Playing with Podcasts

After a couple of days, I have found software, recorded an oral presentation, edited the presentation, saved it in multiple digital formats, and created .rss and .xml files to turn it into a podcast. As a result, I have now created my first official podcast. I'm pretty proud of it. I had wanted to do one with my voice, but I wanted a more professional sounding voice, so I asked our college president to speak. It turns out that she has a lovely, recordable voice. It was only a matter of removing dead airspace and some "ummmms" and "ahhhhhs" before saving the file as .mp3 and .wav files. I used Audacity freeware to do the recording and edits. I used a KOSS CS-100 headset with microphone ($10-$15). I tried to use Podifier freeware to create the .rss file that I needed to turn the audio into an actual podcast that would be received in podcast aggregators/receivers, but I had some trouble with the script that it created. In the end it was easier to look at someone else's script and just put my links and info into the script to create the file. I also looked at podcast aggregators/receivers and tried a few before I found the one that I liked best, ZiePod. You can find my webpage about podcasting with links to the software that I used at http://www.wvup.edu/dl/Podcasts/index.htm.

Not So Scary Disney & Slide.com

In my never ending search for finding and trying cool freeware, I have had to resort to creating a blog. Ok, how much geekier can I get? So...I created this blog just to try out the slideshow software from www.slide.com.

I think it turned out to be pretty cool! The program is relatively easy to use. When you are finished creating the slideshow, you are given the code to add it to your blog page. Directions are given for various blog sites. It took me three tries to get a slideshow created, but I finally did it. I don't know if the software is in beta or what, but I seemed to have a lot of technical difficulties. My successful attempt didn't include as many pictures as the first two attempts, and I didn't try to rename any of the images either. I may go back later and try to add photos and change image names to see if I can do it successfully without getting kicked out of the site.