podcasting

Let me tell you how to make a podcast which is an easy way of distributing media files over the internet. The first thing necessary is a domain and a host to store the media files for the podcast. Getting a domain is simple and easy, there are many domain registrars that can register a domain for someone for a small fee. Some domain registrars are GoDaddy.com, Dotster, or Network Solutions. The domain registrar will, for a small fee, enter the chosen domain, into the computers. These computers will be told where the domain is located on the internet; what host holds the domain’s information. In order to give them that information, the name servers held by the host need to be associated with the domain. Once the domain is in place, a good host should be found. The host chosen should offer a large amount of both disk space and a much larger amount of bandwidth. Disk space is necessary because the site which holds the podcast will be storing large media files; audio or video files that take up a lot of space and are difficult to compress. The large bandwidth is necessary because transferring these large files many times to many different people will use up the quota quickly. A good amount of diskspace would be several GigaBytes, the bandwidth should be in the tens or hundreds of Gigabytes. Once the host is set up, it should offer you a couple of addresses called nameservers. Inputting these server addresses into the site where the domain was registered will complete the domain setup and allow the site to be found on the internet.

The next step for people who want to know how to make a podcast is installing the software necessary to maintain the podcast. A small piece of coding called dircaster.php can be used to set up a basic level of podcast. Dircaster.php can be found easily by searching for it in any search engine. Once it is located, it should be edited to reflect the particulars of the domain and uploaded to the site. Dircaster.php will generate an RSS file, or feed, this tells the subscriber about the new files available for downloading. To begin podcasting, create the audio files that should be podcast, fill in the
information about the file such as date, author, etc, and upload them to the same directory that contains dircaster.php. You now have a podcast, and all that is needed is to publicize the address of the file dircaster.php. To update the podcast with new information, just upload the new files. Other things to make the podcast better might be a site that contains information about the podcast, but it isn’t necessary. ENJOY!

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