Watch TV anywhere

What’s your pleasure? What’s your obsession? Whatever it is, chances are, there’s a podcast for it. Recently I was hanging around the iTunes podcast list to see if any of my friends could come out to play, and I started to notice—really notice—the diversity in podcasts. There’s one—or more—for everything!

Apple’s iPod exploded onto the scene a year ago and changed the face of music forever. Sure, there had been other portable music players (remember an antique called the “Sony Walkman” or if you are really old, like me, “transistor radios”?) and even other portable mp3 players (Creative’s Rio comes to mind. Yes, I had one.) In a technology flurry that barely has given us time to catch our breath before the next gotta-have-it comes out, we have moved rapidly from playing music to audiobooks to podcasts to videos, even playing, if you care to give iTunes $1.99, last week’s episode of Lost or Desperate Housewives, all in the palm of your hand. From humble beginnings…

In the beginning, the military created the WWW—and it was good

It reminds me of when this thing called “the Internet” crept into our culture. It started out as a military thing, designed for communication between the powers that be, but the potential could not be denied, and it started to grow and change and take on a life of its own. Terms like terminal, Sys Admin, and Bulletin Board got whole new meanings, and without any of us being aware of it, the Geeks were beginning to take over the World. One day we were hearing references to it on television, and the next we were seeing URLs at the bottom of television ads. Then words like “email” and “IM me” began to creep into our daily conversation, and before long, everyone knew what these words meant, and rather than vague terms, they were actual verbs for things we did without even thinking about them every day. Now words like “Googled” and “photoshopped” are uttered millions of times every day, and everyone knows what they mean, and its OK to be a Geek. I keep telling myself that, anyway.

“Welcome to My Homepage”

With the new graphics and sound capabilities of the modern computers (you know the ones: the small ones that wouldn’t need a climate-controlled room and their own wing of the house, and cost less than a 747), the webpage explosion began. Not only were there informational web pages from companies or individuals with tutorials on how to make your own web graphics, the “personal” web page made an appearance. People had personal web pages on anything from their favorite hobby to their kids to their cats. They had personal web pages blaring music “borrowed” from other sites, and full of graphics “borrowed” from other sites, and wow!–lots of these graphics MOVED. These things all gave us new terms for our modern vocabulary like “animated gif”, “streaming”, and “annoying”. Sorry, it had to be said. One of the worst assaults on your eyes and ears at that time in Internet history (OK, let’s be honest. It still is. Some things never change) was to run into a page with a million blinkies and blaring bad midi files that sounded like they were recorded on a kid’s toy organ and no volume or on/off controls in sight.

Variety is the spice of life

Homepages could be the ever-popular “Welcome to my Homepage!” that stated “This is my personal page where I will post gobs of stuff of interest to well, maybe nobody but me and my nearest, dearest friends because no one knows who I am” , but then nothing was ever posted to it ever again. Many of these pages are still floating around in cyberspace, taking up a stop on the Information Highway for eternity. Another popular format was the endless lists of links (and no original content at all). So, which one did you have? Yes, you. I know you had one. We all had one. I had the endless list of links kind (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, thank you very much.)

Don’t Panic! in large, friendly letters

Yes, I know there were already hundreds of link pages to Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy sites, but it is my favorite book, and not knowing Douglas Adams or any cool people at all I had no way to get original content, and besides, no one else had EXACTLY the same list of links I had, nor did they have the lovely blue silk background with the transparent GIF pansies decorating their pages, both “borrowed” from the web, of course. There was an early internet mentality that if you posted it to the web, it was fair game for anyone to use and claim as their own. Luckily this has changed, and while the “borrowing” (read: stealing) practice still goes on, most people at least feel guilty when they swipe someone’s images to use on their own page. But I digress. Side effect of gray hair sprouting, I believe, at least that’s when the digressing (or mind-wandering, take your pick) became a problem for me. There were, of course, lots of important and informative websites too, like the NASA site. Who didn’t spend hours waiting for a satellite photo to download at 9600 baud or less, not necessarily because you couldn’t live without seeing the photo, but simply because you could?

Luckily that stage of my Internet development didn’t last long and I decided to use my newly found webmaster talents, slim as they were, to do an informational page for the local Fire Department. Before long I had a web of pages with tutorials, essays, photos, and book and software reviews and was starting to see the real value in this Internet thing. Information I wanted someone else already had and many of them were willing to share, and were doing so on a webpage. I had information others wanted and I shared it with them. It was then I realized the web is a living entity. It changes daily, both in content and how that content is delivered, and in 2005, enter the podcast.

