Last week I was at ViaQA, small conference on software testing.

As usual, I was talking about Watir, and the rest of the speakers talked about integration testing, user interface testing, Microsoft tools for testing, open source tools for testing…

I have recorded a few podcasts (in Croatian), you can find them at the bottom of this post, or at Vidi Podkast. Only one podcast is published so far, I hope I will have some time in the next few weeks to publish them all. I will update this post when the podcasts are published.

We have started testers.shoutem.com micro blog before the conference, and you can take a look at #viaqa at twitter.com and viaqa at identi.ca.

My photos and Davor’s photos are available at Picasa Web Albums.

Podcasts (in Croatian):

Vidi Podkast #14 Davor Banović o ViaQA

Watir Podcast Logo

Numbers

A few days ago it was 2 years since I published the first Watir Podcast.

In this 2 years I have published 34 podcasts with people literally all over the world. Lately I am trying to produce a podcast a month, and I am trying to keep it about 30 minutes long. I have recorded podcasts as short as 5 minutes, but also longer than 70 minutes.

Google Analytics and FeedBurner say the numbers are (mostly) going up. FeedBurner says about 100 people is subscribed to the podcast feed lately.

Google Analytics

FeedBurner

The following table lists downloads since December 2009, when I started using Podtrac. The first number is total downloads, the second number is unique downloads. Please notice #26.

I am glad to see that podcasts as old as 1 or even 2 years are still downloaded.

Thank You

After two years, what to say? It was a lot of fun, I hope it will not end soon.

I would like to thank everybody that wanted to talk with me. I would probably stop recording podcast if I did not have a lot of help from Watir Podcast Team. A big thank you to all of you that co-hosted a podcast, contributed music and logo, worked on the web site, edited audio… I could not do it without you.

I would like to thank Bret Pettichord for agreeing to record the first podcast, Alan Baird that worked on the web site, and Gregg Yows that co-hosted a lot of times and contributed a lot of music.

I would probably give up a long time ago if Tiffany Fodor did not offer to edit the audio and create show notes. Tiffany, thank you.

Also, a bit thank you to every listener. Yes, you too. Well, if you were not listening, all this would not make a lot of sense.

If you have some time, and you would like to contribute to the podcast, please let me know. I need help with finding guests, co-hosting, I am always looking for music that can be published under a Creative Commons licence… If you would like to take over Watir Podcast, let me know. I would help you with everything. I have other stuff to do, but if nobody is interested, I will not let the podcast die.

I did not mention a lot of people by name, because this blog post would end up being too long. You know who you are. Yes, you. Thanks.

I took a few photos, as usual:

For a long, long time I wanted to record 5-10 minute podcasts with speakers and visitors of a conference, and this time I did it! I have recorded 9 podcasts. The first is already published, I plan to publish one podcast a day, until all of them are published. The podcasts are published at Vidi Podkast, but you can listen to them here too. I will update the list as I publish the podcasts.

Feel free to publish the podcasts at your site, they are licensed under a Creative Commons license. I would prefer if you linked to my mp3 files and use the full URL, so I could track the number of downloads (that would save you some bandwidth too), but do what you think is the best.

Vidi Podkast #5: Florian Schießl on LiMux.

Vidi Podkast #6: Andrew Aksyonoff and on Sphinx.

Vidi Podkast #7: Harald Welte on gpl-violations.org and GSM security.

Podcasts in Croatian:

Vidi Podkast #8: Nikola Kapraljević o DORS/CLUC 2010

Vidi Podkast #9: Valent Turković o OpenStreetMap.

Vidi Podkast #10: Albert Novak o PulaFreeAir.

Vidi Podkast #11: Tonimir Kišasondi o sigurnim komunikacijama i tokenima.

Vidi Podkast #12: Vlatko Košturjak o DORS/CLUC 2010.

Vidi Podkast #13: Ivan Voras o NOSQL.

Testing Podcast

I was looking for a site that would collect all audio podcasts on software testing. Since I could not find it, I had to create it myself. It is called Testing Podcast. It is far from finished, but I think it is usable. I have collected all audio podcasts on software testing that I could find. If I have missed something, please let me know.

