Step-by-step instructions for creating a podcast.

Purpose:

I download some radio shows from newsgroups that are for one reason or another never going to be available on podcast. I’ve been getting by with listening to them as songs on my IPod, but losing the placemark if I wanted to switch to another song was getting old. So I set out to create my own podcast for my own personal use. ITunes will actually let you manually subscribe to any XML podcast feed.

Steps:

1. Download Analog X’s Simple WWW server at http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/network/sswww.htm . Install and setup with a default root directory. For this Recipe, I’m using C:\documents and settings\%my username&\%usernames% documents\wwwroot .

2. Download ListGarden from http://softwaregarden.com/products/listgarden/ . This program lets you add files, reorder them, and publish the resulting xml feed.

3. Now that you’re all set up, start by copying the MP3 files into the root WWW directory or a subfolder.

4. Start ListGarden and create your first feed. This isn’t an RSS how to, but this program should be fairly easy to figure out how to add files, name, and publish the XML file “rss.xml” to the www root folder as well.

5. Test the operation of the WWW server by opening a browser and typing “http://localhost/rss.xml”. This should bring up the xml code and depending on which browser you are using, it will ask if you want to subscribe to the feed. Ignore this prompt, you don’t need your browser to see it.

5. Now that you have the rss.xml file created, Launch ITunes. Go to “Advanced” -> “Subscribe to Podcast”. In the address field type “http://localhost/rss.xml” and click OK.

If everything is setup correctly, ITunes should find the file and put your private podcast in the display with the rest of your subscriptions. From now on your Ipod will update this podcast as it does the rest. Now you’ll never use your place again!