[Nfb-web] Creating Blogs and Podcast Feeds

[Ruth Anne Wheeler]

Hi Peter,
I was able to do everything for free for the NFBI.  This is the step 
by step of what I did for the 2005 Illinois state affiliate convention:

When you set up the podcast, you have options for downloading 
individual files from all the areas - the archive, the blog and the 
feedburner once they are all set up.   Step by step, this is what I did.

1.  Signed up for an account with Feedburner.   www.feedburner.com
That account is where you will set up your podcast link.  So for what 
I did, the podcast for the NFBI convention is at:
<http://feeds.feedburner.com/NFBI2005Convention>http://feeds.feedburner.com/NFBI2005Convention 
(Feedburner gets you into iTunes and other podcast sites 
automatically if you set it up correctly, btw.)

2.  Set up archives for the broadband and the dialup versions (since 
we had both for convention).  I created archives at www.archive.org. 
I was able to, with the links they provided, FTP the files over 
there, and if you look around the links on the NFBI site for each of 
the archives, you will see that it neatly lays out each file for you 
in the archive system.  They do give very good directions, and it 
basically generates it all itself as you upload into your directory.

3.  The last part, what powers the podcast at feedburner, is the 
blog.  I created mine through www.blogger.com and the NFBI Convention 
blog powering the podcast is at 
<http://nfbi.blogspot.com/>http://nfbi.blogspot<http://nfbi.blogspot.com/>.com. 
You can see there that it is pretty boring, just links to each of the 
files at www.archive.org.  To make it look nice, I titled them rather 
than have the whole URL there.  The only trick is that when you 
initially start, blogspot thinks you are a spam blogger after a 
couple entries because it is just URLs.  So you will need to, once 
you start getting inaccessible word verification boxes, follow the 
information for submitting to have a human being look at your blog 
and take it out of the word verification process.  That word 
verification thing is not even remotely accessible, because it is one 
of those stupid graphics you need to read.  But you get a link to 
write them and ask them to review your blog.  They do look at it 
quickly.  Mine was reviewed in under 48 hours for the 
convention.  Once it was approved, the word verification boxes were 
gone, and I just raced through setting up each link.

4.  Once I had the blog set up, then I went to Feedburner, plugged in 
my blog URL, clicked the little box that said that I podcast, and 
there we were - podcasting.  :-)

I know that I probably have made it sound a bit simpler than it is, 
but it really isn't that hard to do.  Please feel free to ask me any 
questions if you have them.

Hope that is of help!
Ruth Anne Wheeler
Webmaster, NFB of Illinois
http://www.nfbofillinois.org

At 09:54 PM 10/5/2006, you wrote:
>Good evening everyone,
>
>     A member of one of our lists suggested the idea of setting up a blog and
>making it possible for folks to upload podcasts on a particular subject. I'd
>like to know what is the best way to create feeds for these Internet
>services and which podcast and blog hosts are recommended and about how much
>we're talking about for such services monetarily. Your suggestions and
>feedback will be very much appreciated.
>
>Peter Donahue
>