Testing Podcast » About

For more than a year I had a half finished blog post on how to create a podcast site. I never had the time to finish and publish it. Recently I had to create a podcast site and now is the chance to finish it. If I do not do it now, I probably never will.

I have already blogged on podcasts and podcasting and I just mentioned creating a site. Now I want to get into detail.

Hosting

You can host the podcast at blogger.com or wordpress.com but I would recommend a cheap shared hosting. It gives you way more flexibility. You can host wordpress.org based site on almost any cheap shared hosting.

Domain

Pick a domain. Make it short and relevant to the topic of the podcast. Please do not use www in front of the domain. Also, dashes in domain name are so 2009. I would recommend com domains. For example, a good name for a podcast on Watir is Watir Podcast. It is trivial to create a domain from such name: watirpodcast.com. Both the name of the site and the name of the domain make it clear what is the topic of the podcast.

If you already have a domain (you probably already have a blog) create a subdomain. For example, you have a blog at zeljkofilipin.com. The podcast could live at podcast.zeljkofilipin.com.

The site I am currently working on is a bit more complicated. Fellow tester, blogger and podcaster Pradeep Soundararajan asked if I could help him with the podcast site. He has a blog at testertested.blogspot.com and I have testingpodcast.com domain (the site is still under construction, but feel free to take a look), and we settled down for testertested.testingpodcast.com.

To create a subdomain, log in to cPanel (or whatever software you get with hosting) and create a subdomain. If you have cPanel, go to Domains > Subdomains and create it.

Install WordPress

cPanel has Fantastico script that makes installing WordPress trivial. Go to Software/Services > Fantastico De Luxe > Blogs > WordPress > New Installation and finish the wizard.

Go to testertested.testingpodcast.com and the site is there!

Theme

The site is up, but there is still some work to be done. Please, change the theme. Log in and go to Appearance > Add New Themes.

There is so much themes that you will probably spend some time looking for one that you like. I selected Atahualpa from featured themes. When you find the theme you like, you can preview it with Preview and install with Install. After you have installed it, activate it with Activate. Go to the site by clicking Visit Site link at the top of the page. (I usually have administration page in one tab and the site in another tab.)

Much better.

You can configure the theme at Appearance > Atahualpa Theme Options. I do not have any design talent, so I tend not to mess with the theme.

Configure WordPress

There are a few tweaks to WordPress that you should do.

At Settings > Discussion I usually check Attempt to notify any blogs linked to from the article (slows down posting.) and uncheck Comment author must fill out name and e-mail and I change Comment Moderation to hold a comment in the queue if it contains 1 or more links (the default is 2).

At Settings > Privacy I change the setting to I would like my blog to be visible to everyone, including search engines (like Google, Sphere, Technorati) and archivers.

At Settings > Permalinks I set Common settings > Custom Structure to /%postname%/.

At Settings > Miscellaneous I uncheck Organize my uploads into month- and year-based folders.

Plugins

There a few plugins that you just have to have.

Go to Plugins > Installed and activate Akismet. After it is activated you have to enter your WordPress.com API Key at Plugins > Askimet Configuration. You will need wordpress.com account. Create one if you do not already have it. Go to wordpress.com/profile to get your API Key.

podPress is must have plugin for podcasters. To install it go to Plugins > Add New and search for podPress. It should be the first one in search results. As with themes, there is Install link. After the installation, activate it with Activate Plugin link.

Since I am fanatic about knowing all possible statistics, I always install my favorite data gathering plugins. Since you already know how to install and activate plugins, do that for Google Analytics for WordPress. You will need Google Analytics account. Log in and click Add Website Profile» link. Get Web Property ID and paste it to Plugins > Installed > Google Analytics for WordPress > Settings > Analytics Account ID.

