A new program for Mac OSX v10.4, dubbed as Musicast, allows you to stream your iTunes playlists internet as a webpage and podcast, allowing you to access your music on the move using a portable device such as your Cellphone, Palm, PocketPC or even your PSP. You can also subscribe to it in iTunes or a RSS reader allowing you and your friends (if licenced to do so) to access your music.

Simply check off the playlists from iTunes that you want to broadcast and that's it! Just go to File: Visit my Musicast and you'll see a stylish website with your music. Here's whats new in the latest build of this music streaming application, v1.01:

• [New] Visit My Musicast has been replaced with a Musicast Preview window.
• [New] XSPF feeds are now available from Musicast.
• [Bug Fix] Identification no longer shows a blank page when pressing return.
• [Bug Fix] Links on user's Musicast are now relative where appropriate.

Download: [Musicast v1.01]

Whether you're someone looking into starting a podcasting career or a professional already churning out podcasts left and right, you'll surely love what the Potion Factory has to offer. podcast-maker/4343" id="tag" title="">Podcast Maker makes every podcaster's life easier.

Podcast maker creates RSS 2.0- and iTunes-compatible RSS XML files for your podcasts, eliminating the need for worrying over getting your podcast standards compliant. Make your content stand out with the Podcast Maker's "Enhanced Podcast" that adds chapters with images and links. Enhanced podcast lets your audience see what you're talking about and click to websites that you mention.

To avoid those quirky "That shouldn't have been in that podcast", this Potion Factory app lets you preview how it will look like at the iTunes Music Store. You will also be be given a multitude of publishing options like .Mac, FTP, STFP, and local folder.

With v1.2.5 of the Podcast maker, WMV files are now supported. Fixes with previous versions - like special characters in the URL of "missing files" that get turned into external episodes being URL escaped, crashing bug when enter key is pressed in the password field, and crashing bug when corrupt file is added as episode - are also included in the latest release.

If you want to try your hand at podcasting or want to see just how sweeter podcasting is with Podcast maker, try the 30-day trial version (download available below). If you're satisfied with how it works, a full version can be bought for $30 at the Potion Factory site.

Download: [Podcast Maker v1.2.5 Trial]

The latest version of the iPod plugin for Winamp is now available. Also known as as ml_iPod v1.40, the alternative to iTunes supports videos on 5G iPods, podcasts, plus a few other features. If you haven't used the ml-iPod, the plug-in allows you to  send music to and from your iPod directly from the Winamp Media Library.

The latest plug-in update supports all kinds of iPods, from first-gen iPods, to the iPod mini, photo, nano, shuffle and every iPod model in between. The changelog for this update is quite long so we're sticking to the new major features:

• Podcast support, Podcast sync button adds/removes only podcasts
• Syncing of Smart ML Views to Smart Playlists on iPod
• Option to fix corrupt timestamps in ML and iPod (older versions messed these timestamps, so be sure to do this once)
• Hotkey "copy currently playing song to iPod"
• New tag for reverse sync
• "Prefer iPod to Media Library" option for playback
• Width of columns is remembered now
• Create playlist from directory name when drag/drop from explorer
• Handling of video files (*.mp4) for 5G iPods
• On-The-Go playlists finally work, saved OTG playlists are converted into regular playlists with name "On-The-Go 1"...
• French and Chinese version included in the installer now (many thanks to Koniyan and Pierre for the translations).
• Bugfixes, including Winamp crashes, handling of Audible.com files, playlist handling with Winamp 5.2

Download: [iPod Winamp Support v1.40]

British TV news station Sky News have launched their first free video podcasts. The service is starting out with their weekly '7 Days' programme, but will expand to cover other programming in time.

7 Days is Sky News' regular look at the lighter side of the week's news, this week's show (for example) covers the man with bionic arms, an animal version of Big Brother, the stuntman who goes up, up, and away, an Elvis celebration and a soapbox spectacular.

The Sky News video podcasts are pre-formatted for iPod viewing, just subscribe to their podcast through iTunes on this link.

This launch is the first step in a major iPod videocasting strategy from Sky television.

Midstates are a Chicago-based band, describing themselves as avant-space rock. I'd put them down more as indie-prog or some such, but that's neither here nor there. What's interesting is their claim to be the first act to replace band members with an iPod Video for both their musical performance, and a visual one.

Midstates were invited to play support on a fairly major tour, but their keyboard player, guitarist and drummer couldn't make the dates. Rather than turn down the tour, they decided to record audio tracks for the keyboard and guitar parts and to video their drummer in the studio. Mixing it all down into single-song video files on the singer's iPod Video, off they went on tour (with a lot more space in the van than they were used to). At each venue, Midstates hooked up the iPod's audio output to the amps and it's video output to a projector - the audience could hear the full band and see the drummer as though he was playing live via hi-tech satellite link. The two 'real' members of the band could cue up any track they liked on the iPod and play along.

Whilst the projected video drummer is a fantastic idea, there's nothing new about using an iPod for your live backing tracks. London's iDou have been doing this with an iPod Shuffle for ages. The two of them turn up onstage with a bass and a guitar respectively, and an iPod Shuffle loaded up with drum tracks, keyboards and samples hanging from the mic stand. They set it to shuffle mode, press play, and try to keep up with whatever songs come around until they run out of time. Great fun. Fully embracing the digital music revolution, their debut gig back in May of last year is available as a podcast here.

ipodsoft has released a new version of the MarkAble PC version, version 1.3.1. MarkAble is designed for audiobook listeners who own an Apple iPod, or who use iTunes to listen to such books. Or podcast listeners wanting to be able to combine and bookmark their saved files.

