WTF is a podcast feed? My, aren't you behind the times!

So you've figured out that sometimes it's fun to come here and listen to the MP3 of the latest show, either through the flash player or by downloading it. Or by just clicking the "Download" link and then sitting there like a retard watching the little progress bar crawl across your browser window.

That's fine and dandy -- and you get to see & click the links to the musicians and whatnot. But if you'd rather not have to come 'n' git it every week, you can subscribe to the feed and the MP3 will be delivered automatically to your computer. How?

First, download one of these free "podcatcher" clients (or just use iTunes*). Its job is to automatically check for new shows and download them when they come out, without you doin' squat.

for Mac users (the Lite version is free, full version is pretty nifty)

For Windows or Mac. I have no experience with it.

I think this is for Windows only.

Okay, got one of those installed? Alright, fire it up and click Add Feed or some other such command. You figure it out, these things aren't that hard. Where it asks you for the feed address or RSS or XML file or whatever, you enter the link to my feed.

How do you get the link? God, really. Okay, back on that main page, where there's the little button? If you right-click on it, and select "Copy Link," you'll have the link on your clipboard. Paste that into your podcatcher. (Works for this button, too.) If that's too complicated, here's the link right here:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/wtfbarbecue

I'm using the Feedburner service now, which if you don't know automatically generates the feed content whenever I post anything to the blog, so there won't be separate feeds for the blog and the podcast. That was such a huge pain in my ass, but I was new at this, okay? That also means that those of you who already subscribed using the wtfeed.xml link might want to update your podcatcher to the new link...but not necessary. I will probably keep that file there by manually putting a copy of the Feedburner xml file on my site for the old skool listeners.

In your podcatcher preferences, you can tell it what you want it to do with the mp3 once it's downloaded (say, for instance, "Add to iTunes Music Library" and "Delete original file after adding to library" or some such nonsense). You can also tell it how often to check for new episodes. For fuck's sake, DON'T ENTER "EVERY 15 MINUTES." One of you assholes on AOL has that set on your Doppler, and you're justing pinging the shit out of my server, and it pisses me off. Fucking pages of Apache logs full of your fucking AOL address with your Doppler checking my feed. Every 3 hours should be more than sufficient for you to stay on the ball.

Got it? Good.

* iTunes 4.9 now supports podcasts! I'm not 100% satisfied with its implementation, but it's pretty good, and if you're new at this, it's even better for you. Under the Advanced menu, select Subscribe to Podcast, and then paste that link up there into the box. Voila! It'll automatically download the latest episode, so if you've already heard the latest episode, do me a favor and quickly click that little "x" button to cancel. :-) There's a settings button on the lower right to tell iTunes how many of the recent episodes to keep around, how often to check, etc. Be sure to click the little (i) button next to the episode "Description" field to launch a pop up window with all the show notes in it; unfortunately, it doesn't allow for formatting or hyperlinks, and iTunes won't download any of the non-podcast blog entries (e.g., these little surveys and commentaries I occasionally post), so be sure to visit the website each week for the full effect. And SOON you will be able to read the show notes ON YOUR iPOD! Stay tuned.