iPodBomb - Free iPod Downloads, iPod Movies, and iPod Music!

iPod Podcasts - Free iPod Downloads that Rock! - Part I

Posted on Jan 23, 2009 under free downloads, ipod downloads | No Comment

iPods are great music systems and that will always be their main purpose. But for any commuter, their ability to play podcasts has to be appreciated as well. Especially when there are so many fantastic free podcasts available.

Before looking at some of the great podcasts that are available (some on iTunes, but mostly elsewhere), its worth taking a look at some alternative ways to get the podcasts onto our iPod. By “alternative” we mean “alternative to iTunes”. Because although iTunes is widely used, we like to promote “non shop” alternatives. We reckon that competition will help to keep Apple honest and at the forefront of design - the way we like it!

One highly regarded podcast receiver program is Juice (previously known as ipodder) which has been downloaded 2.5 million times! Thats the software we will be using to show you how easy it is to get great podcasts to listen to on your iPod (without using the iTunes shop).

First up, download the Juice software (takes mere seconds). Then open and click on “files”and choose “preferences”.

Now just select Windows Media Player. [BTW, while we are in “preferences” just click “general” and you will see that the podcast files get put into C:..\documents\My Received Podcasts. You need to know this to access the files directly (we changed the location to desktop for convenience).

OK, now you are ready to download some cool podcasts. Now Juice allows us to:

select podcasts to subscribe to in two different ways: Either clicking the

selection button to see a directory of available podcasts or enter a URL for a podcast you’ve found on your own.

We will be using the second method and have chosen a great podcast site to use as an example. Because lets face it, learning a language while we are commuting just makes sense - we are going to subscribe to and download “one minute” language courses that are available from radiolingua for FREE!

To do this, we go to their podcast page and select one of the “coffee break” language podcasts or one of the 12 “one minute” language courses they offer - in French, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, etc. For this demo we chose Spanish Coffee Break. To get the RSS feed for this course its just a few simple clicks.

1)Click the “coffee break Spanish” image, then
2)click “Get the Coffee Break Spanish RSS feed” (remember we are

deliberately avoiding iTunes here), located in the right hand sidebar

3) Copy the URL for the page and then open JUICE

3)click the “add new feed” button, and paste the URL for the feed and click save!

Now you have a bunch of Spanish lessons that you have subscribed to. To download them to Windows Media, just click the “subscriptions” button and you will see:

the lessons listed. Check the lesson you want to hear (or all of them, for that matter) and click the download button

Its now downloaded and can be played on Windows Media or loaded to your iPod! (The files can be found in “My Received Podcasts” located in Document and will be named “Learn Spanish With Coffee Break Spanish”)

If this seems slow - believe me it’s but the work of seconds once you have done it once!

Now - and get this - its all FREE - you can use your commute time to learn that language you always wanted to learn! Radiolingua have over a dozen different language lesson programs that they offer for free by podcast!

We will preview some of the other great free podcasts that are around in future posts. So keep watching! And do share this post with anyone YOU know has been wanting to learn a language!

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Ipod left out of the limelight at Macworld

Posted on Jan 09, 2009 under ipod accessories, ipod software | 4 Comments

Macworld Opens with Major New Product Announcements …that are, for iPod, not “major” and, not “new” .

Not a particularly impressive event for iPod owners. OK, there were some sessions for educators to promote the use of iPods and/or iPhones in the classroom that may have been of interest to a very select few. But otherwise the event was fairly ho hum for iPod owners.

The only “new” products worth mentioning, are the Phoenix iPod Recovery System - designed to:

recover music files, video files, podcasts, audiobooks and other inaccessible media from frozen or damaged equipment.

But even so, its not “new” . It was reviewed by Softpedia back in August 2008, and anyway, there are other products that do this, so the concept is not new, either. So not a really life altering announcement!

Stellar provide a free demo version of the software (you can download from their site). The demo version will repair corrupted and deleted music and video files (not clear if other media files are also repaired with the demo) BUT, you can only save the recovered music and video files by purchasing the full version of the software!!

So not sure what the benefits of the free demo are? Perhaps its just a hook to get us to try - then tell us “yes, we have detected 300 music and video files that are corrupted and they are now repaired…. and if you purchase the software you can have them! Still, at $US39.99, that might be worth it?

.

The second “new” product is, in fact, the debut for:

the 3rd generation of the Hookup- Lanyard, which wirelessly connects the iPod nano or iPod touch to a cell phone

Again, a useful tool - no doubt about it. But 3rd generation is hardly worthy of the title: “major new product”!

Perhaps of more interest is the new iPod Docking station with WiFi streaming capability that Lenntek also plans to release at Macworld. However, whilst this capability may be new to Lenntek,its not new to the iPod world! There are, after all, other docking stations already on the market with these capabilities.

So a disappointing event for iPod owners with little to excite and sadly, nothing worth lining up for hours or days to get!

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Steve Jobs Not Delivering Keynote at Macworld… Apple Stock Reacts By 5.63% Increase!

Posted on Jan 05, 2009 under ipod news | 1 Comment

Which sounds surprising doesn’t it?

Macworld keynotes are a cornerstone of Apple’s business - and a large part of the reason why Apple is so popular among everyone… but there is a good reason why the Apple stock has gone up after Jobs delivered this news….

It’s because people had been speculating for the last 12 months that Jobs was gravely ill - and possibly not long for this world. The speculations arouse because Jobs had been continuously losing weight through out the year - and no one seemed to know why.

Well, when Jobs told investors that he wasn’t speaking at Macworld this year - he also told them why he wasn’t speaking. Apparently, Jobs is suffering from some kind of Hormone imbalance - and that is causing his body not to absorb protein the way it should.

Ultimately it’s not a life threatening problem, and now that it has been diagnosed - Jobs will be well onto his way to recovery in the very near future - but - no keynote this year as he needs to focus on getting healthier - instead of working 120 hours a week like he usually does.

So no Jobs at Macworld this year - will it still be the same? I doubt it (in fact theres no way it can be) but it’s still good news - and hopefully Jobs will be back in the drivers seat next January.

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