(More) Thoughts On Running a 10K

Shoes

Today on the podcast Laura and I are discussing our experiences running a 10K race. I know I covered the topic fairly thoroughly already but in case you missed it/were curious/want to learn more, it was a lot of fun to discuss on the show. The episode doesn’t have a lot of practical tips (I’m working on pulling together a post full of my tips and lessons learned soon!) but it shows two different approaches to running the same length of race.

We also talk about our fitness goals for the fall – I first shared mine for October here. I’m failing at the running distance goal, but my nightly walks are becoming a lovely part of my daily routine. Every time I start to feel too hunched over and anxious in the evenings at my computer, I go out to finish my 10,000 steps for the day and I always feel better when I get home. It’s a goal I think I’m going to roll over to next month for sure.

You can find the episode here or subscribe to us on iTunes here. Thanks for listening!

Q&A: How to Edit a Podcast in Garageband

How To Edit a Podcast in Garageband

After writing my post about starting a podcast, I wanted to create a walk-through of how to edit together a simple podcast, especially if you have more than one audio file to mix, want to add a jingle, or create an introduction.

For our podcast, we recently began using a system that is totally free but gets us better audio quality for our listeners. It’s outlined in detail on this blog, but the basics are:

  • We talk to each other using a program like Google Hangouts or Skype.
  • We all wear headphones while recording.
  • Each person records their audio on their own computer using a simple voice recorder such as Garageband or Quicktime, which is what I use. The resulting audio doesn’t pick up the other people’s voices, so each one is crystal clear and it is easy to synchronize them.
  • The editor blends the 2+ files together using an audio editor such as Garageband and exports to create a single mp3 file.

This process, while it seems complicated, is actually really straightforward to put into practice. But if you’re just starting out on your podcasting journey (yay you!) then I’d encourage you to just use whichever system is easiest and most straightforward for you, even if that means simply recording the other person talking through your computer’s speakers. We used an inefficient, roundabout method that was not ideal until only about a month ago! The important thing is to just start, and add in the more complex things later. If you’re ready to take your podcast to the next (albeit still fairly simple and straightforward) level, then check out this little tutorial.

The video walkthrough is about 11 minutes long, and contains a step-by-step of how I edit a podcast from start to finish. You will see how to synchronize two separate audio files and export a finished podcast. I try to include lots of helpful tips such as how to fade out different parts of your audio, add a jingle to your intro and outro segments, work with different file formats, and add a beep if you accidentally swear. You’ll also get a chance to see how the various controls on Garageband are used and an idea of the settings I work with to create the best files I can. The tutorial is specific to the built-in Mac application Garageband.

I hope you find it interesting and helpful, and as Seth Godin would say “most of all, I hope you do something with it.”

Thanks for watching!

If you have any questions for me, I’d love to hear them in the comments below or through Twitter or Instagram.

How to Start a Podcast For Free

How to Start a Podcast For Free

I’ve started two podcasts now, one about writing and then of course Guinea Pigging Green. For both, I’ve always taken on the role of behind-the-scenes techie to get it up and running and keep it updated. There are plenty of paid services online to take care of the tech stuff for you, but if you don’t have a lot of money to spend yet feel strongly about putting ideas out into the world then I want to give you that power! I really adore the medium of the podcast and am constantly wanting to start new shows myself. The process can seem incredibly intimidating and overwhelming if you’re just starting out, but it’s actually very straightforward once you learn how to do it yourself.

1. Record Your Show

If you’re the only one on the show, you can record using GarageBand which comes built into a Mac or whatever the built-in audio recorder is on your computer. You can get fancy here by adding a microphone, but it’s not necessary. I use the Samson Go Mic which is a great, inexpensive option, but I was making podcast just using my computer’s microphone on and off for 2 years before I made the switch.

If you’re recording long distance, the best way we’ve found (that we just switched to for GPG) is to talk over Skype or Google Hangouts while wearing headphones, and then record your own audio throughout the conversation using your computer’s built in audio recording software (I use Quicktime for this). Then, get the other person to send you their file, and mash them together in Garageband. Each file will have one person’s voice, and pauses while the other person talks, so it should be easy to sync up the audio, especially if you add a clap at the beginning of recording. The result is some seriously sexy audio quality, especially if you’re using a microphone. This method is described more here.

