“Does everybody know what time it is?”

If you don’t have a personal Al Borland to help you out with your podcast production, check out the handy tools below.  I’ve been searching for digital power tools to help me develop a personal podcast on social media resources, which I hope to launch on social potato chips within the next three months.  Since I’m still learning how to edit (video and audio), it was important for me to find resources that are easy to learn, and most especially those are $FREE.99

Special thanks to #kegill for introducing some of these resources.  Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor would be proud.

Zamzar is an online file conversion software that allows you to convert in three easy steps.

Pros: Free to use, cool features such as converting flash streaming media or URLs to .mp3, file sent directly to e-mail (no downloading required), no advertisements (not yet, at least).

Cons: Still have to manage copyright infringment. Be cool and give kudos to the original author or artist.

Audacity is a software used for recording and editing sounds.

Pros: Compatible witih numerous OS platforms (Windows, Mac OS X, Linus, and OSD), easily able to cut out additional noise for simple podcasting needs.  Simple to play with – you should be able to get the general features down after playing around with it for an hour or so.

Mostly useful for beginners.  For example, additional plug ins are required for virtual studio technology (VST) and other fancy shmancy effects.

Cons:

Podsafe is an online directory of music available for use in podcasting without too many licensing difficulties.

Pros: Don’t have to worry about getting sued.

When using copyrighted music, be sure to check Creative Commons just to have your grounds covered.

Cons:

Juice is a cross platform podcast receiver.  It allows you to schedule podcasts (aka your podcast DVR) so that you can listen to them when you want.

Pros: Promote Juice to attract more subscribers to your podcast, supports over 15 languages,

You should still research other online directories to make sure your podcast has enough visibility so your users can find you.

Cons: