New WasteCast voicemail number! 240.94.WASTE (240.949.2783)

So I found out that the subscription silently ran out on my voicemail account, and I figured it would be a good time to try to get a new number. As luck would have it, a nearby area code had a number available containing "92783", the digits for "WASTE". The rest is history.

Like the WasteCast?

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What is The WasteCast?

It's Dro Kulix's weekly radio show! It's a podcast, and if you're reading this, you have all you need to get started—really! But if you don't know what podcasting is, I can explain it in one paragraph. That's right—by the end of the next paragraph, you'll be savvy to the next big thing in broadcasting... Read on.

What is podcasting, and what's so great about it?

The following is the elevator speech I've come up with for the new phenomenon. Drop me a line to tell me whether you think it works and what might make it better...

Here's the none-too-technical lowdown: A podcast is an online audio broadcast—like a radio show, except it's on-demand instead of live, and you can get it whenever you want! New episodes of a given podcast are released periodically (WasteCast, for example, is a weekly show), and some audio players (like iTunes and Winamp) can be set up to list and even automatically get the newest episodes as they become available! Contrary to what the name might suggest, podcasting wasn't created by Apple, and you certainly don't need an iPod or iTunes to get in on the action. But if you have both, iTunes can even automatically sync new episodes to your iPod! It's a cool setup, and it's not even esoteric anymore: The medium already has its own unique personalities, like Adam "The Podfather" Curry, former MTV VJ and longtime tech pioneer, and Leo Laporte of The Screen Savers fame. In addition to the fantastic library of independent offerings, The iTunes Podcast Directory now lists podcasts from many major media outlets. And a new audio search engine being launched by Yahoo! aims to make podcasts as searchable as the rest of the web. So, here's the long and short: Podcasting is the new independent radio (and, along with streaming and satellite, the new radio, period), it's free, and thanks to some novel technology, it's quickly becoming just as easy as radio was in the old world!

Okay, I'm convinced. How do I tune in?

If you just want to listen right away, please, be my guest.

But if you have iTunes or Winamp (or one of several other podcast players/aggregators out there), you're equipped for the full experience. So:

• If you have iTunes, you can get started by automatically subscribing. (More detailed instructions are below if you need them, but you probably won't.)
• If you have Winamp, instructions are below.
• Other podcast subscribing/downloading programs (called aggregators) also exist, that you can use with your existing non-podcast MP3 player. This is convenient if you don't like iTunes or Winamp (understandable!) but your player of choice is not yet hip to the podcast wave. One very popular aggregator is Juice, which is available for free for Windows 2000 or XP, Mac OS X 10.3 or later, and GNU/Linux-based OSes. Again, the details are below.
• If you have a non-podcast MP3 player, and/or aren't sure if you want to get into this podcast stuff yet, you can try the lo-fi preview stream, which works in Windows Media Player, Winamp, and most other MP3 players that support M3U playlists. (iTunes doesn't handle M3U playlists correctly—it doesn't seem to recognize any files after the first in the list—so just automatically subscribe in iTunes if you use it; that's easier, anyway.)
• Preview from your web browser: If you have none of the above (wow, really?), if you're on a computer where you can't get to them, or if you're just the try-before-you-commit type, that's cool, too—you can try out The WasteCast in your browser (requires Macromedia Flash Player).

Most importantly, if you're still in the dark about any of this, I'd be happy to help you through it, because every human who doesn't understand is another listener lost, and I won't stand for that! So shoot an email to wastecast@radio.sprawling.org and ask anything.

And now...

Subscribe your favorite podcast player to http://radio.sprawling.org/wastecast/feed.

Instructions on how to subscribe are below.

How to Subscribe

Here are some ways to get the WasteCast every week while hardly even trying!

iTunes users

To subscribe automatically:

1. Ensure you have iTunes 4.9 or later. You can find it on Apple's iTunes site.
2. Continue to automatically subscribe in iTunes.

If that doesn't work, then to subscribe manually:

1. Ensure you have iTunes 4.9 or later. You can find it on Apple's iTunes site.
2. In iTunes, select Podcasts from the Source list on the left side of the window.
3. In the Advanced menu, select Subscribe to Podcast....
4. In the URL dialog, enter http://radio.sprawling.org/wastecast/feed and then click OK.

iTunes will attempt to update the subscription according to the preferences set by clicking the Settings... button in the lower-right corner of the window.

Winamp users

To subscribe:

1. Ensure you have Winamp 5.1 or later. You can find it on Nullsoft's Winamp site.
2. In Winamp, if the Media Library window is not already open, open it by pressing Alt L or by selecting Media Library in the context menu (usually by right-clicking the main window).
3. In the left pane of the window, select Subscriptions under the SHOUTcast Wire heading.
4. Click the Add button under the Channel list.
5. In the Add RSS Subscription dialog, enter http://radio.sprawling.org/wastecast/feed and then complete the rest of the dialog as desired (you can usually leave it as is) and click OK.

To download (or stream) an episode:

1. In the left pane of the Media Library window, select Subscriptions under the SHOUTcast Wire heading.
2. Click Radio Sprawling presents The WasteCast in the Channel list, then click Refresh.
3. The Item list will display a list of episodes. (To move the most recent episode to the top of the list, click Date Added to change the list's sort order.)
4. To stream an episode, double-click the episode's name. (Note that you will need a fast enough connection to transmit 96kbps in order for the stream to work properly.)
5. To download an episode:
   1. Click on the name of an episode, then click Download Media. The status bar should say Added to downloads.
   2. In the left pane, select Downloads under the SHOUTcast Wire heading.
   3. As the file is downloading, the status bar will display the download progress. Once the file is finished, it will appear in the list.
   4. Click on the file in the list, then click Play to play it right away or Enqueue to add it to the end of your playlist.

Juice and other dedicated podcast aggregators

The feed URI is http://radio.sprawling.org/wastecast/feed. I'm assuming that if you already have a dedicated aggregator, you probably know what to do with it. But, if you're new, or just curious...

• Juice, a Free/GPL podcast aggregator for Windows and Mac OS X (and soon once again for GNU/Linux), has a User Guide as well as a handy FAQ for the less initiated. You might also check out Juicepedia.
• If you have more suggestions for this list, please let me know.