I've been using the heck out of Instacast recently, especially during my commute, and I've really been enjoying both the app and the great content from 5by5 and others. But, the other day, I ran across a stand-alone mp3 file that I wanted to listen to on my commute, and realized I didn't have an easy way to get it on my iPhone. Ever since switching to iOS 5 and Instacast (and with my long-time usage of Rhapsody for music), I don't have any need to regularly sync to my computer. So, the easiest thing would be if I had my own "personal podcast" feed that I could simply subscribe to in Instacast.
A little googling found a clever AppleScript to do this. However, since I'm a nerd (and not a fan of AppleScript), I naturally wanted to hack up my own Ruby script to do the same thing.
I did like the AppleScript author's idea of using Dropbox to host this. That means I can easily add to it from any of my computers.
I also like the Folder Action setup, but haven't tackled that part. I figure I can manually re-run the script for now, and if it's something I end up using often then I'll fix that deficiency.
For now, it's working great. Admittedly, it probably would have been quicker to just manually sync my iPhone for this one instance... Oh well.
Code#
Here is the ruby script I ended up with: