The vast majority of you are using iTunes as your podcast receiving software. I use it myself.
Unfortunately, there is a deep disconnect between iTunes and our web server. iTunes cannot see our feed, and so gives an error message when you try to get a show. (Or more accurately stated, our server redirects our feed when iTunes hits the site. It’s not iTunes’s fault, as far as we can tell.)
I don’t know exactly how to combat this, but I am shopping for a new web host. In the meantime, the best solution appears to be to use Juice Receiver as a podcast catcher. It’s not as convenient to use as iTunes in many ways, but it works with our feed. It is a free application and will run on Windows, Macintosh, or Linux operating systems.
I hope to have our feed-server problem solved by the end of December. Stay tuned.
(You may always listen to the show, or download it to your computer, using the links at the end of each episode’s post.)
I hate iTunes. I never use it. It’s not an issue with me. I use a reader called 24eyes, at http://24eyes.com
Stop using iTunes! It sucks! subscribe to the blogs!!!
The problem with iTunes is that it’s the 800-pound gorilla. Our stats show that the overwhelming majority, over 95%, of our listeners use it as their podcatcher. It’s the interface with the iPod, which is the king of the MP3 player world (like it or not).
Actually, subscribing to the blogs is in fact a decent solution. You’d have to work a little harder to get the file onto your MP3 player, but it’s quite possible.
I have to say that in this instance the problem does not appear to be with iTunes, but rather with our web host (a very well known company that advertises all over Podshow, but which I will coyly not mention by name). The server redirects all calls to our site generated by iTunes. Why they do this, I don’t know. I’m told it is a clumsy attempt at server security. In any event, I’m searching for an alternative each day.
For what it is worth, I got #81 OK via iTunes on two different Macintosh computers.
Well, for the past 3 months or so, iTunes have totally changed their “mini-store” and it’s not actually an iTunes store anymore. My computer, being Windows XP, can’t read the language that the podcasts are using, so characters appear as white boxes. From the album artwork, it seems like 95% of the current iTunes store is all chinese and japanese; while the stuff that used to be there is now moved to a search list on the side, which in my opinion, is a very dumb alternative to how iTunes used to be. I want to email or white to Apple about why in the heck they changed the itunes store, and demand that they change it back, but I doubt that they’ll listen to me. So, instead of using iTunes for all the thouands of cool podcasts they had on there, I just simply listen to The Word Nerds on this site, and ignore iTunes altogether now (except to listen to the old Word Nerds stuff).
So, in conclusion, the iTunes feed problem does not affect me. But thanks for the generous insight about it.
I want to be very careful not to blame Apple in this. It isn’t their fault that iTunes could not see our feed. It seems entirely to be the fault of the company that hosts our blog and forum. (Moreover, this is absolutely not LibSyn’s fault. They are fantastic. You can still get our audio files, which are hosted at LibSyn, by clicking here on the blog.)
But I also want to report that our hosting service tells me they have fixed the problem, as of December 18 in the evening.
That said, I still get the error icon in iTunes next to The Word Nerds. However, if I subscribe anew to http://thewordnerds.org/feed , it seems to work just fine. No error message, successful downloading of episodes.
I would be very grateful for any feedback, either here on the blog or on the forum.
I just want to report that the exclamation mark went away for me, but only after I UNsuscribed and then suscribed anew to the feed.
woke up this morning and found the word nerds back in itunes. no more exclamation mark. great news!
I use Juice, and it works just fine with your feeds.
As far as being inconvenient, I just have Juice copy the MP3s to c:\Podcasts, then in a command window do COPY C:\Podcasts H:\ to move them to the memory card of my Pocket PC.
I bought my last Apple product in 1978.
Juice is indeed a nice piece of software.
But the fact is, more people listen to podcasts with iPods than with any other player out there. If our show cannot be read with iTunes, it cuts out the huge majority of our audience.
Fortunately, the feed works fine with iTunes now (December 20).
Once again, this was NOT Apple’s fault. It was a member of the Apple iTunes team who pointed me in the right direction towards a solution. Blaming Apple for this is like blaming the fire department because your house burned down due to faulty wiring.
This was a fault of a very bizarre internet security scheme at GoDaddy, the service that hosts our website and blog. I am shopping around.
Itunes is really annoying a lot of the time, especially with the newest update. The UI changed and took a while to find everything.
Thanks for the suggestion of podcast grabbers, i’ll give it a try and hope it works better than itunes like you said.