Podcasting the IBM Bluecode Acquisition and Microsoft on Community

Well I went and started exploring podcasting.  I still live on a Windows XP desktop, but otherwise use nothing but free and open source software, so I went hunting and discovered Audacity.  Considering that I've never tried this before I was amazed at the interface.  A little experimentation and I created the closing material around my audio blog creative commons license, the disclaimer, and the animal effect.  It was three separate tracks, at different sample rates, but it was easy to move segments around and save it as an MP3 file.

I worked from a script in each of the two podcasts.  I essentially grabbed the blog entry from here into OpenOffice, and reading it aloud, editted it to a script.  I generally read my writing aloud before publication as a self edit technique, so it wasn't too much of a reach.  Two pages turns out to be about 5 minutes of podcast.  That was a bit of surprise.  A minute of audio in MP3 seems to be about a MB. 

My heart was racing fast enough and the adrenalin was just shrieking through my body while I recorded myself.  I clearly worry too much.  (I used to say that you should do something every day that makes you a little afraid and takes you out of your comfort zone.  I think I'm good for a month now.)  Between the "script" edit, a practice read, the recording, and then final compose and test and post, it probably took an hour for the first five minute podcast.  I honestly don't know how radio people do this for a living in real time. 

I'm using BlogMatrix as the backing for the podcasts, setting up the audio version of Once More unto the Breach.  It's a simple interface for uploading podcasts and video, and supports RSS feeds with enclosures.  The first podcast is an audio version of "Or Maybe Microsoft Could Join the Community".  The second is an audio version of "IBM, Gluecode, and Open Source Business as Usual". 

As for the animal effect reference, well I thought I might "brand" different podcast topics with different animal sounds like O'Reilly does with animals and book covers.  I'll leave it to you to figure out the code.  As always, comments and suggestions welcome. 

Comments

[Jeffrey Haemer]

> I still live on a Windows XP desktop, but otherwise > use nothing but free and open source software,

"... but otherwise..."?

FWIW, I generally find Knoppix to be an absolutely useable, bomb-proof desktop. Of course, Windows does come from Baja BC, so I can understand your affection for it, but still, once you switch I'm sure your Redmond friends will turn chartreuse with envy.

[Sheygets Goyishekop]

Here, for example, is one who will:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/24/179227&from=rss

Would his location make him a mondRed, or, now that the USSR is dead, is that camel-case noun just used to describe people who voted for Washington's "losing" gubenatorial candidate?