It seems people are struggling with the podcast and how to best access it.
I’ve also gotten a bunch of people asking “Where did you go? Are there going to be more episodes of the show? I’m loving the season 2 format.”
This is from Matt:
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Good morning. I am a PA student looking at a long commute this next rotation. I have been appreciating your podcast for the past year, but I’ve always had a bit of trouble gathering them all into one device. I have next-to-no familiarity with itunes and mac products; do you perhaps have them all collected someplace? I have been direct downloading them as needed but that has been a bit time-consuming.
Thanks for your time!
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Matt, you are doing this the really really hard way. You can go to the website and one by one download each show. Then transfer it to your device, but that is crazy time consuming.
As far as the mac or iOS stuff. Don’t worry about it. I do suggest you use iTunes whether you’re on mac or PC to transfer the audio version of The Final Step to your phone, but outside of that you don’t need mac or pc software or hardware.
What you need is called a podcatcher app.
Search the internet looking for podcatcher for your platform. There are lots of opinions as to which are better or worse. Typically, they range between free and about $5. Totally worth it.
I just typed into Google – podcatcher droid- and got pages and pages of top 10 lists of podcatchers.
On iOS I really like the app Overcast, but you could use any of them. Overcast has few features that I like. It has adjustable skip forward or back buttons so you can skip long intros you don’t want to hear for the 1,000th time. It magically removes dead space to speed up playback. It allows you to speed up play back really easily, and it has a volume boost thingy that makes everything sound better.
They all have similar and different features. Spend a few minutes looking through the lists and test out one or two.
Once you’ve downloaded a podcatcher, somewhere in there is a search feature. Search for either Brian Wallace or The physician assistant exam review podcast or PANCE or PANRE and you will find it (and maybe a few other shows that will help). Hit subscribe and you are off to the races.
Now the latest episodes are automatically downloaded (if I get to new episodes). Or you can scroll through old shows and use one click to download them to your phone. Easy as pie.
It’s much better than doing it by hand and the players are much smoother and have better features. Once in a while, I get stuck listening to something directly out of dropbox. I’m happy that dropbox has an audio player, but I am always dying to get it into Overcast.
No, you can’t get the audio version of The Final Step into a podcatcher (well technically you can, but it’s not easy). And you shouldn’t play it directly out of dropbox. It will cost you data every time and their player kinda stinks.
For now, the best way is to download all the audio files to your computer, drop it into iTunes and then create a playlist with the files and move them all over as a playlist.
Within the next few months, I’m optimistic that the PAER App will be up and running and you’ll be able to BOTH get the podcast through there AND listen to The Final Step Audio in there, but for now we’ll have to make do.
Get your copy of The Final Step by clicking that link right there:
Brian Wallace
