Setting up an iTunes Podcast using Wordpress, Feedburner, and Amazon S3

Disclaimer: I am by no means a web or hosting expert. I've gone through many different guides setting up my own podcast and wanted to share the steps I took.

So you want to create a podcast and throw it on iTunes. Sounds simple enough, right? But you also would prefer that it be free as possible. This is where you start to make life difficult.

To create a podcast you need a server that will host your files so people can stream and download them. iTunes itself does not host your files, it only points to them from inside the Store. For this tutorial we will be using Amazon S3. They have a free one year of hosting, and some of the cheapest rates around. They only charge you for usage (instead of a monthly or yearly fee) so if your podcast is relatively small after 1 year, it will cost you extremely little.

1) Setup a wordpress account. I'll leave the details of this one to you as it is a simple signup process. Wordpress Signup

2)Setup your Amazon S3 account. Amazon S3 Signup

1. Follow the steps for signing up. They will need a phone number so you can verify your account.


2. Once you are signed up you will need to create a Bucket. Buckets are where all your files are stored. Click on Amazon Web Services and under the "Storage & Content Delivery" section select "S3".    


3. Now hit "Create Bucket" and create your first bucket. Follow any naming guidelines set by Amazon. The Bucket name will be the web address that you will link to in your blog posts for your podcast files, so make sure it is something appropriate. I have named my bucket "dungeonsanddrunks.podcast". 


4.  Now you need to setup permissions so people will have access to your podcast files. Click on "Permissions" under the "Properties" tab.


5.  In the window that pops up, paste in the below blue code (Thank you TechRaptor!)

{ "Version": "2008-10-17", "Statement": [ { "Sid": "PublicReadGetObject", "Effect": "Allow", "Principal": { "AWS": "*" }, "Action": "s3:GetObject", "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::dungeonsanddrunks.podcast/*" } ] }



Replace the "dungeonsanddrunks.podcast" with whatever you named your Bucket.


Now all that is left is to create your Folders inside of your Bucket!

I have created an "images" and "2015" folders.

Go into these folders and upload your media.

3) Once you have created your WordPress site for your podcast and setup your Amazon S3 hosting, you will need to create your first Blog Post. You can follow the steps located on WordPress's support page or just read below as I have included Amazon S3 steps. 

1. Create a category for your podcasts; you can name this anything you like. For these instructions we’re going to call ours “Podcasts”.
2. Create a new post and assign it to the Podcasts category.
3. Click "Add Media" to add in your podcast file. For the URL you will want to go over to Amazon S3 and grab the URL of your podcast inside of your Podcast bucket and folder. My URL happens to be: https://s3.amazonaws.com/dungeonsanddrunks.podcast/2015/DnD+Session+Jan+11+2015.mp3. As you can see, it is the Amazon website, followed by the name of my Bucket, then my Folder, then the name of the file. 
4. Publish the post.
5. Click the View Post link to view the live post.
6. Under or near the title of your post (depending on your theme), you should see a link to the category it belongs to, i.e., Podcasts. Click this link to be taken to the Podcasts category page.
7. Make a note of the address now appearing in your address bar.

4) Now it is time to setup FeedBurner. FeedBurner is a Google service and it basically tells iTunes where to look via RSS feeds for your podcast. Again, you can continue to follow the directions from WordPress's support page.

Submit to Feedburner

1. In a new window or tab, go to Feedburner: http://feedburner.com
2. Feedburner is a Google product, so if you already have a Google account, just sign in; if you don’t have a Google account, you’ll need to create one.
3. Once signed in, you’ll see a welcome message: “Welcome to Feedburner!”
4. Below the welcome message is an invitation to “Burn a feed right this instant. Type your blog or feed address here:”
5. Paste in the address you noted/saved in step 7 above, but add /feed/ to the end of it. The full feed you submit to Feedburner should be similar to this: http://mygroovydomain.com/category/podcasts/feed/
6. Click the checkbox next to “I am a podcaster!”
7. Click the Next button. If you see an error message at this point that your XML file is invalid, check to make sure that your blog is public (see Privacy Settings for more information). Podcasts on blogs marked private can not be submitted to iTunes.
8. In the “Identify Feed Source” window, select or confirm the appropriate feed; if more than one option is shown, select the one with an address containing category/podcasts/.
9. Review the Feed Title and Feed Address; you can change these, or keep them the way they are. Optionally, you can add a link for a cover image to Podcast image location, but iTunes requires that image to be 1400×1400 pixels. Then click the Next button.
10. At the “Congrats” page, copy the feed address shown — it starts with feeds.feedburner.com and ends with the title you confirmed in the step just above.
11. Click the Next button.
12. In the “Configure Your Podcast” page, check the box next to “Include iTunes podcasting elements”.
13. Select a category and subcategory for inclusion in the iTunes store, and enter relevant information into the fields below for title, summary, and keywords.
14. Click the Next button.
15. Select options for statistics tracking, if desired, and click the Next button. Your feed is now formatted properly for submission to the iTunes store.