Enter the next big thing—

In case you have been under a rock for the last year, a podcast is a broadcast that sort of mirrors the personal webpage. Or it can be. They’re fairly new. I know they are fairly new, because MS Word tells me I am misspelling a word every time I type “podcast”. That means they have not become deeply ingrained in our culture enough yet to be added to the dictionary, or at least not the dictionary of MacWord 2004). They range from Johnny broadcasting whatever he can think of from the Family Room to real information essential to your daily existence, like News, Sports, Inside Mac Radio, and Photoshop Tips and Tricks. Chances are, whatever you are interested in, someone somewhere has created a podcast dedicated to it.

Podcast listings

My obsession is Disney and Disney World. Well, one of my obsessions anyway. I am planning another vacation to Disney World, so of course I checked for Disney podcasts, and I found quite a few, several very helpful in trip planning, some just fun. You will also find some podcasts that seem to have been a passing fling, as there is one episode and nothing more, and some are regular features with new episodes on a regular schedule.

I know they’re out there, but how do I find them?

Finding Podcasts at the iTunes Music Store

Finding the podcasts that interest you is quite easy to do in iTunes. In the left window menu, click Podcasts. At the bottom of the Podcasts window, click the link for Podcast Directory and let the fun begin. The iTunes Music Store opens to a colorful page full of podcasts of comedy, sports, news, music, and even podcasts that deal with a specific show like the Official Podcast for ABC’s popular shows Lost and Desperate Housewives or Fox’s Family Guy and the O.C. There are also fan podcasts for everything from Lost to Harry Potter. But wait! There’s more! On the right side of the window, read the list of Today’s Top Podcasts. You may find something of interest there. If not, at the bottom of Today’s Top Podcasts is a link for Top 100 Podcasts. Scroll through this for a huge variety. Some offer video and some are audio. Most of them are free, so all you have to do is click the icon or the Subscribe button to have them added to iTunes, where you can listen on the computer or transfer them to your iPod.

Check out those you are interested in by clicking the podcast’s icon (reminiscent of a tiny CD jacket), and iTunes opens with a list of episodes that you can download. Listen to them, and they stay on your hard drive unless you delete them. If you want to subscribe right away, click the Subscribe button, and iTunes opens with a list of the shows available, but this time will download the current episode right away. Click the Get button in the iTunes podcast window to download the older shows and listen whenever you like.

Search for Podcasts

Still want more? You can search through all podcasts by keyword. On the left side of the iTunes window is a Search All Podcast bar. Simply type in the search term and iTunes will find all listed podcasts relating to your search.

Podcasts go commercial, uh…make that without commercials

As technology advances, the phrases we grew up with acquire new meanings. “Coming to a screen near you!” meant the movie you were watching previews for in the local theater was on its way to a theater close to you (usually the one you were in at the time) for your viewing pleasure. “From the big screen to the small screen!” used to mean the movie you saw in Cinemascope and Technicolor at the neighborhood theater (which sadly is another technology casualty) was coming to the “TV Movie of the Week”. Then the meaning changed again and it meant the movie was coming to cable, another term that used to mean “strong, large-diameter, heavy steel or fiber rope”, but now means “commercial-free TV, lots of channels, and still nothing on but infomercials at 2 am, except that now there are 180 channels of them”. The phrase evolved once again and it meant the movie was coming to Beta, VHS, Laser Disc, and then DVD, as new strides were made. “As seen on TV” no longer just applies to gimmicky gadgets you can get Mom or Dad for Christmas like a salad shooter or Popiel’s Pocket Fisherman. No, no, no!

TV for your little screen

“As Seen on TV” in the palm of my hand

With the advent of iTunes 6 and Quick Time 7 coupled with the [1] new iPod, you can now download select television shows to watch in iTunes on the Mac or the PC or on your shiny new iPod. Missed an episode of Lost? Missed the whole first season of Lost? Missed The Office this week? Not to worry. You can buy them by the episode for $1.99, or by the entire season (which oddly enough works out to the same as the per-episode price) and watch them over and over, either on the computer or if you happen to have a video iPod, anywhere you wish. In the interest of research, I bought an episode of The Office. Yes, it was research. Oh, all right, you got me. I love that show! If they ever sell the original British series here, I’ll be getting that one as well.

Couch Potatoes are on the Move!

Right now the television show selection is small, but it’s good stuff, including Lost, Surface, Desperate Housewives, and Law and Order. Oldies are showing up too, like Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Dragnet. You can give iTunes downloads in the form of gift cards, give your kids an iTunes allowance, or associate a credit card with your .mac account, and you will be watching your favorite show wherever you are. Who says Couch Potatoes have to stay at home? Ah, the sweet smell of progress!

Got something to say? These links will get you started making and broadcasting your own podcasts:

[2] Creating Audio Podcasts on Mac OSX
[3] Creating Audio Podcasts on Windows XP
[4] Creating Video Podcasts on Mac OSX
[5] Creating Video Podcasts on Windows XP