2. Edit Your Audio

How to Start a Podcast For Free

I use Garageband exclusively for some simple editing for our show. I usually just add a short jingle at the beginning for our intro and at the end. Ours was written and recorded by my co-host’s brother, but there are tons of options in the program and even more online. In the past we’ve occasionally had a particularly bad connection and had to stop and start a few times so in those cases I go in and cut things out and edit for smoothness of speech if we get any weird mechanical errors in the audio file. We also sometimes slip up and swear on our podcast, so I’ll either cut it out or add in a bleep (free ones here) – that’s always fun. Once you’re finished editing, export the file to iTunes, which will make it into a finished mp3 file.

3. Upload Your Finished File

As I’ve talked about the blog before, my sites are self-hosted – you can learn how to self-host your website right here. That means that I pay about $6 a month to Bluehost which also gives me unlimited storage. Because I have unlimited storage, I choose to upload my podcast files to a subfolder on my domain which can be accessed by anyone at a link. If you don’t have your own website and don’t want to pay for your podcast, I recommend getting a free Dropbox account and uploading your files there in a Public folder. There’s more about the Dropbox method on this blog along with a great, comprehensive article on starting a podcast.

You’ll also need to create a square image or graphic. I made ours in Photoshop Elements, but you could also just crop down a photo. Just make sure it’s the right dimensions and upload it to your preferred location, ie. your website or Dropbox.

4. Create a Podcast Feed

How to Start a Podcast For Free

This is the part that can seem the most impossible. I know I struggled quite a lot trying to figure out this step before I came across an easy method. I use the PodcastBlaster Feed Generator which is totally free and very simple. You make a quick account and then just fill-in-the-blanks on your podcast’s main page. Each time you want to add a new episode, you fill in the blanks for that too. After inputting all your information, you can download your “XML file” from the website. This is basically an RSS feed, and it’s what you’ll need to submit your show to iTunes or Stitcher.

How to Start a Podcast For Free

One thing I wish we’d done originally is to run our XML file through Feedburner so we’d be able to track statistics. Live and learn, I guess! I actually don’t know how to do this process (though I will be using it if I ever start another podcast) but there’s a great tutorial here. It’s not essential but I would recommend it if you want to get a sense of how many people are listening to you.

5. Submit Your Feed to iTunes

How to Start a Podcast For Free

This is actually the easiest step in the whole process. When you want to add a new podcast to iTunes, the only thing they want is the link to your XML file (RSS feed). If you’ve done it properly, all the information the database needs is in that file, so it only requires the one link. Once you’ve entered it, it’ll usually process the application for a couple of days before your show is live. Once it is, people can subscribe! This process is very similar on Stitcher.

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And that’s it!

A quick note: if you don’t want to deal with all these details and would rather pay a small amount of money, Elise has an awesome post about starting a podcast using Libsyn. That method skips many of these steps and streamlines the process a bit. I actually quite like knowing how to do all these processes and I’m learning new things all the time, but the important thing is to make the content, regardless of how you get there.

If you have a podcast, awesome! What process do you use to record and submit? If you don’t – would you ever start one? Are you a fan of the medium? If you are inspired to create a show, leave me a link in the comments, I’d love to check it out.

How To Have Deeper Connections

How to Have Deeper Connections

Over on the podcast this week, Laura and I are talking about having deeper connections and more meaningful conversations with people.

The episode was inspired by this article about changing small talk into smart conversations, and this article on how to be polite. I for one, absolutely hate small talk. I’d much rather be in a corner somewhere reading my book than have to grasp at straws for conversation topics or talk about the weather. When I meet people that I can sense are kindred spirits, I’m usually a bit too enthusiastic to start talking to them about heartier topics.

In first year when I first met one of my closest friends, I’d only known her a few days before I sat down on her bed and asked her what she thought the meaning of life was. It’s a bit embarrassing now, but at the time all I knew was that my brain was starved of meaningful conversations after days of nothing but small talk, so the question just came out without me even thinking. Of course, she took it in stride and we’ve had plenty of deep (and shallow) conversations since.

I’m just like that – for better or for worse, I always try to take things to a deeper level. Sometimes it can get heavy, but most of the time it’s just comforting to talk about real feelings and hopes and goals with people that I trust. I don’t have a huge number of friends, but I am so lucky in that I know I could call any of the ones I do have right now and launch into some deep conversation and they’d be right there with me the whole time. The people I’m blessed to know have depth and layers and are able to really engage.

Since coming to Korea, it’s been great to know that I can form meaningful friendships on my own outside of university. That might seem like a “duh” statement, but to me it never felt like a sure thing. But being here, I’ve made some really true friends I’m able to talk to as if I’ve known them forever. It’s a pretty beautiful thing.

In the episode we talk about how to have more meaningful conversations, how to foster deeper connections with strangers, and how to take your friendships to another level. You can listen to the episode and find out more here.