Category: Geeks r Us
Ok. The situation is this: I have several podcasts that I want to update. However, I listen to these on my book sense. Is there a program that could update these podcasts (I have the rss feeds for them all) and download the content on my booksense in different folders for each podcast? I would like (obviously) to have to do the least amount of work possible. It would be best if I could simply connect my book sense and press a button on the computer (though I doubt that this will happen). The program could work on iether mac or windows, and I plan to only update the podcasts once a week. It would help if the program would know if there were any new things so I could delete podcasts without them coming back.
Good practice for young programmer, something beyond a game:
If the device you use mounts as an actual drive (removable drive in Windows Explorer / Finder on the Mac, like a thumb drive) when you plug it in,
Tyler or one of the other young studs on here could write a Python script and import either SQL or maybe even an XQuery dependency if there is one, treat the RSS feeds as databases, the podcasts as records, do an http request / get / save on the corresponding hyperlink I assume that will be the mp3 or whatever, use the functions you get when you import OS to copy to remote drive and place it there. Naturally you'd need a UI to select locations, or even just an editable xml or other file to set the parameters - what goes where.
Don't forget to use PY2EXE or something similar to make executable for end-users who don't know anything about installing Python. There's probably a library for the Mac as well, but I don't know what it is. Frankly I'm a bit shooting from the hip as I have had no business case for using Python, so haven't really delved more into it than a few weeks on and off of study: enough to know it's very versatile and amazing in its capabilities without a whole lot of overhead.
Oversimplification, but for the student this could be a neat little deal to be posted as portfolio on Sourceforge later.
So there ya go: you could get your program, and have contributed to someone's education in the process.
Now if this is a blindy boutique device that won't mount - meaning you don't see it as a removable drive in Windows Explorer on the PC / Finder on the Mac, the above won't work unless they have an API.
That, or you could just download Accessible Pod Catcher.
http://www.webbie.org.uk/accessiblepodcatcher/
It comes with a few other programs but all are free and totally accessible and you could delete what you don't want. If this works like Accessible RSS, then you should be able to update the podcasts, but I'm not sure as I haven't used it. Still, it's small and easy to uninstall if it doesn't do what you'd like.
I'll test accessible podcatcher. And yes, it does mount as a removable disc.