5) Testing and Submitting to iTunes! You're almost there. 

1. Grab your feed url from FeedBurner. Mine is  http://feeds.feedburner.com/DungeonsAndDrunksPodcast
2. Go into iTunes and click "File"
3. Select "Subscribe to a Podcast..."
4. Paste in your feed URL and hit OK

Your podcast should now appear in your iTunes window. If everything was done correctly, you should be able to see your first podcast and be able to stream and download it. If this all works, you're ready to submit it to iTunes!

NOTE: You must have at least one podcast in your RSS feed or iTunes will not accept it. 

1. Click on the Store button in iTunes
2. Click on the Podcasts tab
3. On the right hand side (Or wherever their menu is), click on "Submit a podcast"
4. Now just enter the same feed URL from above

And there you have it. Your very own Podcast with reliable hosting on the cheap.

NIC card turning off after s3 sleep

Recently, I've been setting up my HTPC / Personal PC to automatically go into s3 sleep in Windows Vista. This sleep mode allows the computer to nearly shut down while still being able to wake back up nearly instantly and bringing you right back to where you were.

However, as many Vista users have experienced, when you come back from s3 sleep you may not be able to reconnect to the internet. For some reason, s3 sleep can kill your NIC card until you restart or until you disable and then enable it in Device Manager. I was having this problem and it was quite annoying since I need to have my PC on at all times to record shows in VMC.

This is a quick little post to share what fixed this problem for me. If you need help setting up s3 sleep in Vista and/or getting it to work with Media Center, let me know.

First, navigate to your device manager (Right click "Computer" and select properties. Then select "Device Manager" in the top left). You will see this screen.

Click the "+" next to your "Network Adapters". Now double click the NIC that you use for internet. (If you have multiple and you don't know which you use, select the first one in the list). Another window will pop up which looks like this:
Now click on the "Advanced" tab at the top and scroll the list down to the bottom. There should be an entry that says something along the line of "WakeOnLAN From Poweroff". Select this option and then make sure it is enabled.
Now navigate over to the "Power Management" tab on the far right. Now check the box that says, "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power".
This will allow the computer to shut off the NIC and power it back up so it does not get hung up in purgatory, thus allowing your computer to have internet when it wakes up from S3 sleep. Personally, I do not let the NIC wake my computer from sleep, as it is very sporadic and I currently have no use for it as I can still record when it is asleep and it will go back to sleep when it is done.

That's it! I hope this helped you.

Mr. Lemons

Multimedia Keys in Itunes

Hello again!

Well it's not uncommon to see "fancy" keyboards out there anymore, with all their play/pause skip stop etc buttons. But what good are those buttons if you use Itunes, and you want to switch songs while doing something else? Lucky for you, someone made a fix for it!

This fix will work for both XP and Vista! Horray.

First off, follow this link and download mmKeys.dll. You will need to register, but that's OK because you can now post how grateful you are!

After you download the .dll and saved it to wherever you like, navigate to
C:\Program Files\Itunes. In here we will need to create a folder named "Plug-Ins" and then stick in the mmKeys.dll. We will end up with
C:\Program Files\Itunes\Plug-Ins\mmKeys.dll

Now restart Itunes if it was already running and your Multimedia keys should work, no matter what window you are in!

What's that you say? It's still not working? That's ok, sometimes an extra step will be needed. Go back to C:\Program Files\Itunes\Plug-Ins\mmKeys.dll and right-click>>>copy mmKeys.dll.

Before we get started we need to make sure you can see hidden folders. If you can already see hidden folders, then skip this step!

How to enable hidden files in Vista

Click the Vista Start icon in the bottom left of your computer (It is the blue button with the Windows logo on it). Now click on "Control Panel". If you are in "Classic View" it will open a window that looks like this.

I personally prefer the classic view. If you are not in Classic View, in the top left there will be a button that says, "Switch to Classic view" (Or something along those lines).

Now click on "Folder Options". This will open up the window on the left. Click on the "VIEW" tab
to open up the window on the right.

















Check "Show Hidden Files and Folders" and then click OK.

You can now see hidden files! Now back to setting up the Itunes keys.


Now head on over to
C:\Users\[Your username]\App Data\Local\Apple Computer\Itunes

In this folder we need to create a folder called "Itunes Plugin" if there is not already one there.

Now open up the Itunes Plugin folder and paste in mmKeys.dll.

Now restart Itunes and your multimedia keys should work perfectly! Let me know if you run into any problems.

Mr. Lemons

Playing Ripped DVD's in Vista Media Center (Xbox 360)

Greetings! And welcome to my first post. I had originally planned on posting about my many adventures with Alienware's m5700, but that will have to wait for another time.

Today I will be detailing a step by step guide on how to play DVD's on your Xbox 360 extender from your hard drive on your PC. This guide applies to Windows Media Center in Vista Ultimate (or Premium).
I can not vouch for how it works in Windows Media Center 2005.