FeedBurner FeedSmith is a bit different to install because it is not in WordPress repository. Go to Creating your WordPress feed (self-hosted WordPress) and download FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin. Go to Plugins > Add New > Upload, upload downloaded zip file, and activate it after the installation. I received The plugin does not have a valid header error message after the activation, so I unzipped it and uploaded FeedBurner_FeedSmith_Plugin.php to /public_html/testertested/wp-content/plugins with FTP client. Acitivate it at Plugins > Installed.

You will need FeedBurner account. Log in, and paste http://testertested.testingpodcast.com/ in text box under Type your blog or feed address here. Make sure I am a podcaster! checkbox is checked. Click button Next>> and finish the wizard.

Go to Settings > FeedBurner and enter http://feeds.feedburner.com/TestingStoriesFromIndia in text box under http://feeds.feedburner.com/yourfeed.

I think we are done with plugins for now.

Podtrac

You will need a good statistics on podcast downloads. Create Podtrac account (click Podcasters). Log in, click link Register a New Podcast >>> and finish the wizard.

Links

Everything is set up, but there is no content. Delete all default links at Links > Edit. Add link to your blog or site.

Pages

You probably need only one page: About. Add your image and short description of the site there.

Users

Create new users at Users > Add New if you are not the only one editing the site.

Posts

Rename the default Uncategorized category to Podcast at Posts > Categories. Make sure you change both Category Name and Category Slug settings.

Delete the default post at Posts > Edit and add new at Posts > Add New. Enter title and short description of the podcast. Add where you want the link to the mp3 file to appear. Check Podcast checkbox in Categories.

Make sure to add your small image. I think it is very important. It makes the site more human. While uploading make sure to enter your name in Title, Caption and Description.

Pradeep Soundararajan

Click Add Media File button at the bottom of the page. Paste URL of the podcast prefixed with http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/ in Location text box. In my example it was http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/www.skilledtests.com/testertested/FIET.mp3. Enter FIET.mp3 as file title and click Auto Detect buttons next to Size and Duration text boxes.

Click button Publish.

iTunes

You should submit the podcast to a directory. I would highly recommend to at least submit podcast to the iTunes Store. Requires iTunes application to be installed and launched. Also requires logging in to iTunes Store.

podPress

A few final tweaks to podPress.

Go to podPress > Feed/iTunes Settings and enter iTunes:FeedID. It is a number from the end of the podcast iTunes link. You got the link in e-mail from Apple after the podcast is added to iTunes Store. The link looks like http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=346653690 and FeedID is 346653690 in this case.

Enter podcast title, description and feed at the same page. Also, add an image as album art.

Go to podPress > General Settings and select Enable PodTrac Statistics.

The End

I think it is all for now. Feel free to comment. Please let me know if I missed something that should be done, or if I am doing something wrong.

Podcast is a file with audio or video content, distributed over the internet. The name comes from iPod and broadcast.

Podcast is a radio show recorded as an audio file, usually mp3. If you record a speech or a presentation (on a conference for example), that is a podcast too. It is really popular to record a conversation among two or more people about a topic. It is also a podcast. If people are not collocated, you can record the conversation using Skype or similar software. If you have something to say, record yourself talking. That is a podcast too.

Of course, if you have the equipment, the will and really really really lot of time, besides the audio, you can also record video. Video recording and editing is a lot more complicated and time consuming when compared to audio, and I will focus only on audio podcasts.

Where do they live?

An example would be handy right about now. If you have Apple iTunes (available for Windows and Mac OS X), run it and click iTunes Store on the left hand side. At the top of the screen that opens, you will see Podcasts, with several options, audio, video and list of podcast categories.

Choose a category among arts, business, education, health, music, technology… Since you are reading this blog, I guess you are into technology. After you choose a category, at the top there will be options for all podcasts, only video or audio. You can narrow down the choice using the menu at the bottom left with subcategories (gadgets, podcasting, software how-to, tech news). There are also several featured providers, like TWiT TV (highly recommended). In the middle of the screen there is Featured section, and at the top right there is See All.

