A little help for the Podcast Newbie

[ARChurch]

Hey PCA forum trolls,
Have a question for you. I am obviously looking to get a Podcast up and running. I am the Technical Director at a church and we want to get a weekly sermon podcast up and running. We already have the mp3s uploaded and available for download, but we want to go another step. I of course have root access to the server where we host so I can upload download etc. Here is the RSS feed I made, entitled podcast.xml upload here: http://www.autumnridgechurch.org/podcast.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="Windows-1252"?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<generator>Feed Editor (Unlicensed)</generator>
<pubDate>11 Mar 2008 20:28:40 GMT</pubDate>
<title>Autumn Ridge Church Sermon Podcast</title>
<description>Weekly sermons preached at Autumn Ridge Church in Rochester MN.</description>
<link>http://autumnridgechurch.org/worship/sermons.html</link>
<language>en</language>
<item>
<title>The Role of Faith in Healing</title>
<description>The Role of Faith in Healing - preached by C. John Steer at Autumn Ridge Church on March 2nd and 3rd, 2008.</description>
<pubDate>11 Mar 2008 20:28:40 GMT</pubDate>
<link>http://autumnridgechurch.org/worship/sermons/single/news/the-role-of-faith-in-healing/news-archive/1204668026.html</link>
<enclosure url="http://www.autumnridgechurch.org/fileadmin/worship/sermon_audio/Sermon%20030208.mp3" length="32738646" type="audio/mpeg"/>
</item>
</channel></rss>
For some reason it gives one error when run through validator.w3.org I was wondering if you people could give me a hand, advice, etc. If you have any questions about what I am using, file location, need any other info, please let me know. Thanks!

- David

[Yotto]

First, "Troll" is a bad name in forums. I know what you meant, but in general you shouldn't call people that :)

Secondly, I'm a bigger fan of feedvalidator.org, so I ran your xml through it.

http://feedvalidator.org/check.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.autumnridgechurch.o rg%2Fpodcast.xml

Fix every single one of those things, and then revalidate. Fix anything else it tells you to fix.

WARNINGs are okay. You can fix them if you want, but most places will accept them. ERRORs are not. You MUST fix them or your feed is invalid.

When Feedvalidator.org says your feed is Okay, then every site that matters should accept your feed.

[WyethDigital]

Yeah, not crazy about the "Trolls" designation. A troll on a forum is a somewhat destructive force that seeks only to inflame people. Might want to rethink your greeting.

I agree, check your feed through feedvalidator.org. I think part of the problem is the <comments> tag. That one is unfamiliar to me. I don't see that tag in my feed and I'm not sure why it's in yours.

If I had advice, I'd say try a different feed generator and compare the results. Or you could even run your current feed through a service like Feedburner (which takes your feed and creates a new feed from it with extra features). It will usually fix what's wrong, but be warned! There's a lot of extras you can turn on that can enhance your feed, but which can also clutter it up. Also, if you use Feedburner, make sure to tick the "I'm a podcaster" box next to the box where you enter your current feed URL.

Eric

[ARChurch]

I appreciate the correction on the Troll matter! I am on a few forums and have seen people who "troll" the forums calling themselves trolls, when in Rome Apologies...

Thanks for the advice, I'll let you guys know what happens. Thanks again!

EDIT:
What is wrong with the Author? It has to be a email address?

As far as the comments, that was generated by Feed Editor (trial version) so maybe I'll just nix it if that might confuse some feed readers.

[Yotto]

Yup, that's what's wrong with the Author field. It must be an email address.

And I suspect they were calling each other names for fun, or there was an actual Troll (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Internet%29) that you, being new to the site, didn't notice.

If you're going to blog your podcast with Wordpress, look into Podpress.