Archive for the 'Software' Category

• Publisher : Hot Recorder
• Platform : Windows
• Download : Download
• Cost : $14.95
• Star Rating : 7 out of 10

One of the most popular questions from people using a voice over IP solution (VOIP), such as Skype, GoogleTalk etc, is “How do I record my conversation?”. Now why would someone want to do this? One of the main reasons, especially if you are a podcaster is that you want to capture a conversation for later inclusion in your podcast. Another reason and one that I’ve needed software like this for, is when doing telephone interviews, which later form the basis of an article. I’ve investigated many solutions and some of them provide a myriad of features, but the majority of the time people just want to record a conversation and nothing more. For this reason I narrowed my search down to HotRecorder/VOIP.

Upon installing the application, you are greeted by a very non standard looking Windows application, that takes up a relatively small amount of screen real estate. The screen has several tabs, that separate the programs functionality into the following areas.

Recorder
This is where you’ll initiate your recordings. As well as the normal record, pause and stop buttons, you’ll also see the audio source you are capturing.

Player
All the recording you make appear under this tab. You can play any one of them, search for a specific recording made and also send a recording to a friend.

Options
There are several preference you can select change here. The destination folder; the quality of the recording (high medium and low) and whether to record in stereo or mono.

Voicemail
Have HotRecorder answer your VOIP calls with a pre-recorded message and record the incoming message. You can also select to have an email message sent to you notification when a message comes in and optionally have the message included in the email.

Emotisounds
Whilst recording conversations you can inject 1 of 15 sounds into your conversation, to add just a little atmosphere.

HotRecorder has built in support for the following VOIP solutions: Skype; Aim; Yahoo Messenger; Net2Phone; FireFly and Google Talk. You can switch between them by right clicking on the icon in the system tray. One of the things I love about this program is it’s simplicity. From downloading the app to testing it on the “Echo123″ Skype Test Call service, I think the sum of 5 minutes elapsed, not bad going.

To really put the application to the test, I waited until I had to undertake several telephone conversations. In fact I did 3 calls in total, each one being around 20 minutes. HotRecorder performed faultlessly. For recording it uses it’s own ELP format. I imagine these aren’t too different to MP3 recordings as the file length isn’t too dissimilar. The only blip I had is when one of the conversations was being saved and I decided to check out a website until the file was complete. When I flipped back to HotRecorder the whole application appeared as a blank screen. I’ve seen this a few times and know it’s usually down to the program being so maxed out it can’t update the screen. This was borne out when I decided to just leave the file saving and sure enough it eventually completed.

As I never know what machine I am going to be writing an article on, I decided it was best to convert the conversations from the proprietary ELP format to the more popular MP3 format, which I did using the included utility. Whilst the sound quality remained consistent, the two sides of the conversation were out of sync, which proved quite confusing. Fortunately I managed to revert back to the native format recordings to complete my article, but it’s a little troublesome if MP3 format recordings are a necessity.

Conclusion : For anyone needing a simple tool, that records a Skype or other supported VOIP programs conversations, this is definitely worth a try.

• Publisher : Garish Kernels
• Platform : Pocket PC
• Download : Download Trial Version
• Cost : $12.95
• Buy Software : Buy Egress
• Star Rating : 9.5 out of 10

It’s not often I am overly excited by software for the Pocket PC, but Egress from Garish Kernels, quite literally blew me away. It’s not that I haven’t see an RSS aggregator for the Pocket PC before, I have. But where this differs, is it’s ability to handle RSS enclosures, meaning you can easily download podcasts directly to your Pocket PC. This is all well and good, but if like me you have a large amount of subscriptions, you are going to need a fairly healthy sized memory card.

What makes Egress a joy to use, is it’s user interface. I have to admit, I am a Pocket PC developer, so know what goes into developing software and if I was going to design an aggregator, it wouldn’t be too dissimilar to this one. Right out of the gate, I was a convert, as Egress imported my Juice OPML feed with ease, no hiccups.

I listen to the majority of podcasts during the week using Juice, while I work. For me Egress allows me to keep on top of the podcasts that fill my listening pool over the weekend. I do a final Juice check on Friday afternoon and then mark read all the entries in Egress. Then at various times over the weekend I check out my feeds to see what new podcasts are available and then listen to them using WinPodder, for it’s here that the Egress loses that extra .5 mark from it’s rating. I realise Egress isn’t an MP3 player, but it would be really nice to stream the new podcasts available, instead of having to download them. I understand that for many people this wouldn’t be practicle, but if like me you have a spare battery or power supply at home, then power isn’t an issue.

