Password protected podcasts

UPDATE: I finally did set up a password protected podcast and vodcast

UPDATE: Margaret has removed the password protection from her podcast but you can contact her to learn more about how she did it.

The issue of password protected RSS feeds pops up during my discussions with faculty. I finally came across a site that does exactly that – Margaret Maag’s Nursing class.

She does it by password protecting the Windows folder where the mp3 files are located. It seems to work well for iTunes and iPodderX (Mac) but on iPodder (PC, version 2.1) there is no request for password. It just downloads tiny 1K files.

The other issue to contend with is that this won’t work using Feedburner to create the RSS feeds because their server has to retrieve the file properties of the mp3 in order to create an enclosure. I have run into this kind of problem trying to create podcasts of pdf files located on publisher sites that verify IP addresses for access.

Margaret also has a blog on e-learning that is worth adding to your feeds.