TuxRunner

I’m going to use the term “netcast” as Leo Laporte does simply because I think it’s a better description than the other term more loosely associated with a certain brand of MP3 player. So anyway, here’s two of my favorite netcast aggregators that I use on a regular basis that you should too:

• myPodder – This is a small little application that is tightly integrated with the website www.podcastready.com. It has the advantage of being able to be run from any portable flash memory you have, whether it’s a SD card, a USB thumb drive, or even your MP3 player if it can present itself as a “mass storage device” from your computer. You’ll need to create an account on the website, but once created you can add all your favorite netcasts to your account on the site, and any time you run myPodder it will look up your list and download the latest ones. What’s cool about this downloader is that it’s supported across all platforms! OSX, Windows, Linux,…there’s even U3 and Windows Mobile versions. I’ve even managed to put both the Windows and Linux versions on my MP3 player, and can download in whatever OS I happen to have it plugged into (although it doesn’t track netcasts with the same database, so you’ll need to watch out for dupes.) myPodder doesn’t allow scheduling, but it’s not really intended for that purpose. This is a snag and grab app that will help you to get your netcasts wherever you might be connected to the Internet from.
• Juice – Another cross-platform netcast downloader, Juice supports Windows, OSX, and Linux/BSD. I use this one more as a “grounded” application on my home PC. It doesn’t appear to be portable, but does have scheduling functionality which allows you to schedule checks for new netcasts, and download them as they’re available. It has the ability to auto-cleanup netcasts if you tend to leave them on your local hard drive, and can also help you find netcasts with a directory of available netcasts. I typically use this to download video netcasts (to keep them separate from my audio ones I download with myPodder) simply because I can schedule it, and then I have a VBscript setup to auto-transcode downloaded video netcasts as they appear. Once they’re transcoded, then I transfer them to my MP3 player. There’s options inside Juice to throttle how many downloads at one time, launch on startup, check for new versions, stop running if your hard disk reaches a certain size, proxy server support, and more. Check this one out if you want a grounded netcast downloader that has a decent amount of features and runs very well.