What is RSS?

RSS is a news reader.  Basically, websites publish RSS files.  Then, RSS readers retrieve the files, doing so only when there's been an update.  EVERY reader gets the same RSS file from the site, so they're always up to date.  They're always synchronized.  This site posts news updates for our work, our lives, our projects, and the like.  Whenever there's a new development in production, a position opening, or the like, we'll update the RSS files and then your RSS reader will update you.  It's free, but you subscribe to our RSS feed.  That is, if you don't want it or you have it and want to stop getting it, you can do so at any time.  It's all up to you.

Try out FeedReader if you need an RSS reader.

How Do I Use It?

To use it, click the link to subscribe to our news reader, either on our homepage or right here.  If your software and system support it, our news feed will be automatically added to your RSS reader.  If not, your browser will show you a page with a lot of XML on it.  Look in the address bar of your browser.  Highlight the entire address and then right-click and select copy (or just press CTRL+C).  Then fire up your RSS reader and tell it you want to subscribe to a new feed.  When it prompts you for the address of the RSS, right-click and select paste (or just press CTRL+V).  That's it!  You'll now find yourself subscribed to our news feeder.  Whenever we update with new info, your RSS reader will inform you.

What is Podcasting?

The term comes from using iPods to listen to radio shows and such, but you don't need an iPod.  You can use any portable music player or just use your computer and its speakers.  It's basically the same as RSS feeds (in fact it's built on RSS technology), but instead of downloading news articles, it downloads mp3 files for you.  In our case, these mp3s are of our interviews, our rants and talk shows, and the like.  A podcast retriever (similar to an RSS Feed Reader) will check for new episodes of any shows you are subscribed to (there are thousands of shows all over the web.  We are but one of many), and then automatically download them to your computer.  If configured properly and if it's supported by your hardware and software, it will also automatically import the files to iTunes, Windows Media Player, or the like, and in some set-ups, automatically transfer the new files to your iPod or other portable music player, allowing you to listen at your convenience.  Leave your podcast software running at night and listen to your new shows on your portable music player the next morning on the way to work.  Cool, huh?  Try iPodder for downloading our shows and see what you think.  There's a more in-depth walk through of ipodder and podcasting here.

How Do I Listen or Subscribe to Your Podcasts?

To listen to any of our shows any time you like, simply find the show you want to listen to and click the pocast button .  The episode you selected will either play in your browser, download to your computer and playback, or open a helper application (like winamp or windows mediaplayer) and stream the content back to you.  This is all dependent on your setup.  We find that Internet Explorer will generally open Windows Media Player (either within the browser or externally, depending on your preferences), and stream the file to you, playing it back as it's downloading.  We find that Firefox tends to download the entire file before launching a player for you.

To subscribe, simply click the rss/podcast button to be taken to the RSS feed for that show.  Just as you would to subscribe to our news feed, copy the URL of the podcast feed, then paste that into your ipodder software when prompted for the URL of the feed. 

(*NOTE--We are using a PHP script that automatically generates the RSS feed on the fly any time we update.  So, when you subscribe, you'll find a file name that ends with .PHP, not .RSS or .XML.  Add the one that ends with .PHP to your ipodder application.  Don't worry about any errors your browser may show when you go to this page directly in it; it is not intended to be viewed in a web browser.  It is intended for podcasting applications like ipodder.*)

 That's it.  After that, any time we release a new episode from a show you've subscribed to, your ipodder software will automatically download it for you.  If you configure it right, you can even have it automatically load up the new episodes in a playlist in your music player (ipodder will do this for you automatically if you have iTunes installed and tell ipodder that iTunes is your music player) and with some software, it'll even automatically add it to your portable mp3 player.

A good guide on how to do this with a portable mp3 player, Windows Media Player, and ipodder is available here.  Basically, it will use ipodder to download episodes of shows you've subscribed to, WIndows Media Player will import them to a playlist, and any time you connect your portable mp3 player, Windows Media Player will automatically add any new episodes to your player.

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