Category: Podcasting

IT@Cork, Podcast, Podcasting

Podcasting for business event

it@cork are running an evening event on Podcasting for your Business this coming Tuesday evening (27th February).

Brian Greene and Conn O’Muineachain, the two guest speakers addressing the event are two of Ireland’s top podcasters having won the Netvisionaries Podcasting award last year and the Digital Media Awards Grand Prix award this year respectively!

Conn will be discussing Podcasting for internal company communications (training, best practice, recognition, etc.) while Brian will focus on how easy podcasting is to do, and how the public facing parts of corporate Ireland should be looking at it.

I’ll be chairing the event and moderating the q&a.

The event is free to it@cork member companies and €20 to non-members. This is a great opportunity to meet two of Ireland’s foremost podcasters, I strongly recommend going along, even if you are only wondering what all this podcasting stuff is all about anyway!

[Disclaimer – I am on the steering committee of it@cork]

Podcast, Podcasting, PodLeaders, Technology

Anyone got a copy of the PodLeaders Sam Sethi podcast?

I have put a copy of all the podcast mp3 files from PodLeaders on Libsyn today after the previous host’s server disappeared taking all my podcasts with it.

Unfortunately though I couldn’t find a copy of the podcast I did with Sam Sethi last Sept/Oct. If anyone has a copy of that mp3 I’d love to get it and put it up again.

Sam has been exceedingly gracious and offered to do another podcast (an offer I will take him up on shortly) but I’d really love to have the original interview as well.

If you come across any podcasts on PodLeaders not working now, please do let me know. As far as I am aware the Sam Sethi one is the only one not working but I could easily be wrong in that.

UPDATE:
Thanks to Colin DiPonio, I now have the Sam Sethi podcast file once more. Thanks Colin.

Interviews, Podcast, Podcasting, PodLeaders, Technology

Lie detector software for Skype?

The BBC is reporting that there will very shortly be a plugin for Skype which acts as a lie detector by analysing:

audio streams over a Skype call in real time and illustrates the stress levels of the other person

Most of my PodLeaders podcasts are recorded Skype conversations – this could add a whole new dimension to the interviews!!!

Audio, IT@Cork, Podcast, Podcasting, PodLeaders, Technology

Exporting to mp3 from Audacity on an Intel Mac

I upgraded to a shiny new Intel based MacBook Pro recently and I love it.

One problem that I hadn’t anticipated was that the Audacity plugin for exporting to mp3 is not available for the Intel Mac. I use Audacity all the time for editing my podcasts and for creating the mp3’s which I publish on PodLeaders.com and on the it@cork blog.

I kinda cheated in finding a way around this – I downloaded the Windows version of Audacity and installed it on my Windows XP installation on Parallels on my Mac. This version of Audacity can export to mp3 no problem.

So now, I am editing all my podcasts (and exporting to mp3) using Windows on the Mac – (yeuch!). I’ve no doubt there is a more straightforward way to do this but this is the hack I came up with being a blogger of very little brain!

Audio, Interviews, IT@Cork, Podcast, Podcasting, PodLeaders

Audacity aiff import problems

Audacity is an open source, cross-platform sound editing application. It is the sound editor I use for producing the PodLeaders and it@cork podcasts.

The process I use for producing the podcasts was:

  1. Record the interview using Skype and Wiretap Pro (with Wiretap Pro set to save as mp3)
  2. Import the mp3 file to Audacity and edit
  3. Export as mp3 and publish

After a recent conversation with Doug Kaye, I decided to try his Levelator application to get the levels on the recordings the same. This meant I had to change Wiretap Pro to output to aiff ( a lossless format) instead of mp3.

I did this and recorded a number of interviews successfully, saving the interviews as aiff. However, yesterday, when I went to edit the first of those interviews, I was disappointed that the Levelator couldn’t work with the files (gave an error and stopped trying to level them).

However, I was horrified when I tried importing the files into Audacity only to find that the imported files had massive echo problems, echo problems (!). No matter what I tried I couldn’t get rid of the echo and it made the audio useless.

Finally, I hit on a solution:

  1. Import the aiff files into iTunes
  2. Export from iTunes as mp3
  3. Import the mp3 file into Audacity – no echo (phew!)

I should have hit on this solution sooner but it had been a long day!

Podcast, Podcasting, Technology

An Líonra Sóisialta in iTunes

Conn’s podcast in the Irish language – An Líonra Sóisialta is at position number 37 in iTunes!
An Líonra Sóisialta in iTunes

The more people who subscribe to the podcast, the higher it will go in the listings.

Conn has also been nominated for a richly deserved Netvisionary award in the podcasting category – if you haven’t voted yet, head on over there and cast a vote – voting is open to all.

Podcasting, Search Engines, video

Google's windfall for copyright claimants

In case you haven’t heard (where have you been?) Google announced that the rumours were true after all and that they have agreed to buy YouTube for $1.65bn.

Yep. You read that correctly, $1.65bn.

Unsurprisingly, this is the top story on TechMeme.

It looks like Google believes video on the web has a real future and YouTube’s legal troubles (they are being threatened with litigation for copyright infringement) are a price they are willing to pay.

For the people thinking of suing YouTube this has got to have them down on their knees thanking their deity of choice! Instead of suing YouTube – a company with no significant assets, they now get to sue Google – one of the world’s wealthiest companies!

Blogging, Business blogging, Podcasting, PodLeaders

Net Visionary!

It seems that I have been nominated for a 2006 Net Visionary award in three categories!

I don’t know who nominated me, but thanks. It is both flattering and humbling to be nominated, particularly in light of the quality of some of my fellow nominees.

I have been nominated in Best Social Contribution (!). I am also nominated in the Best Blogger category and finally, I am nominated in the Best Podcast category (for the PodLeaders.com podcast).

There are lots of other nominees in lots of other categories – if you haven’t done so already head on over and vote (voting is open to all).

Personally, I’ll be hard pressed to vote for myself in any of the categories the competition is that good!