Corrections. Sorry!!!
--
Cheryl
"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 02:07:36 -0600 (CST)
From: Cheryl Homiak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Command-line program for downloading podcasts: podracer
I've switched to this program after my problems with iTunes and like it very
much. You can run it manually or put it in your crontab to run whenever you
want it to run.
Downloading
the program can be downloaded from
http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/p/podracer_1.4.orig.tar.gz
You also need curl, screen and bittorrent installed; I know these are in both
fink and Darwinports. Installing Darwinports and/or fink is not within the
scope of this particular explanation. If you try running the installer and one
of these programs is missing, you will receive a message telling you what
necessary program is not installed.
Unpacking the .tar.gz file
Move the tar.gz file to wherever you want to unpack it. I am here using sudo in
front of commands that require root permissions but you can also use 'su" and
then do all subsequent commands as root.
sudo tar xvzf podracer_1.4.orig.tar.gz (sudo may not be necessary for this
command depending on where you are unpacking it).
Editing the installer file
(I'm using emacs in this example; follow procedures for your text editor of
choice.)
cd podracer-1.4
sudo emacs installer
Search for the line:
if test ! $(find /usr -name bitTorrent)
and change the path from /usr to whereever your bittorrent is located; for
instance, mine is in /opt/local/bin so I just changed /usr to /opt.
Running the installer:
sudo ./installer install
and podracer and timeout should be installed; timeout is packaged with podracer
so you needn't go looking for it separately.
Editing the /usr/bin/podracer file (may not be necessary)
Read this section carefully before proceeding; you may be able to skip most or
all of these instructions.
1. Omitting uname -o from /usr/bin/podracer: search for a line:
longname="$progname v4version; $(uname -o); $uname -m)"
and remove the $(uname -o); but leave the $(uname -m). Because uname -o is
not an
option with the uname on the Mac, you'll get a complaining message when you run
podracer if you don't do this but it won't keep podracer from working.
2. Search for the line:
rmdir --ignore-fail-on-non-empty "$poddir/$feeddir"
There is no --ignore-fail-on-non-empty option in the standard rmdir on the mac
so go to the end of this line and add on to it
>/dev/null 2.&1 (note the & is an ampersand not the word and). this again
wouldn't keep podracer from working but causes nag messages about the usage of
rmdir.
3. If you don't have /bin/bash on your computer, you will have to change this
script to run in /bin/sh. You probably do have /bin/bash so check this before
proceeding.
a. In the first line, change bash to sh.
b. In each line where the word 'source" (without the quotes of course) appears
at the beginning of the line, you must replace the word source with a dot
(period). But only do this where the word source is the first occurrence in
the line.
You can use your editor of choice; here's how it's done in vim as that example
was given me.
sudo vim /usr/bin/podracer
:%s/source/.
(Note this is a vim command not just something to be copied to the file, but if
you aren't familiar with vim you probably will choose a different editor
anyway.)
(Note: while the instructions I received about this seemed to stress changing
source only when the first occurrence in a line, it appears to me that all
instances of the word end up being changed; I'm not absolutely certain of this
though).
/etc/podracer.conf
look at your /etc/podracer.conf and see if you want to make any changes. by
default, your podcasts will end up in /Users/(username)/podcasts/(date) (your
username; the date on which you are downloading). Your program directory, where
your subscriptions file will be located along with your podcast.log and
partial downloads during the process, will be in your home directory as
.podracer (note the dot in front). You can change the /etc/podracer.conf or can
copy it to .podracer/podracer.conf in your home directory and make changes
there, but if you move it and haven't run podracer yet you will have to first
create your .podracer directory. Once you start podracer, the directory will be
created so don't bother unless you are copying the podracer.conf file.
Subscriptions file
You can create the subscriptions file (usually in your home directory as
.podracer/subscriptions) with your favorite text editor. Each line will contain
the url for your podcast feed; optionally, you can then leave a space and
specify a directory into which the podcasts from this feed will be downloaded.
Note that the directory you specify will be under
/Users/(username)/podcasts/(date) unless you've changed this. So, for instance,
you would enter:
http://nonexistentpodcastfeed.com/CommandLineChronicles /CLC
and your feeds from this fictional feed for January 3 2007 would end up in
/users/(username)/podcasts/2007-01-03/CLC. However, if you don't want separate
directories, it isn't necessary to specify a download directory; you can also
specify a download directory for some urls and not for others.
Usage
Warning for first-time run: By default, this program downloads all (and I do
mean ALL0 available episodes; I got podcasts I never ever got with iTunes even
when I told it to download all episodes. So you may want to run podracer the
first time as
podracer -c
By doing this, you allow podracer to download the urls of available podcasts
into your podcast.log but no actual podcasts are downloaded. then you can
remove any urls from the log of podcasts you really wish to download and run
podracer again without the -c option. Since urls in the log will not be
re-downloaded, from then on you can run podracer without the -c option and will
only get new podcasts. If you do not do this and you have a lot of
subscriptions, you could get LOTS OF PODCASTS; this is fine if you want them
and have the space for them.
Also, if you haven't made a subscriptions file and you run podracer, you'll be
asked if you want a sample subscriptions file; if you say "y" the sample file
will be copied to your .podracer directory and if you haven't used the -c
option, I can guarantee you that you are in for a HUGE download.
While downloading is in progress, you can go into another terminal window and
do
more .podracer/podcast.log
periodically to see the progress or, unless you are running with the -c option,
just check into your podcasts directory to see what new mp3s are being
downloaded.
As mentioned earlier, you could put this in your crontab or otherwise automate
it if you want it run on a regular basis.
I like this program because it gives me total control of my downloads,
additions, deletions, and file organization.
Feel free to post questions to the list or contact me at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
no guarantee I have the answers, but will do my best to help.
--
Cheryl
"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
