I just lost a collosal post due to a bizarre php error. Great.
Anyway, to rewrite:
Anyone who uses software for a professional, productive purpose, paid or unpaid, such as the creators of GeekNights, should pay for software. If it's free open source software, you should pay by contributing to the project. However, if you do not fully utilize the software, or are just trying to learn it, you shouldn't have to pay full price, since the full price is intended for people who get the full use out of it. In Rym's example: CoolEdit, Audacity, and Rezound are worth paying for or contributing to. GarageBand (if it cost anything) would not be.
I believe Apple quite clearly represents GarageBand as the best podcasting application, and this is false advertising. But that's what their whole smear campaign has been about. You cannot compare Windows to Mac OS X on the basis of bundled software. It is not the OS creator's job to bundle software (linux notwithstanding).
Microsoft is just an OS creator. They write the OS. It's the job of Dell, the OEM, to bundle software, and they do. You have many choices, ranging from "free" included stuff like WordPerfect to the discounted Office installs, or you can just tell them not to install anything. Is WordPerfect worse than Apple's bundled software? Maybe, but reserve judgment until you've carefully considered the amount of money Apple has spent to make you think so.
Apple is both an OS creator and an OEM. Thus, they write software and include it with their computers. iLife doesn't strictly come with Mac OS X...it comes with Apple computers. Mac OS X is just a kernel, a shell, a GUI, and a bunch of drivers, just like Windows, just like Linux.
Apple computers are always great deals. You get a well-made computer (maybe?), a great OS, and a bundle of great software (for the price). It always costs a little more than the PC alternative, but they make you feel good about the purchase, which really is worth it sometimes.
But, for any professional application, you need professional software. That's why there are high-cost professional versions of every iApplication bundled with every Mac. They're just being nice by offering the free versions.
But remember: when comparing operating systems, you must compare only the features of the operating systems. Both Windows and Mac are easy to use. I don't know anyone who can't handle basic OS functions in Windows, but they can in a Mac. Anyone like that I accuse of self-enforced helplessness, and their antics would fail in a double-blind test. Both Windows and Mac have a wide variety of applications for everyday use. Both Windows and Mac support a variety of niche applications, but Mac cannot truly compare to Windows there, and neither holds a candle to Linux.
Only Windows supports games. Oh, but Macs play games? 5 year old games still cost $50 for the Mac. Not to mention you can only play about 5% of the market's games on a Mac, and almost no new games come out for Mac simultaneously with the PC release. Apple doesn't even pretend Macs are for gaming. Their ads never talk about it. You think BootCamp is for anything but gaming?
Only Windows supports the basic applications that 95% of the business world is used to: Office and Internet Explorer. Get a job, you'll find out quick. Only graphic designers, animators, and music creators use Macs professionally, and even they have to interface with Windows users to do anything else, like get a professional web site made for them. (And they have no idea why their StuffIt files and Mac fonts don't work on other company's PCs). People resist change. All the Mac OS X Insert-cat-name-here features in the world will not make the unswerving masses lose their blind faith in Microsoft.
It's not that the masses like Microsoft or hate Macs. They just don't care. All of the differences between the OSes are below their perception. Windows and its associated apps are there and they work. That's all 95% cares about.
Truly, the only thing that will ever dethrone Microsoft is their own mistakes. Vista has a small chance of being that mistake. If they get people to upgrade, and it sucks, maybe people will get Macs and linux. If everyone keeps Win XP forever, they may also, eventually, get tired of it. MS may be backed into a corner. Nothing Apple does now will ensure that they get the lion's share of the fallout...it will all be how they react.
I've never touched GarageBand because my ancient iMac (we're talking original CRT iMac here) can't come close to running it. What I might recommend, though, is The Missing Manual series of books by David Pogue. A lot of it is beginner stuff but it serves as a good reference. The OS X (ten!) version served as my Windows to Mac primer and I was very impressed with it.
Ahhh... So Boot Camp succeeded... in wiping out my OSX install. If we can't get Ubuntu running on the thing by this Sunday, I may well be returning it. Aside from the Garage Band issue, it's stil a wonderful little machine.
Unfortunately, we need this box primarily for podcasting on the road. If I could dual-boot Ubuntu, I could at least run Rezound and Audacity for podcasts at cons, and use OSX for surfing, media stuff, and iTunes.
I just poked around Newegg, and I can make one hell of a PC for $600...
