—The technology that makes podcasting work is called an RSS or XML feed
—You can create a feed for a podcast by doing one of two things – create and edit it yourself or use a service that will create it and manage it for you, all behind the scenes so you don’t have to know a thing.
—Doing it manually: RSS is so that you don’t have to know a lot of code – it’s intuitive
—Demo (brief):
Creating & Editing
—Use Feed Validator to make sure you don’t have any errors
—Sites/Software that do it for you: Feedburner, PodShow, Podcast Maker
—Time to get it into iTunes so people can find your podcast
—Demo:
Once you’ve set up your show, grab your feed (how to with Feedburner, PodShow, Podcast Maker and manual)
Open iTunes
Click on Podcasts in the Music Store
Click on Submit a Podcast
Enter your feed, check the information, Submit
—You’ll get an email with your iTunes URL – use this to link to the show on your site (show example email)
—You can use http:// or itpc:// - difference in both, caution about itpc
—Demo:
How to grab iTunes URL from iTunes if you can’t find the email later
—Lots of iTunes tips and tricks at www.dearcali.com.

Feedburner:
RSS Feed Creator and Manager
http://www.feedburner.com

Feed Validator: Free
If you edit the feed, make sure it doesn’t have any errors
http://feedvalidator.com/

Pocast Maker: $29.95, Mac Only
RSS Feed Creator and Manager
http://www.lemonzdream.com/podcastmaker/

PodShow:
RSS Feed Creator, Manager and Host
http://www.podshow.com

iTunes:
Podcast Directory
http://www.apple.com/itunes

How is it possible to reduce the size of a video clip by a factor of 100 or more, apparently without affecting its quality? What allows this kind of compression are the imperfections of our visual system exploited by some sophisticated signal processing algorithms. We will illustrate in a simple manner a few key ideas in image and video compression, such as sub-band filtering and motion compensation.

XtremeMac Luna
www.xtrememac.com
$150
There are a ton of iPod docks out there, and even a number that are designed to be alarm clocks…how to distinguish yourself? By making one that just works. Just cue up your iPod to the tune you want to wake up to and then set the alarm…when the scheduled time rolls around, the Luna will turn the music on at a low level and start increasing the volume gradually until you have no choice but to get up. It also features a built-in AM and FM radio, which you can also use as your wake-up audio (and you can even specify it down to the band and frequency, so you can wake up to a different station than you were listening to when you went to sleep). There are two alarms, so you can choose different audio sources for different times of the week just by turning on one alarm or the other. The downside? It has four buttons on the top and figuring out how to interact with all of them is so complicated that the company had to ship it with a cardboard overlay that acts as a cheat sheet.

Five Star Sound Binder / Desk Case
www.meadfivestar.com
$25 / $15
For those who are heading back to school, here’s a way to mix your studies with your iPod — the new Five Star Sound Binder features a built-in speaker and a headphone jack connector, allowing you to hook up to any audio device with a headphone (not just an iPod); there’s even a second jack on each unit, allowing you to hook other Five Star Sound products to each other to boost the level of the sound. There’s also a Desk Case model that’s designed to hold your pencils, calculator and other such gadgets. The downside is that losing your binder or pencil case now potentially means losing your iPod…oops. Each of the Sound products requires four AAA batteries.

iSkin Cerulean TX+RX
www.iskin.com
$150
Having an iPod dock is great, but sometimes you want to listen through your dock while having your iPod a bit closer to you. iSkin — better known for protective cases for gadgets — has a battery-free solution. The Cerulean TX+RX consists of two dongles — one for the iPod and the other for the dock — that wirelessly transmits music from point A to point B without need for batteries (each gets the necessary power from the device it’s connected to). Each end comes has a spot for USB power — connect it to the end connected to the iPod and it’ll charge the iPod and allow you to sync from your computer; connect it to the receive end and you can use the receiver with a home stereo without need for a dock, by connecting through the 1/8-inch audio out jack. You can even connect to the receiver unit via Bluetooth stereo from a cell phone or other A2DP-enabled gadget. The downside is the audio level is lower than if you’d plugged the iPod directly into the dock, which means you’ll have to crank your dock up to listen at the same level…which could lead to some loud blasts if you switch your dock to a different input.

DLO HomeDock Music Remote
www.dlo.com
$130
Many people have wondered why you’d get an iPod dock that sits beside your home theater system if you have to go to the iPod every time you wanted to select a new album or artist from your iPod’s stash o’ tunes…well, DLO has done something about it. Like many of the other docks our there, this one comes with a remote control so you can control the tunes from across the room. This one, however, comes with a small LCD screen that also allows you to scroll through your music library and choose the next track. It takes a while to load up the music library into the remote, and unfortunately, it may have a problem loading up the lists from larger iPods loaded up with music; iPods with less content should load up more quickly. A bit more difficult — a long list of artists will take forever to scroll through so you may want to set up playlists in advance to make the process of finding your faves a bit faster.