Click it and you will see a list of podcasts. You can choose a podcast and see a list of shows and download an episode. Subscribe does just that. It is free for all podcasts that I have seen. Subscribing is the best way to get all new episodes of a podcast that you like, without having to check if there is something new. Every time there is a new episode, iTunes will automatically download it. There is an option in iTunes settings to check for new episodes every hour, day or week, or to disable it, if you wish.

iTunes Store has search and you can find a podcast that way too.

If you know there is a podcast, but you can not find it in iTunes Store, you can subscribe to feed directly with Advanced > Subscribe to Podcast.

If you do not see podcasts in iTunes Store, check if you are in United States store (there is a flag in the bottom right part of the screen, click it). Unfortunately, some stores, including Croatia, do not have podcasts.

Listen

© Matthieu Riegler, CC-BY-SA, Wikimedia Commons

Podcast is just an audio (or video) file, so you can play it on any device that can play such files: computer, CD/DVD/Blu-ray device, mobile phone, digital camera… The podcasts (especially audio) are the best when played on portable media players, like Apple iPod. I listen to podcasts almost every time when my brain is free but my hands or legs are busy. For example, when working around the house, walking, running, riding a bike or driving a car…

You can copy files downloaded with iTunes (or acquired some other way) to your portable media player. Copying podcasts from iTunes to iPod is really easy. Follow the instructions that came with the device.

Record

Of course, like every true geek, it is not enough just to enjoy a technology, you have to try it yourself. How to create a podcast? There is a few things you should know, but it is not complicated procedure.

For audio recording, regarding hardware, you need a computer with microphone. Lots of laptops have one built in. You can record audio with another device, and then transfer it to the computer. If your computer does not have build in microphone, you can use any microphone that you already own and that you can plug in audio card of your computer. Make sure you plug it in microphone jack, it is similar to headphones jack. If you do not have a microphone, there are cheap ones available. Headphones with microphone for internet telephony will work just fine too. Microphones can connect to the computer with USB too.

If you want to record video, you need a camera. There are cheap web cameras available. Some laptops have them build in. Any camera will do for now.

Regarding software, for audio recording and editing I would recommend Audacity. It is open source. If you do not know what that is, for now it is enough that you know it is free. Audacity is available for all popular operating systems (Windows, Mac, Linux).

Let’s start recording. For the beginning, the simplest case. Record yourself.

You do not need to know a lot about audio recording. Choose quietest room, close all windows and doors, turn of telephone. Plug in microphone into the computer, if you are not using build it one. Install Audacity and run it. Click the big red Record button and start talking. If everything is find, after you play what you have just recorded, the sound will be loud and clear enough without a lot of noise. If you hear yourself and you are satisfied with the quality, the biggest part of the recording is done.

Most podcasts that I listen to are 30-60 minutes long, but there are really short ones (about 5 minutes) and really long ones (over 2 hours). For this time I would recommend to record just a few seconds, not more than a few minutes.

If you can hear yourself, but it is not loud enough, play with sound settings of operating system and Audacity. Turn up microphone volume. Turn speakers volume up, maybe the audio is recorded fine, but the reproduction is too quiet.

If you do not hear anything, Audacity probably is not recording from the microphone. Check the settings if input device is set to microphone.

Edit

In most cases, after the recording you do not have to edit the podcast a lot. You can even publish it just as it is recorded. I always at least listen to every podcast before I publish it. I mostly record conversations over Skype and more often that not the delay between question and answer is a few seconds longer that with in person conversation. That is really noticeable if the other person is on another continent. I cut such long pauses. Cutting is the action that you will be performing most of the time. If you say something stupid, cough, telephone rings or if you record a sound that you do not want in the podcast, find it and delete it. If you do not like a part of podcast, you can delete a few minutes. There is no limit. You can delete it all.

Every time you start recording, Audacity makes a new audio trac. Visually, it looks like a new track. Similar example is image editing, where you can have several layers in an image. When editing audio, you can combine several tracks. For example, one track is you speaking, one is music for the beginning and one is music for the end. You can import music with File > Import > Audio.

Podcasts usually have music at the beginning and at the end. Some podcasts have music in the background all the time, but I do not like that. It is really a bad idea if you do not have audio editing experience, because music can be too loud. I think the speech is the most important thing in a podcast.