Our rationale for keeping the thing is that we can use it as a media PC on the downstairs TV and a podcast recorder for road shows. We have until Sunday night to get it to work, since I'd have to return it by Monday to get a refund.
Boot Camp is not meant for Ubuntu, or anything except Windows XP SP2. In fact, I was not able to install my legitimate copy of XP, because it was not pre-patched to SP2. So, I was forced to install a pirated copy, even though I own Windows XP.
I'm sure people out there have gotten it to work. All BootCamp does is partition you hard disk, install a bootloader, and burn a CD with Mac hardware drivers for Windows XP SP2. Other OSes are probably possible. I think the SP2 prepatched thing is probably Windows Update's fault, failing to detect your PC as valid hardware or something.
I'm not sure, but I think the only way to blow away your OS X install in Boot Camp is to destroy the partition with another OS's installation process. Windows installer was quite capable of doing so. Unless the destruction of OS X occurred before any foreign OS discs were inserted, it is likely it was the foreign OS, and not BootCamp.
The Mac Mini is all right as a media PC, but you'd need a dongle for the video (unless you have an HDTV with a DVI input), and there's no digital audio out. The MacBook Pro is actually better for that, but that's silly, because who would use a laptop as a set-top device?
I guess the lesson to be learned here is this: unless you are a basic computer user with simple needs, do not buy a Mac for the bundled software. Instead, buy it for the hardware and the OS.
That being said, would it be so hard to make a dedicated podcast recording app? It'd just be a simple wave recorder with real-time markers, decent filters for speech, and real-time compression. Perhaps it would even support upload to various podcast repositories. That would definately be what Apple said GarageBand was.
Rym, I can sense your desire to return to the light and re-embrace all things that are good and holy in the world of computing. Since you are interested in the small, portable, "media PC" like qualities of the MacMini why don't you invest in a Mini PC (Flex-ATX)? They come in cases just as "cute" as a Mac, plus their innards aren't "hermetically sealed."* If you aren't interested in building one yourself places like Shuttle make 'em. They are a niche market, so I am unaware of their manufacturing quality, but they seem to be doing well. Just a thought, I have been toying around with the idea of getting one and making it a Mythbox.
*A cookie for the one who can peg that reference without google.
I question your proficiency as a technology professional. You let the listeners down by blowing the interview with the Otakon chair. This would never happen to The Moon Masters. If you can't master Garage Band how good can you be in your real job, really? The Moon Masters record conversations all the time, therefore The Moon Masters equals good and Geeknights equals sucky.
"And although GarageBand claims to be able to record an interview over iChat, I've had nothing but problems with it when used in this manner. Most of the time iChat will not connect saying that the other party cancelled the connection (when they didn't). Other times GarageBand doesn't recognize that I'm in an iChat conference and won't let me record it. I have only successfully recorded one iChat conference in GarageBand out of about ten attempts.."
Actually, we were going to try refit this weekend. The problem arose when we tried to use Boot Camp straight-up. We consider it a learning experience ^_~
Well, I can't speak to GarageBand at all, my old G4 450DP probably could run it, but I'm saving up for a new Mac before I buy any more software ;) I can say that I suspect that the AAC files that it records are probably Apple's "losless" AAC files, perhaps someone with the program can confirm or refute that.
I can say that if you are willing to leave iTunes MP3 encoding settings set to "podcast level," which I don't normally do, since I want to keep any files I rip in high quaity MP3, you can use Apple's "Automator" to automate the creation of an MP3 file. I dropped a huge AIFF file (105.6 MB) onto the application icon that I created in automator and got a 13.6 MB mono mp3 file with a 48 kbps bitrate and a 22.050 kHz sample rate as a result, after less than three minutes of conversion. (I arbitrarily chose settings to shrink a huge, low-fi audio interview.) Automator, which I have only dabbled with a little bit, seems to be capable of doing lots more, to the extent that it looks like you can drop an AIFF file onto it and end up with a podcast uploaded to your hosting service and possibly updated RSS feed information without further intervention.
The other issues I wanted to address concern Microsoft in one way and another. The first is your mouse, I am bewildered by the problems you describe. Have you been to the System Preferences and looked in the "Keyboard & Mouse" pane? My tracking speed isn't even turned half way up and my Microsoft Intellimouse (the one wiith all the buttons that is great for games) tracks clear across my 1024x768 display in less than three inches of real movement in any direction. Maybe it's just this particular Mouse that works so well with OS X, and has, ever since I got it (I use one of the big Kensington trackballs with Windows XP at work, so I really can't do a direct comparison, except that it is much more responsive than the Logitech mouse I used to use there before we found the trackball while cleaning out a closet).
