As we mentioned last week, Canada's CBC has set up an online OPML podcast directory which can be used to browse all their audio and video podcasts on an S60 device's Podcasting application. One of the CBC's tech blogs has posted an article explaining how the directory was made, using the Macintosh-based NetNewsWire feed reader. However, you can use other readers on other platforms too, and we recently published a similar OPML directory how-to using Google Reader instead. For those of you who just want to browse the CBC podcast directory on your S60 phone, see our "how to add directories to S60 Podcasting" article which also covers the BBC and NPR directories too.

The basics of creating a directory compatible with the S60 Podcasting application are pretty easy:

 1. Subscribe to the podcasts you want to include and arrange them into folders in a feed reader.

 2. Export your subscriptions as an OPML file.

 3. Make sure the file name ends in .opml (rename it if necessary).

 4. Upload the file (in ASCII mode if you're using FTP) to a website. The URL of the uploaded file can be added as a directory in the "Directories" section of the Nokia Podcasting application.

The links above give much more detailed instructions and examples of how to create and use podcast directories.