So you'd like to check out a podcast but don't know where to start. First you should make sure you have a program for viewing podcasts on your computer. The most popular program for doing this on a mac or on windows is iTunes, which happens to be a free download from Apple. If you are a Linux user or don't want to install iTunes you can access and manage podcasts using the online service google reader. Alternatively any RSS feed reader should work.

Once you are ready to browse for podcasts, you can open iTunes, click on the "iTunes store" link in the source pane on the left, select "podcasts" from the genre area and browse or search for a podcast of interest. When you find something that you want, just click subscribe. All new episodes will automatically be downloaded to your computer by iTunes. You can view them in iTunes by selecting "podcasts" from the source pane.

Alternatively you may be browsing the web and find a button that says something to the effect of "subscribe now" which may direct your iTunes application to subscribe directly to this podcast.

An alterantive way to subscribe to a podcast that you know the URL of is to select "Subscribe to podcast…" from the "Advanced" menu in iTunes. Then type in the URL for the podcast that you are interested in subscribing to. Other RSS readers allow you to subscribe to podcasts in a similar manner. This is useful for instance when you share the location of a podcast with a friend over email.