A podcast is an easy way of distributing media files
over the internet, and this article will tell how to make a
podcast. The first thing necessary is a domain, and a
host on which 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 of these domain
registrars are GoDaddy.com, Dotster, or Network
Solutions are some that provide domains. The domain
registrar will, for a small fee, enter the chosen domain,
provided it is not being used, into the computers that
form the backbone of the internet. These computers will
be told where the domain is located on the internet;
what host it is that holds the domain's information. In
order to give them that information, the name servers
that are 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 that is chosen should offer a
large amount of both disk space and a much larger
amount bandwidth. Disk space is neccessary 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, 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, that 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 publicise 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.
