About Living Blindfully Plus

Hi, this is Jonathan Mosen, the host of Living Blindfully. Thanks for your interest in Living Blindfully Plus. On this page, I’d like to give you as much information as possible about why I am seeking your financial support for Living Blindfully, what you’ll get, and plenty of info on how it works technically, so you can make the most of your subscription.

Every week, our community gets together to discuss a wide range of issues from a blindness perspective. It’s our place to share news, tips, challenges and encouragement. I spend many hours on every episode to ensure that the podcasts are professionally produced and well-researched. That takes a lot of time and effort.

Does the Living Blindfully podcast add value to your life? If you’re someone who agrees that we’ve all built something very special with this community, joining Living Blindfully Plus is a way to show your support. Your contribution helps fund the cost of people to perform tasks like editing the podcast and proofing our transcripts, leaving me more time to research and conduct interviews.

And in the spirit of living blindfully, my pledge to you is that everyone we contract with for these tasks will be blind themselves, so we’re sharing the love within our community.

What do I get for joining Living Blindfully Plus?

Well, you get my profound thanks for helping me to keep this podcast and community thriving and viable for me to do. But there are some perks as well.

  • You’ll receive episodes of Living Blindfully 72 hours before they’re released to the public.
  • The moment an episode is published, you’ll get an email notification.
  • Episodes will be commercial free once we obtain increased advertising revenue.
  • For certain interviews, we’ll let you know they’re coming up in advance, so you can submit questions to our guests.
  • Other perks coming soon.

How do I get the episodes early?

If you decide to join Living Blindfully Plus, you’ll receive your own secret RSS feed that belongs just to you. Shhhh it’s a secret. You paste this feed into your podcast app, and as long as your Living Blindfully Plus subscription remains active, you’ll get the early, commercial-free episodes. If you ever decide you want to end your Living Blindfully Plus subscription, the RSS feed will stop working once your subscription expires, and you’ll be able to keep listening to the public episodes in the usual way. Need more step by step instructions? You’ll find plenty of detail on the page after you subscribe, but there is even more detail further down this page.

How much does it cost to join Living Blindfully Plus?

You’re waiting for some big number, right? But the answer is, it costs whatever you like. Yes, seriously! I know this is a risky strategy, but I also know that many in our community are unemployed and finding it hard to make ends meet. So please subscribe by contributing whatever you think the podcast is worth and what’s comfortable for you to afford. I’m just grateful that you’re willing to consider it.

Subscriptions are monthly, and you can either sign up for a commitment that expires at the end of each month, requiring you to make another commitment to remain current, or nominate a monthly amount to be billed to your credit card until you opt out. If you opt for a recurring subscription, it’s easy to cancel it any time.

You can pay with any major credit card and we support ApplePay.

If you’re in a position to give a generous subscription to compensate for the fact that others won’t be able to, I really do appreciate that.

Please also keep in mind that the subscription is billed in New Zealand dollars, which is generally good news if you are outside New Zealand. It will actually cost you less than you may realise. For example, as I write this page in April 2023, one New Zealand dollar equals 62 American Cents. So a 10 New Zealand dollar monthly subscription is only going to cost just $6.20 USD. You can check the current exchange rate by asking your personal assistant to convert one New Zealand dollar to whatever your local currency is.

Don’t worry, all the conversion is handled automatically when you sign up.

All the technicals

How do I get my secret RSS feed once I subscribe?

You’ll receive an email confirmation of your subscription from Pinecast. Pinecast are our excellent podcast provider and they are providing the technology that makes Living Blindfully Plus so accessible and easy. That email contains your personal RSS feed, so it’s a good idea to store the email in a safe place.

If you ever lose that email, or you want to log in and change your subscription, you will also find the RSS link on the Pinecast site. Here’s how that’s done.

Visit tips.pinecast.com.

You may need to log in using the email address you provided when you subscribed to Living Blindfully Plus, but if you’re using the same device you subscribed with, you’ll probably be logged in already. If you do need to log in, Pinecast will email you a confirmation link. Activate the link from the email to continue.

You’ll see a list of Pinecast podcasts you’ve provided financial support to. Living Blindfully may be the only one. Choose its link, then choose the link called “See what is available”.

You’ll then find your RSS feed, which you can copy to your clipboard so you can then paste it into your podcast app.

After the feed is displayed on the page, you’ll find a link to copy it to the clipboard. It’s a long URL, so using this link to copy it ensures you have it on your clipboard with no extraneous spaces. Depending on the device you use, you may be asked if it’s OK for Pinecast to copy something to the clipboard. Confirm that it is, and you’ll have the URL on your clipboard ready to work with.

Can I listen to Living Blindfully Plus content on the web?

You sure can. Log into tips.pinecast.com using the email address you used when you signed up to Living Blindfully Plus, choose Living Blindfully, then the link called See what is available. Episodes are displayed on that page.

 

How do I add my private RSS feed in Apple Podcasts on my iPhone or iPad?

First, I recommend unfollowing the public Living Blindfully podcast feed, so you don’t have duplicates. Your personalized feed will provide both public and private episodes.

