How to easily download podcasts on an OS X dial-up connection

From ArticleWorld


If you are over a dial-up connection, chances are you have ended a podcast download in some frustration. Safari, Opera and Firefox all have their share of problems with resuming download after the connection is closed, and a good and free download manager is rather hard to find.

OS X comes with a Unix tool called curl, which presents itself as a tool to transfer data from or to a server, using one of the supported protocols (HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, GOPHER, DICT, TELNET, LDAP or FILE). (The curl manpage). Able to do some good tricks, and including a resume option, it may be a very good option. Here is how to download a podcast using curl.

[edit]

Steps

1. Open a Terminal window, and make sure that you are connected to the Internet

2. Find the location of the podcast you want to download

3. Use the following command: 

curl -L -C - -O http://url.of.podcast

4. Should you need to resume, simply run that command again, in the same directory that you ran it the first time.

[edit]

Notes

Although this tip was intended for Mac OS X, it works just as well on any platform using curl. If you are using a Unix or Unix-like operating system (Linux, *BSD, Darwin, BeOS/Zeta and so on), you should have a standard package for it. If you are running Windows, there is a Cygwin port available, but also some applications which work just like curl.

Retrieved from "https://www.articleworld.org:80/index.php/How_to_easily_download_podcasts_on_an_OS_X_dial-up_connection"