cron my Podcasts overnight

[andersja]

Hey, I know this is not exactly the right forum to ask this question, but since most (presumably all) readers here will be podcast-fluent, and since this could even be an idea for a future ubuntu-podcast, I post the question anyway:

I have a usecase / feature I would like to set up on my ubuntu PC:

I would like to plug my iPod in when it's not in use, and for the PC to every hour or so check for new podcasts I subscribe to (cronjob?) so that when I take the iPod with me (typically to go to work in the morning), it should be fully charged & laden with goodies for me to listen to on the bus... It's key for me that I don;t need to log in etc to do this; I just want to pick up the iPod and leave the house; the magic should already have happened...

Optional features: caching (e.g. cron job caches the content until I plug my ipod, then some 'when iPod connected, do this and that magic'-job could fill it up as fast as possible

Examples: I'd like to make sure I have the latest BBC World News bulletin ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/4977678.stm ) as well as other stuff...

I know that ArmaroK etc do podcasts, but does anyone have a similar setup to the above & care to share how they did it?

Here's the most comprehensive list of software I've found so far:
http://www.podcastingnews.com/topics/Podcast_Software.html

[jomtois]

First off: This Ubuntuos podcast is great. I enjoy it a lot. Thanks guys, keep it up!

On to your question:

I recently got a Cowon Iaudio x5L and had basically the same request as you. I am not sure if this directly applies to the iPod or not, but this is what I do. I use Amarok for all my music organization, but not for podcasts. I use Castpodder, which is not the greatest program ever, but it does the job. You can set up how often it checks for and downloads podcasts for whatever interval. It just runs in the tray minimized, so no need for cron (I think you would have to remain logged in).

When I plug in my iaudio, it always mounts to the same location. Don't know about the ipod. I have a podcasts directory on the iaudio. I have a link to my music folder on my linux box and a link to my podcasts foler that castpodder uses. I wrote two one line shell scripts that use rsync to syncronize those two directories with the iaudio. Presumably you could set it up as a cron job to run those commands at whatever interval. I am not sure how to make it run that as soon as it was mounted.

That works good for me. The only drawback is there is not a good way on the iaudio to mark the podcasts as listened to, so I have to remember and then delete them off of castpodder once I am done. The next rsync deletes them off the iaudio.

Jon

[naxcz]

I'm very satisfied user of podracer. It is script directly written for running as cron job. What I do not know is synchonisation trigered by connecting my H340 hdd mp3 player (and only this device). In System menu there you can set script lunched since some device is connected, but it is not usable if you need do something specific depending on device connected :(

[fritz_monroe]

So, is podracer strictly CLI? I'm putting together a system to do all the various jobs that I'd like to do with cron jobs. Podcast aggregator is one of the jobs I want this to do. If I was to go out of town with the MP3 player, would podracer cache the downloads? Can it handle unexpected events like the MP3 player not being there? I guess I could have it download to a temporary location and then do a script to put them to the MP3 player.