Please be careful while choosing the music. You can not publish music just like that. As a rule of thumb, you can not publish any music that you have bought. The exception is podsafe music, mostly independent artist that let you publish their music with little or no fee.

If you play an instrument or if you sing, you can record yourself and use it in a podcast. Maybe you know somebody that has a band and you can help a friend to get audience.

When Audacity is started, Selection Tool is active. You can select part of track and edit it, mostly just cut it out. Time Shift Tool is also useful. It moves a track forward or backward in time. If you have tree tracks, like in previous example (speech, music for the beginning and the end), click Time Shift Tool and move music to the beginning and the end, and speech to the middle.

Make sure music is not much louder that speech. If you turn up the volume to hear the speech, when you are in a loud place (traffic for example), when the speech ends and loud music starts to play at the end of the podcast, it can be really upleasant.

If you have recorded more than fits a screen, use zoom options (View > Zoom In/Normal/Out).

Listen to everything you have recorded, and when you like what you hear, make sure you save it.

Audacity saves files in aup format, optimal for editing. It consists of a lot of small files that take a lot of space and can not be reproduced on devices that do not have Audacity installed. We will convert the file to popular mp3 format, but for now we will save it as wav (Windows) or aiff (Mac OS X) file. We are using that format because I want to show you another very useful free tool: The Levelator. In short, it adjustes audio levels (and accepts only wav or aiff files). It is very useful if there are more then one person recorded, and they are not equally far away from the microphone (and hence recorded with different loudness). Or, there are more that one microphone that are not the same (like when you record a conversation over Skype). It is also really uncomfortable for the listener if the sound has to be set to loud so one of the people is loud enough, but then somebody else is painfully loud. The Levelator solves the problem, as far as it can. Nothing can fix bad audio file. It is important to record as good as possible.

Levelator is trivial to use. Run it and drag wav or aiff file to it’s window. It automatically starts working and creates a file with almost the same name, except for the added output.

Wav and aiff files are not compressed and hence are large. They should be compressed, usually to mp3 file. Open newly created file with output in name in Audacity. Go to File > Export and choose mp3. The first time you do that you will have to install mp3 support for Audacity. Follow the instructions. While exporting to mp3 choose Options and select 64 kbps quality. It has proven to be the optimal quality for audio that consists mostly of speech.

After your the first podcast is in mp3 file, you are done with editing. Listen to it and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Publish

Recorded podcast will not get you fame and fortune if it is located only on your computer. You must publish it on internet. If you speak HTML like you have lived there, skip this chapter. If you need help, continue reading.

I would recommend buying the cheapest shared hosting. You should also buy a domain. When buying hosting, ask if you can install WordPress. It has proven to be excellent for podcast site. Your hosting problaby has cPanel with Fantastico script for automatic WordPress installation. If not, it probably has something similar. Even installing WordPress by hand is not hard and it takes just a few minutes. Follow the instructions on WordPress site.

There is a plugin for WordPress made for podcasters: podPress. It has Flash player so your podcasts can be played directly from your site. It also has download statistics. Play with the settings.

WordPress and it’s plugins are not in scope of this article, I leave it to the reader for the homework.

You should choose a license for the podcast. With the license you state the terms of distributing the podcast. For example, you can allow further distribution, it if is non commercial and if you are stated as the autor, and not the distributor. I recommend one of the Creative Commons licenses.

After you cheap shared hosting has no more space left (mp3 files take a lot of space, regardless of the compression), instead of buying more expensive plan, I would recommend Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). Leave WordPress at shared hosting (you can not run it on S3) and move all mp3 files to S3. It offers very cheap file hosting. For example, $0.15 per GB per month. You see how cheap that is. You have to pay also for upload to S3 and download from it, but it is also very cheap.

The easiest way to manage files at S3 is with Firefox add-on S3Fox.

After you have set up the web site and created the first post with a podcast, you still do not have any listeners. You can use your usual way of getting audience. Post a link to the podcast site at your blog, or one of the social networking sites that you use, or at a forum that is related to the content of the podcast… You should submit the podcast to a podcast directory. The biggest one is iTunes Store.

