A podcast is essentially like a radio (and sometimes video) program available on the Internet. Only unlike conventional radio, the shows are pre-recorded, so you can listen to them whenever you like, rather than having to listen at a specific time.

You can get them one of two ways: Manually (works, but ultimately more trouble) or by subscription using a free software program called an "aggregator" or "podcatcher".

Listening on the Webpage and Manual Downloads
If you want to do it manually, you can simply go to the website and click the "The Episodes" link, or here's a direct link.

You'll notice that each entry has a little gray picture by it that says "Pod" on it. If you just click it, you can play it right in your web browser, (you may need to install a plug in if you've not played mp3's in your web browser before,) or you can right click that little picture, and choose to "Save Link As" or "Save target as" or something similar, depending on your browser.

That will download the mp3 file to your hard drive, at which point you can play it right on your computer like any other mp3, you can upload it to any portable mp3 player, or, if you have the right hardware and software, you can burn it to a CD.

Subscriptions
However, if you subscribe, every time you run your aggregator program, it will check the podcast RSS feed to see if there are new episodes, and if there are, it will download them for you automatically. This is what makes it a "podcast" rather than just an ordinary mp3.

So, what is a "podcast aggregator"? Well, basically, it's just a program that is designed to check RSS feeds, and to download new podcasts when they are available. The most commonly used program these days is Apple's iTunes. That's the one I use, because the user interface is intuitive and the whole thing is just pretty convenient. Unless you really just want to stay away from Apple for whatever reason, that's the one I would recommend. However, there are some excellent alternatives. Click here for a listing of some of them. That site, by the way, has lots more helpful information as well.

Anyway, once you've chosen an aggregator, you simply need to "subscribe" to the podcast.

If you've got iTunes, the easiest way to subscribe is to go to the podcast website (here's mine), and just click the "iTunes 1 Click" button on the left hand of the screen. That will open your iTunes program, subscribe to the feed, and begin to download the latest chapter. Since you'll want to start at the beginning, just go to the "Podcasts" section of your iTunes, expand the listing for "Nina Kimberly the Merciless", and click "Get" for all the previous episodes.

Then you're done! Every time you run iTunes, it will check to see if there are any new episodes available. If there are, it will download them to your hard drive automatically, for you to listen to whenever you want.

If you choose an aggregator besides iTunes, the process is similar, but will vary in the details depending on which one you pick.

Easy peasy, eh? You can actually use the same process to subscribe to any podcast you want. (There are thousands of great ones, including some more wonderful free audiobooks. I recommend checking out Podcast Pickle and Podiobooks to start looking.) Not all of them will have an iTunes 1 click button, but if they don't, just copy and paste the url for the RSS feed. (It'll just be code if you click it through the browser. Nina's is: http://ninakimberly.libsyn.com/rss) When you find the url, go into iTunes and select "Subscribe to a podcast" from the Advanced menu and paste in the feed address and you're done. Or follow the instructions in your own aggregator program.