Free Audio Recordings on Finance, Health, Technology, and More
Do you enjoy playing the stock market, maintaining optimal health, writing, or creating art? Would you like to discover more information and advice on any of these topics? In this article, you will discover the wealth of information available to you via podcasts – free audio recordings available on the Internet which provide information on topics like:
- Art
- Business
- Health
- Music
- Politics
- Sports
- And Much More…
There are podcasts on nearly any subject matter you could imagine – and they are all available for free! A podcast is like a regular radio show – there’s usually a new episode released every week. Sometimes it’s less frequent, like once a month. But they are all re-occurring. So if you find one that piques your interest, there are usually additional prior episodes available for you to download.
You can listen to a podcast while sitting at your computer. Or you can copy it to a portable MP3 player and listen to it anywhere (on the bus, shopping, mowing the lawn, etc). One common misconception about podcasts is that you need an iPod to listen to them. The truth is, you can listen to a podcast on any MP3 player so long as it’s in MP3 format. The podcasts you download from iTunes are in a special format that can only be understood by an iPod. However, often the publisher will upload an MP3 version to their website. More on this later.
In this article, you’ll learn how to download and listen to podcasts with iTunes – a free music manager from Apple. You can download iTunes here. A tutorial to assist you with the installation of iTunes can be found here.
Once you’ve successfully installed iTunes, follow the steps below to start downloading podcasts!
Use iTunes to download podcasts and organize your songs
STEP 1: ENTER THE ITUNES STORE
To access the podcasts, you must first enter the iTunes STORE. Click on “iTunes Store” on the left side of the window:
Click on the iTunes STORE
*** Note: You can also purchase songs ($0.99 per song), music videos, and other content from the iTunes store.
STEP 2: CLICK ON PODCASTS
The iTunes Store will open.
Click on “Podcasts” under the “iTunes STORE” heading:
Podcasts are available for free in the iTunes STORE
STEP 3: SELECT A CATEGORY & CHOOSE A PODCAST
Under “Categories” you will see a full list of the topics you can choose from. Click on whichever topic interests you. In this case, we’ll select “Business”:
Choose a topic that interests you
You’ll see a group of “featured” podcasts for the topic you chose. Click on one from this list or click on “See All” to get a wider selection:
Select a featured podcast or click "See All" for a wider selection
STEP 4: DOWNLOAD
Once you’ve selected a podcast you’ll be presented with a list of episodes that you can listen to and download. To preview an episode without downloading it, double-click on it. To download it to your computer, click the “Get Episode” button:
BusinessWeek podcasts. To download an episode click on "Get Episode"
If you click on “Get Episode”, iTunes will start to download the podcast:
iTunes downloading a podcast
Once the podcast has finished downloading, you can access it from “Podcasts” in your Library. Excellent! You have now successfully downloaded a podcast.
The podcast you just downloaded can only be copied to an iPod. However, you can check the publisher’s website to see if they have it in MP3 version. See Further Reading below for instructions on how to find the publisher’s webpage.
FURTHER READING
If you like a particular podcast, you can choose to subscribe to it. Once you do, iTunes will automatically download any future episodes for you. To subscribe to a podcast, click the “Subscribe” button:
Once you subscribe to a podcast, iTunes will download new episodes automatically
After you subscribe to a podcast, iTunes will automatically download a certain number of prior episodes. The number of episodes available on iTunes is set by the publisher. The publisher usually keeps it pretty low due to bandwidth concerns (they don’t want someone to subscribe to a podcast, download hundreds of episodes automatically, and then decide the next day to unsubscribe). Often the publisher will keep past episodes that aren’t available on iTunes on their website. To visit the publisher’s website click on “Website” on their podcast page:
Often older episodes can be found on the publisher's website
Conclusion
The amount of information available on the Internet is so mind boggling! But isn’t it great to have a resource where you can find information on anything? Use podcasts to learn more about a subject when you don’t have the time to read a book.
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2 Responses to “Free Audio Recordings on Finance, Health, Technology, and More”
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August 13th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Thanks for posting the article, was certainly a great read!
August 27th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
I like reading posts and finding out what people think. I will keep an eye on the information you will add and see what you come up with. thank you