Note: This guide is to help people store and backup their media legally, and enjoy it on their Xbox 360. I am in no way suggesting that anyone should use this guide to illegally rip media.


So first, things you will need:


DVDShrink: Click here to download
DVDShrink is the program I will be using in this guide, but any program can be used as long as it outputs the correct file.

VideoReDo: Click here to download
There are two versions of VideoReDo, either will do, so I recommend downloading the Plus version.

DVDFab HD Decrypter: (Alternative) Click here.

A PC running Vista Ultimate or Premium with a DVD drive and around 10 gigs of free space.

An active email address.


First thing's first, let's get everything configured before we start ripping.

Once DVDShrink is installed, run it and go to EDIT>>>PREFERENCES.

On the bottom of the Preferences tab, you can decide to uncheck "Run analysis and backup in low priority mode to improve multi-tasking". I personally uncheck this so that it will run faster, and because my system can handle the usage.

After you decide, click on the Output Files tab.

Uncheck the "Split VOB files into 1GB size chunks". This is very important! After this, you can click OK.

Now we can switch over to VideoReDo. After jumping through the initial setup hoops, you will see this screen.

Now navigate to TOOLS>>>Quickstream Fix. When you do this a window will pop up with two options at the bottom. Select the one that says something along the lines of "Get a Trial Key".

An email will be sent to the address that you enter. Check your junkmail! This email will contain a key. Highlight and copy this key.

Now go back to VideoReDo and click on HELP>>>ENTER SOFTWARE KEY. On this page click "Paste Key From Clipboard" and then hit the Register key. You will need to restart VideoReDo.

Ok, now we are ready to get started!

Open back up DVDShrink and stick a DVD into your DVD drive.

Now click on "Open Disc" and select your DVD drive with the DVD in it from the drop down and click "Ok". DVDShrink will now pop up with an "Analyzing" box. This process usually takes between 1 and 3 minutes, depending on your system.

Now you will see a screen that looks like this, with all of your DVD's folders and audio options displayed.

Now we want to click on the "Re-author" button in the top right. This will bring us to a screen that looks like this.

Under the "Main Movie" section, drag and drop the movie to the left under "DVD Structure".
Note: For the DVD I am using, it has two titles, in most cases there will only be one, and it will be the only title listed under "Main Movie".

NOTICE: Many people highly value quality, and thus do not want to shrink the DVD file size. If you want the smaller file sizes at a partial loss of quality, skip these colored steps.

If however you want to keep your movie at it's original size, follow these couple of extra steps.

After you drag and drop the "Main Movie" from the ReAuthor page, click on "Compression Settings" and on the drop box select, "No Compression". Now you can click Back up, and it will give you a warning about the file not fitting on a DVD, but that's OK since we are sending it to a Hard Disk Folder. Also when you do no compress the file, you do not have to change the settings on the preference tab, as this will automatically create one large VOB file.

Now click backup! Clicking Backup will give you this window.

Uncheck "Create VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS subfolders", we will not be needing them. Now click OK and DVDShrink will start encoding. This will take between 10 minutes and an hour, depending on your system and the size of the file. Times will vary.

After the encoding is done, we will be welcomed with this window.

Congrats! We now have our VOB file!

Now open up VideoReDo and click File>>>Open Video. Navigate to the VOB file you just made with DVDshrink. It will generally be named VTS_01_1 unless you renamed it.

This will open the video and by default start playing it. Feel free to hit pause.

Now click on Tools>>>Quickstream Fix. This will bring up this window.

Leave the Input as it is, but if you want to output to a different location, feel free to change it. I have mine going to my DVD folder that Windows Media Center looks at.

Now the Quickfix will begin. This usually doesn't take more than a few minutes.

And that's it! You now have a .mpg in whatever folder you designated. Hopefully you sent it to a folder Windows Media Center watches.

Important! Wherever your .mpg file resides (The folder Windows Media Center is watching) you must also move the rest of the files (most importantly the .ifo file) that were generated when you "Backuped" the DVD to the same folder as the .mpg.

To see your video in Windows Media Center (Via PC or Via Xbox! Horray!):

Open up Windows Media Center (Hit the Green Button!) and navigate to Pictures+Video>>>Video Library

Now here is one of few downsides I've found with Vista Media Center. It automatically finds random folders to look at, and I can't find anything to get rid of them! I will be sure to post when I do, for now, just navigate to the directory where you saved your .mpg.

This will bring you to a list of folders you have. I have my folders labeled for what movies are in them, and with their cover art. If you need a walk-through for the cover art, let me know!


Open up the folder where your .mpg is, select and enjoy from the comfort of your Xbox 360.


Footnote: You need the IFO files for everything to work correctly, just keep whatever is generated. If you need help doing this with DVDdecryptor, let me know.
Mr. Lemons