One of the really nice side effects of using Egress, is being able to read the actual podcast and RSS posts. Many times your favorite podcasters post a lenghty message to accompany the podcasts, or just post an entry without a podcast. Since I’ve been using Egress, I’ve read tons of stuff I wouldn’t have otherwise seen.

Since I installed Egress a few weeks ago, there’s been one major new version and two minor upgrades. Reading through revision history, it seems that there’s new version pretty regulalry, which is always a good sign for a piece of software.

Apart from the previously mentioned lack of streaming, another feature I would like is the ability to sync with an OPML file. It would be great to export my Juice subscriptions to a specific directory on my PC or the web and for Egress to check this out and add/remove podcast subscriptions from the Egress subscriptions. Also the ability to bookmark RSS subscriptions in Firefox/Internet Explorer and automatically add them to Egress.

Conclusion : A fantastic piece of software that really hits the spot. I think even more incredible is the price of $12.95. I challenge anyone to find a better value piece of software for the Pocket PC. I will be continuing to use Egress and hope to have a more thourough review for the Podcast User Magazine in September.

• Publisher : Acoustica
• Platform : Windows
• Download : Download Trial Version
• Cost : $39.95
• Buy Software : Buy Acoustica
• Star Rating : 8 out of 10

There are two streams of podcasters. Those who like to do everything live and those that like to construct their podcasts, a piece at a time. I’m defiantly part of the latter stream, mostly because I’m not the most comfortable behind the microphone, so when you make a bodge live, that can mean a whole lot of editing. When you do it a piece at a time, it’s only the piece in which you made the boo boo that you have to do again, or have to edit. This is the very reason I enjoyed working with Mixcraft so much.

I originally received Mixcraft a while ago, just to perform a review on it. However when I decided to launch the Indie Launchpad podcast, it seem like a good idea to jump into the deep end and see how well Mixcraft would work with a real podcast. That was 11 weeks ago and I’m still using Mixcraft, so that is surely a testament to how good it is.

For anyone that’s used multi track software before, the main interface will come as no surprise.

Indeed even Mac users can pick up the basics fairly quickly. When laying out the podcast, I usually break it down into the following segments:

• Main Title
• Intro
• Song 1
• Filler
• Song 2
• Filler
• Song 3
• Filler
• Song 4
• Filler
• Song 5

I usually like to have a track for the pre-recorded main title, a separate track for the vocal recorded segments and a final track for all the music. I split them into those 3 tracks so I can control the volume and with my hardware setup, I have a big disparity between the recording of my voice and the music featured. This is very much a hit and miss affair, but I seem to have got the hang of things and that will hopefully be much better once I can manage to get some decent equipment together. Although I only usually use 3 tracks, you can add as many as you feel necessary. For each track you can also add a range of included special effects/filters and can also add special effect/filters in the popular VST format.

Whilst there are many more advanced features in Mixcraft, I think it’s a testament to the ease of use, that the user isn’t forced to learn a whole ton of stuff, just to get started. As you get more comfortable with the software, you start to feel the need to experiment and this is where Mixcraft rally starts to open up. Some of the more advanced features are time stretching, time shifting, sound envelopes and looping.

The final step to creating the podcast is to mix down to one of the more popular audio formats, either MP3, WAV, WMA, OGG and Real. This basically merges all of your tracks into one audio file. Some of the mix down formats also support ID3 tags or an equivalent, allowing you to tag your show with a name for the Episode, copyright information etc. You can also burn a copy of your Podcast to CD, all from within Mixcraft, which is a really neat feature.

The one main complaint I have with the software, is purely cosmetic. Whilst the software is very easy to use and functional, the user interface is fairly ugly. It’s very reminiscent of a piece of software from the early 1990s, and could very nearly be mistaken for an old Window 3.1 program. A nice overhaul of the interface would go a long way to making this sexy program and sexy sells, just look at the new Apple Macs. Talking of Macs, if you want to see a seriously sexy piece of software just look at GarageBand, this should give Acoustica something to aspire to.

The more you begin to understand a piece of software, the more you start to think about the features you personally wish were included. For me one feature I would like to see is the ability to start and stop recording by just pressing the space bar. You can do this using the return key once the record box is opened, but this also forces the recorded item to create a new track, which isn’t always required, especially in my case.

Conclusion : There’s never going to be the perfect podcasting solution, just as there is no perfect user, but Mixcraft comes pretty close. One of the things I love is the ability to try unrestricted for 30 days. This really gives you a chance to put the software through it’s paces. I can highly recommend this excellent piece of software.