Conclusion

Now you know what is podcast, how to find and listen to them, and how to record, edit and publish them. I hope this podcast will help spread the word, both how to listen and how to create them. If you want to find more information on podcasts, I am sure you will not have a lot of trouble with that.

When I was recording podcasts on Windows XP machine, it was easy to do it using all open source or free software. All you had to do is install Skype (free, voice over Internet), Audacity (open source, audio recording and editing) and play a bit with Windows XP audio settings. To be true, it took me a few podcasts to figure out how to set audio just right, as you will surely notice if you listen to the first few of my podcasts.

A few months ago I got a Mac and I thought it would be as easy to record podcasts there. I was wrong. I have been trying and trying and only a few days ago I was able to record a Skype conversation on Mac.

What was the problem? I installed Skype and Audacity (both have Mac versions) and, to my great surprise, there was no option in Audacity to record both audio from Skype and from my microphone, as there is on Windows XP. I browsed around, tried a bunch of software and could not find anything that would work. At the moment, I think it is the limitation of sound card, but I could be wrong. (I used Boot Camp to install Windows XP on Mac, and could not record all audio even then.)

Then I found a great article, Recording Skype calls on GarageBand with LineIn and SoundFlower (Mac). It showed me that there is a way to record Skype on Mac using only free software. But it got me only 90% of the way. I was able to record both Skype and my audio, but I did not hear Skype audio. Asking a question and not being able to hear the answer is usually a problem in an interview. In the end, I found the solution in article’s comments, but it took me a while (and some luck) to figure out how to fix the problem.

So, how to record a Skype conversation?

Install Soundflower (open source), LineIn (free) and Skype (free).

To record and edit audio, you can use GarageBand (free, I got GarageBand ’08 with Mac OS X, but you have to pay for GarageBand ’09) or Audacity (open source).

System Preferences > Sound
– Output: Headphones – Built-in Audio (always use headphones when recording so your microphone does not catch sound from the speakers)
– Input: Internal microphone – Built-in (check ‘Use ambient noise reduction’ and move microphone input volume slider to the right)

Skype > Preferences > Audio
- Audio output: Soundflower (2ch)
- Audio input: Soundflower (2ch)

While configuring Skype for the first use, you should uncheck option that Skype automatically adjusts microphone volume and move the slider to the right, but I can not find that configuration wizard, even after reinstalling.

LineIn
Input from: Build-in Microphone: Internal microphone
Output to: Soundflower (2ch)

GarageBand
Audio output: Built-in Output
Audio Input: Soundflower (2ch)

Create New Podcast Episode > Male/Female Voice > Monitor: On
Make sure you turn monitor “On”, or you will not hear the other person speaking. I heard my voice with about one second delay, so the next time I will try “On with Feedback Protection” instead of “On” setting.

Audacity
Output: Core Audio: Built-in Output
Input: Core Audio: Soundflower (2ch)

Preferences > Audio I/O > Playthrough > Hardware Playthrough: Play new track while recording it > check
With software playthrough I heard my voice with about one second delay, but it was fine with hardware playthrough.

Start Skype conversation and when you want to record, click ‘Pass Thru’ button in LineIn and click record button in GarageBand or Audacity.

Software versions I used:
Mac OS X 10.5.6.
Soundflower 1.4.3
LineIn 2.0.3
GarageBand ’08 4.1.2 (248.7)
Audacity 1.3.7
Skype 2.8.0.324

• twitter.com/zeljkofilipin: my micro blog (140 characters maximum per post)
• Watir Podcast: I talk with Watir users about Watir (audio)
• friendfeed.com/zeljkofilipin: site that merges all my feeds, wondering if it will be useful at all

In the first episode Željko Filipin talks with Bret Pettichord about Watir and what it does and doesn’t do well. Bret describes how people are building frameworks with Watir and the reasons why Watir was created in the first place. Also included are his thoughts on recorders and open-source and his new company, WatirCraft.

More information at watirpodcast.com.