How to download audio, use your iPod, and/or make CDs

iTunes is a free digital media player application for playing and organizing digital music and video files. The program is also an interface to manage the contents on Apple's popular iPod digital media players as well as the iPhone (though it's not necessary to have an iPod or iPhone to use iTunes). iTunes is available as a free download for Mac OS X, Windows Vista, and Windows XP from Apple's website (http://www.apple.com/itunes/download). Following the steps below you'll be able to subscribe to the Audio Sancto podcast in iTunes, download as many sermons as you want, create your own lists (playlists) of favorite sermons, and make your own audio CDs.

First, if you don't yet have iTunes, you can download it from the Apple website at: http://www.apple.com/itunes

Once iTunes is installed, start the program and then click on the "Subscibe to Podcast..." option under the advanced menu:

Enter the URL of the podcast as shown below. To subscribe to only the most recent sermons, enter the URL http://feeds.feedburner.com/audiosancto into the box; if you would like to subscribe to the complete archive of sermons, enter the URL http://feeds.feedburner.com/audiosancto-archive into the box.

Once you enter the URL, click the "OK" button. iTunes will subscribe to the podcast and begin downloading the most recently published sermon. You can download individual sermons by clicking the "GET" button next to the sermon in question (circled in yellow in the screen shot below) or you can decide to download all available sermons by clicking on the "GET ALL" button (circled in red in the screen shot below).

If you're only interested in downloading the sermons and getting them onto your iPod, then the only step remaining is to plug in your iPod and it will synchronize with iTunes. If, however, you would like to make your own audio CDs, then continue with the steps below.

If you would like to make audio CDs of the sermons you download, you'll need to verify a couple settings on the iTunes software. First, click on the "Preferences..." option under the "Edit" menu:



Then click on the "Advanced" tab (circled in red in the image below) and then click on the "Burning" tab (circled in green in the image below). Make sure the "Audio CD" radio button is selected in the "Disc Format" menu (circled in yellow in the image below) and that the "Gap Between Songs" option box is set to "none."



Click on the "OK" button (at the bottom right of the image above) to save these settings.

The next step in creating a custom CD is to create a playlist. To do this, click on the "plus" button at the bottom left of the iTunes window (circled in red in the image below). A new playlist will appear at the bottom of the list of playlists (circled in yellow in the image below). Rename the new playlist to whatever you want (I called it "New CD" in the image below but you can call it Sonitus Bonus or anything else you want).

The next step is to select one or more sermons to add to the new playlist. You drag and drop one sermon at a time on the new playlist, or, as shown in the image below, you can select several sermons at once and assign them to a playlist by right-clicking on any of the selected sermons, clicking on "Add to Playlist" and then selecting the playlist you want from a list of available playlists.

Click on the name of the playlist you just created (circled in green in the image below). You should see the sermons you added to the playlist in the previous step. Now look at the very bottom-center of the iTunes window: you'll see some information telling you how many items are in this playlist, how many minutes of audio are in the playlist, and the space on your hard drive occupied by the items on your playlist. Please keep in mind that you cannot put more than 74 minutes of audio on a standard audio CD (some newer disks allow up to 80 minutes, but this isn't a 100% certainty). If you have more than 74 minutes of audio in the playlist you'll need to remove one or more sermons until you're under the 74 minute threshhold. Once you have 74 minutes or less in your playlist, put a blank CD in your CD writing drive, and then press the "Burn Disk" button at the lower left of the iTunes window (circled in red in the image below).

And that's it: iTunes now will create the new CD from your playlist!