Audiobook files bought from the iTunes Music Store or from Audible.com are Â?bookmarkingÂ? - that is, the iPod (or iTunes) remembers the point of the book where you were up to, and resumes from there when you start listening again. This, of course, is vital.

You can get it in our iPod Download section.
You can buy it from ipodsoftÂ?s website [here].

Red Chair Software has released Anapod Explorer v8.8.2 for Windows. ?Anapod Explorer is the most advanced Windows iPod software available, offering full iPod management through full Windows Explorer integration under My Computer, easy drag and drop iPod transfer and iPod backup, PDA function support, web page interface access to your iPod through a built-in web server, powerful search and reporting capabilities using a built-in SQL database, and much more, all in one compact package.?

 

New Features:

• Anapod PhotoSync
  This release adds the ability for Anapod Explorer to transfer photos to the iPod Photo and iPod with color screen. To access this feature, click on the Sync button in the Anapod Explorer toolbar. PhotoSync works similarly to the photo synchronization feature in iTunes, allowing you to select a photo folder and individual albums to transfer to the iPod. Anapod PhotoSync supports the transfer of JPEG, PNG, GIF, and BMP images, full-resolution original image transfer, album grouping, and the full complement of iPod-supported image types including thumbnails, full-screen, slideshow, and NTSC TV display format.
• Support for Folder-Based Album Art
  In previous releases, Anapod would only automatically assign album art for files with embedded art. This release adds the ability for the user to specify a set artwork filename (e.g. cover.jpg, artwork.png). Anapod will then look for an artwork file by that name contained in the same folder as the audio file when transferring.
• Added "Play on Computer" feature for Anapod Shuffler.
• Added support for extracting album art from MP3 files with embedded BMP images.
• The Comment field is now available for use in MorphLists.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Restored Xtreamer capability for Anapod Shuffler.
• Fixed bug where connecting in Anapod could cause iTunes to unnecessarily resync some of the files on the iPod.
• Fixed bug where iPod could become unreadable by iTunes after editing podcast files using Anapod.
• Fixed bug where Anapod would remove podcast tracks from regular music browse categories.
• Fixed hang when connecting to iPod with an empty Play Counts file.
• Various stability improvements in reading tag information.
• Further refinements to tag reading routines for M4A, M4P, and MP4 files.
• Fixed crash when reading tag information from certain AAC files.
• Fixed problem where genre was not being read properly from some iTunes Music Store files.
• Fixed problem in auto-playlist creation during transfers where playlists could be deleted instead of updated properly.
• Fixed bug in playlist reordering where track at the move-to location could be deleted.

You can get it in our iPod Download section.

Sony has introduced two new Hi-MD portable recorders, the MZ-M100 and MZ-M10 MiniDisc-based field recorders. Both of these recorders were designed for both musicians and broadcast (podcast) professionals.

The new recorders, with removable 1GB MiniDiscs, allow up to 94 minutes of uncompressed recording time and as much as 34 hours in ATRAC3 plus™ format. The low cost of the Hi-MD media, which has a suggested list price of $7, allows users to archive their original recordings and makes data transfer easy and inexpensive.

The recorders also feature a USB port for Macintosh and Windows/PC operating system connectivity to address a range of professional recording applications including music, interviews and field recording.

Features:

The Hi-MD MZ-M100 features a six-line large EL (Organic Electro-luminescence) display and the Hi-MD MZ-M10 has a large five-line LCD display. The new recorders also include:

– ECM-DS 70P stereo microphone
– MDR-EO931 ear bud headphones for improved field monitoring
– Recording capability from multiple sources: mic in jack, USB port for uploading material to MAC or Windows/PC
– Supports PCM linear (44.1 kHz, 16 bit), MP3/ATRAC3® / ATRAC3plus recording formats
– Extended-life rechargeable internal battery

The Hi-MD MZ-M100 and the Hi-MD MZ-M10 should be available in August at suggested list prices of $439.95 and $329.95, respectively.

iPodderX v3.0.2 has just been released. iPodderX features an integrated Podcast Directory, Keyword filtering, SmartSpace file management, NewsCaster text-to-speech newsreader, and much, much more!

Download now and try it free for 30 days!

iPodderX is $24.95. If you have already purchased an earlier version of iPodderX, this is a Free upgrade. You can purchase iPodderX right from within the application. From the menu bar, choose iPodderX -> Buy Now...

Requires Mac OS X 10.3.5 or better
iTunes 4 or better

Get it in our iPod Download section.

Wooden Brain Concepts has released Cast Away v1.0b4 for Mac OS X. Cast Away allows you to remove or uncheck podcasts on a per podcast basis. It fills a gap in iTunes, which doesn't allow per podcast removal scheduling, or scheduling by date. CastAway allows individual podcast removal settings, supports daily schedules, and works with podcatsts from iTunes as well as any playlist created by a third party podcast application.

New in this release:

• This version corrects major bugs that prevented Cast Away from running on many systems
• OS X 10.4.2 update broke scheduling. Fixed.
• Crash at startup on 10.3.x. Fixed
• Now tested on Panther (10.3.9); several minor compatibility fixes
• Separate interface for scheduling on Panther and Tiger
• Tiger users can opt to use analog clock or time selector to set schedule time
• Better error checking and status updates
• Info tab has more information on scheduling

You can get it in our iPod Download section.