Podcasting...

...thank god it's over with!!! Ok, that was a new challenge. Anyone who has never created a podcast and thinks it will be no big deal and it will be easy to figure out how to get it onto your little blog is sadly mistaken. It is a big deal and it's not easy to figure out. I am not saying posting things is hard or reading websites and clicking things on a computer is hard, I am not saying that at all. What's hard is knowing where to go. Where do I go to create this masterpiece? How do I add a soundtrack? Why is the music so loud? Now why is it so quiet? How do I put more than one song on here? Why are my eyeballs crossing? Is this headache from the computer screen or the aggravation or the 2 Diet Cokes I just chugged down in 15 minutes? I had a good time recording myself, although I still can't get over the sound of my voice when it's coming back at me. (I don't really sound like that do I?)
I used a little program called Audacity to record myself reading from my favorite book. Audacity was very user-friendly and reminded me of the television show "Ghost Hunters" which I'm sure Mel Carson from our class is familiar with. For those of you that don't know, the people on that show lurk around haunted places in the dark and use sensitive recording instruments to get ghostly sounds recorded and then play that back for the haunted house owner. I hope they never come to my condo building or I'm moving out. But anyway, they use something with that same audio recording type of screen that looks like a heartbeat monitor. It was cool to zoom in on one second or cut out a sound or "um". Audacity seems like a great place to record yourself talking, reading, or telling a story. I was thinking that people in the Navy could record a podcast and post it to a blog and then their moms could listen to their kids even if they were halfway around the world. It would also be great for people who just got engaged to put their story on the internet so they could just send out a facebook update telling everyone to look at their blog so they don't have to tell the story 900 times. Add some video and you can explain anything from how to change a tire to teaching sign language.
I also used podOmatic to actually get the podcast from my computer onto my blog. Once I read and re-read every tip and suggestion on Oncourse and got to podOmatic from the Web 2.0 site, it was a breeze. It was quick and easy and I was so glad I was able to add pictures to my podOmatic user ID (what is that like 10 user IDs and passwords now?) and to the actual podcast. I could not figure out the volume issue so the background music is slightly dumb, but I still enjoy it.
Ok, so check it out. Watch my podcast. I will not be upset if you skip a lot of it. I did. I mean, 19 minutes of reading? Come on. I would like to suggest to people podcasting and vodcasting and blogging and emailing and facebooking and oncoursing and working to write down- and keep in a secret location- all of your usernames and passwords. It can get frustrating and annoying when you can't get into something because you have 90 passwords in your brain getting all mushed together! Have a great second half of your week and Happy Valentines Day! :)