@ianblei,
These are all functions accomplished from your WordPress dashboard. That’s http://yourbloglocation/wp-admin, and you’ll need the user name and password you created when you installed WP.
From there, you’ll see a Plugins tab, where you can go and activate Plugins that have been added. Once you’ve activated the podPress plugin, you’ll see a podPress tab where you can access podPress settings.
Getting the plugin installed is general WordPress stuff, so you probably won’t find detailed instructions on activating podPress. Review the WP documentation here.
I did not visit the Permalinks page and didn’t realize it affected the .htaccess file. That was a step I overlooked. Hopefully this resolves all the issues — I’ll verify later and confirm.
For my edification — any thoughts on why this happened and how it corrected itself?
Thanks!