So you've just discovered this blog and you browsed through our recordings to your heart's content. Now you're wondering how to find out each week when there's something new, and locate the recordings (MP3 audio files) so you can listen to them. Maybe it is or isn't your style to check a web page by hand every day until something new pops up on it. As it often happens, there are tricks to make it automatic, but you may have to learn something first.
The options
This blog (http://ascensionsmpodcast.blogspot.com/) This is the first and simplest method, and not at all automatic. If you're not very computer-savvy and just satisfied that you know how to use email and browse the web, this is probably for you. You can just save a bookmark for the blog, read it as a web page, and click on the links to MP3 audio files. If you have a two-button mouse, you can also click on the MP3 link with your right mouse button to get a menu that allows you to download the MP3 file and save it on your disk. The downside is that you must remember to check every week -- and keep checking every day if it's late.
News Feed (http://ascensionsmpodcast.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default) This address is an RSS feed in the Atom format. An RSS feed-reader program can look through this RSS feed, determine if something new has been added, and highlight it to get your attention. For example, several popular email programs(Thunderbird, Mac Mail, Outlook, and others) show the different posts just like emails in their own Inbox; and some web browsers (Firefox, Internet Explorer, and others) show the posts as bookmarks in a list. There are also some websites that will check the RSS feed and forward any new posts to you as an email.
Podcast (http://feeds.feedburner.com/AscensionSMpodcast) A podcast is like a subscription for home delivery of your newspaper - except ours is free. It allows your computer to retrieve our sermon recordings automatically, soon after they're published. This differs from the two methods above in 3 important ways:
(1) it actually downloads the MP3 audio file, not just the message;
(2) it only gets the sermon, not all the additional music files that might be included in the post; and
(3) it gracefully handles loading the sermon onto your iPod and then tossing it after you've listened to it.
After you subscribe to the Ascension podcast, your computer checks for new sermon recordings every day, and it can download the file while you sleep. Later, at your convenience, you can sit at the computer and listen to it, or transfer it to your MP3 player or iPod and listen to it on the go.
Ascension's podcast is compatible with any MP3 player, not just an Apple iPod, and it's free. For more information, you may find the Podcasting article at Wikipedia helpful.
How To Get This as a Podcast
Most people use the commercial Apple iTunes software because it works closely with the Apple iPod, iPhone, and iPad; after iTunes is installed, just click on this link to add the Ascension podcast to your iTunes library.
You may prefer a different "podcatcher" program, especially if you have a non-iPod player. See http://www.podcatchermatrix.org/ to help you choose among them. For any of these podcatchers, copy this link (http://feeds.feedburner.com/AscensionSMpodcast) and paste it into the podcatcher.
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