|
 |
|
Have more questions?
Please use the Contact Us link below to send your questions and comments to the Podcasts@UCSF team. We are very interested in your comments, and will be happy to answer any questions you may have that are not addressed here.
|
|
|
|
|
Subscribing to a podcast
What is the benefit of subscribing to a podcast?
By subscribing to a podcast, you will receive new podcast episodes as they become available -- automatically. You do not have to periodically visit the Podcasts@UCSF site (or CLE course) to access new episodes.
How can I subscribe to a podcast using iTunes?
If iTunes is not already installed on your computer, you can download it for free from Apple for the Mac or Windows platforms. To subscribe to a podcast, you simply need to click on the iTunes 1-Click link or button. iTunes will automatically launch, the latest episode of the podcast will download, and you will be subscribed to the podcast. Whenever the podcast owner uploads new episodes, it will be automatically downloaded the next time you launch or refresh iTunes.
Once you have subscribed to one or more podcasts, you can access them by selecting the "Podcasts" section of your iTunes library:
By default, iTunes will display podcasts in a collapsed view, where individual episodes will not be displayed; by clicking on the grey arrow next to a podcast's name (as indicated by the red arrow in the screenshot above), this list will expand, and you will see all episodes of a podcast. If an individual episode's title and description is displayed in grey text, with a "GET" button appearing next to the episode title, this means that the episode is available, but has not been downloaded to your computer. By clicking on the "GET" button, you can download older episodes of podcasts.
If you would like iTunes to automatically download all episodes of a podcast, or none, you can change podcast management settings in iTunes podcast settings (click the "Settings" button at the bottom of the iTunes podcast screen). You may want to pay special attention to make sure that all episodes are kept -- Tunes can be set to automatically delete older episodes, which may not be your intention. Make sure that your Podcast preferences in iTunes look like those in the screenshot below, with the "Keep" option being set to "All episodes," in order to ensure that older content is not automatically deleted from your computer when new content becomes available:
Once podcast episodes have been downloaded to your local computer, you can transfer these files to an iPod or other portable media player for listening or viewing away from your computer.
What if I don't want to use iTunes?
The Podcasts@UCSF system provides the option to use other applications to subscribe to podcast feeds. Below the iTunes 1-Click button on the Podcasts@UCSF page, you should see another button labelled "Podcasts," which will ask you to right-click, copy the URL, and paste it into another application to subscribe. To subscribe to podcasts outside of iTunes, you can use other applications that serve primarily as "podcatcher" or other podcast aggregator applications, such as Juice, which is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms. If you would like to use a different application to subscribe to podcasts, many are available.
You can also subscribe to podcasts using an RSS news feed reader, such as Google Reader or Thunderbird. Although these applications do not integrate media playback in the same way as iTunes or Juice, they can provide you with notification of new podcast episodes as they become available.
|
|
|