Next, be sure to follow the steps described in the relevant section of this page to obtain your personal RSS feed and copy it in full to the clipboard.

To add your feed URL to Apple Podcasts while VoiceOver is on, double-tap the Library tab at the bottom of the screen in the Apple Podcasts app, then double-tap the More button at the top of the screen. Choose the “Follow a show by URL” button, and paste your private RSS feed into the edit field. If you have the feed on the clipboard, you do this by double-tapping the edit field asking for the URL, then performing the rotor gesture to choose Text selection. With the Text Selection rotor active, flick down until you hear Paste, then double-tap.

Finally, having confirmed that the URL is in the edit field, double-tap the “Follow” button to complete the process.

 

How do I add my private RSS feed in Overcast on my iPhone or iPad?

First, I recommend unfollowing the public Living Blindfully podcast feed, so you don’t have duplicates. Your personalized feed will provide both public and private episodes.

Next, be sure to follow the steps described in the relevant section of this page to obtain your personal RSS feed and copy it in full to the clipboard.

To add your feed URL to Overcast while VoiceOver is on, double-tap the “Add Podcast” button towards the top of the screen.

On the Add Podcast screen, double-tap the button called “Add URL”.

If you have your RSS feed copied to the clipboard already, Overcast will detect this, and ask if it is OK to paste from your clipboard. Choose the Allow Paste button.

It is not necessary to fill in the username or password fields, so at this point, having verified that the feed is in the edit field, you can simply double-tap the Done button.

How do I add my private RSS feed in Downcast on my iPhone or iPad?

First, I recommend unfollowing the public Living Blindfully podcast feed, so you don’t have duplicates. Your personalized feed will provide both public and private episodes.

Next, be sure to follow the steps described in the relevant section of this page to obtain your personal RSS feed and copy it in full to the clipboard.

To add your feed URL to Downcast while VoiceOver is on, double-tap the “Add” tab, which is part of the tab strip at the bottom of the screen.

Next, double-tap the “Add Podcast Manually” button, located towards the top of the screen.

If you have your RSS feed copied to the clipboard already, Downcast will detect this, and ask if it is OK to paste from your clipboard. Choose the Allow Paste button.

It is not necessary to fill in the username or password fields, so at this point, having verified that the feed is in the edit field, you can simply double-tap the Subscribe button.

 

 

How do I add my private RSS feed on my Victor Reader Stream second generation?

Note that at the time of writing, April 2023, the HumanWare Companion software does not support the third generation Victor Reader Stream, so these instructions only apply to the second generation.

I will add information about the third generation Stream when I receive it.

First, I recommend unfollowing the public Living Blindfully podcast feed, so you don’t have duplicates. Your personalized feed will provide both public and private episodes.

Next, be sure to follow the steps described in the relevant section of this page to obtain your personal RSS feed and copy it in full to the clipboard. Since you will use the Stream Companion software, you’ll be using the Windows Clipboard for this task.

 

Insert the SD card for your stream into your computer (or card reader).

Open the HumanWare Companion app, then select Tools, Export Podcast.

HumanWare Companion will prompt you for the URL of the RSS feed for the podcast.  Paste the feed URL from the Windows Clipboard by pressing CTRL+V.

HumanWare companion will store the RSS feed in an XML file on the SD card for the Stream to read.

 

Next, remove your SD card from your computer or card reader, and insert it in the Stream.

On the Stream, visit the Online Bookshelf, press the 7 key repeatedly until the Stream speaks “podcasts”.

Next, press the  8 key to move down to the selection that says, “import  podcast feeds from file”.  Press the hash (confirm) key, and the stream will read the info from the

XML file on the SD card.

You are done, and the new podcast will show up under podcasts.

How do I add my private RSS feed on my SensePlayer?

Start by having the Living Blindfully Plus link copied to the clipboard.
Open notepad and paste the link into an empty file.
Press Control S to save the file. Select all files as the file type and name the file podcast.url exactly as shown.
As of this writing, the current firmware doesn’t allow the podcast.url file to be directly copied when the player is connected to a computer via USB, so you must copy it to a flash drive or SD card.
On the SensePlayer, open the File Manager and use the down arrow to find USB or SD card.
Press right arrow to view the files on the drive and then down arrow to the podcast.url file.
Press the menu key and select copy.
Press the left arrow to back out of the SD card or USB drive and use up arrow to navigate to the flash disk.
Press the right arrow and then down arrow to podcasts.
Press right arrow to enter the podcasts folder and then menu. Select the paste option.
Once the file has been copied to this folder, you can open the podcast application and it should import the Living Blindfully Plus or any other custom feed for that matter.
Alternatively, you can export your podcast feeds from a podcast app and use the same steps to copy the opml file to the podcasts folder.

 

We will be providing more detailed instructions for other scenarios over time, but even if you are using a different app or player, I hope this points you in the right direction.

 

I have other questions

Sure! Please get in touch and I’ll be pleased to help. Thanks for your interest and for being a part of this amazing community.