The other thing is to refute a bit of FUD I saw above, where someone says you can't get Microsoft Office for the Mac. While I wouldn't advise anyone to get/use Office if they have any other reasonable choice, that is clearly untrue, and except for Access, which the Mac version of Office lacks (probably because FileMaker Pro is the dominant "off the shelf in a box" database on Mac OS; I also feel that it's better than Access on Windows as well...). The Mac version of Office uses the same files and has the same (bloated) lot of features as the Windows version. It even has a mail client/callendar app that is compatable with Microsoft's Exchange email server. (I can't think of it's name of it right now, it is the only thing in the Office for OS X pack that doesn't have exactly the same name as the Windows version.)
p.s.
As for myself, I wouldn't hesitate to add memory to a Mac Mini if I had one, even after watching a video about it. ;)
My tracking speed... tracks clear across my 1024x768 display in less than three inches of real movement in any direction.
I don't think you quite understand how sensitive I like my mice to be. That's incredibly slow. I track across my 1280 display in less than an inch of movement. ^_~
Actually, I did edit the registry on my former Windows box a long time ago. I'll try to recall what it was, but you could probably find it with minimal poking around.
I just listened to one of the podcasts between Rym buying his mac and learning that he hated Garage Band, he was so happy "I'm gonna play with garage band" "its going to be so cool" etc. knowing the end result it made me laugh in the middle of the mall and get strange looks.
I love Mac and have loved Apple since the IIc days.
I guess you do what you like and what you know.
As for all the tech shit.... I don't know. It does what I want it to do and all of my friends constantly complain about windows shit.....
Linux is an option but as far as I'm concerned Mac is the shit versus worms, virus, trojan, etc, etc, etc, etc, ad infinitum.
I guess, ultimately, sorry it didn't work out for you. For many people it really just does work without any bullshit on any side of the equation.
Ultimately do what you are comfortable with and if you have something that works for what you want to do then use that.\
For me and others Mac fills this niche. If it does not work for you then don't use it.
How can Garage Band be that much easier, if you still have to submit the mp3 to lybsin, and edit the rss and the website? It's not like you can send the episode through garage band. The only difference in making a podcast on a mac is that you're using a different program to record and edit the show.
I don't edit the RSS feed. In fact, no one should ever even touch an RSS feed. Wordpress does all of that automatically. All I have to do is make the post with the shownotes, which I'd have to do regardless of what programs I used. Everything is automated. The RSS feed and web site have nothing to do with the matter.
The difference is that Garage Band lacks a great many features and has a terrible editing interface. Even if I manipulated it maximally, it would still be significantly slower than editing with Rezound due to the numerous extra steps that must be taken at every juncture.
The only difference -is- that I use a different program. That program makes all the difference in the world.
If you work completely within the apple realm (really only appropriate if you're just starting out) then garage band can record your podcast, export it directly to iWeb which will make you a page and RSS feed on your .Mac account and add you to the iTunes directory. If you're comfortable limiting yourself to the kiddie pool it's a slick system but if you want something more professional then the individual pieces kind of fall apart.
Yeah. The whole Apple podcasting thing is really nice for amateurs, but it's also self-limiting. People who use Garage Band and iWeb won't learn about audio engineering, RSS, web hosting, etc..., and will never be able to progress in skill or output beyond a fairly low ceiling.
So, Rym, what do you think is the likelihood of having Steve Jobs stand up next MacWorld and announce that they've added all these advanced features you've been longing for?
Okay, first, shut the hell up. You obliviously didn't look hard enough. I was working in Garage Band today and low and behold, I found that exporter that you where looking for. I don't want to come off as a Mac snob, but seriously, you obviously didn't look, at all. I didn't read any of the post before this and your using an older version, but seriously, you didn't even give the Mac a chance. let me show you... ~Where to look ~Export options. This part is nice and simple( like everything else on the Mac) AAC or MP3 & Good Quality, High Quality, Higher Quality, Or Custom... ~Options Under Custom
What's worse is that you did NO research for alternative podcasting programs for the Mac.
Garage Band worked great for me because I had a complex problem that no PC programs could solve. All I wanted to do was edit a song from StepMania so that I had only the last part of it, instead of trying to guess and check the sound or use a stop watch all I had to do thanks to Garage Band was enter what beat I wanted (4/4 notes) and entered in the BPM (157) for the song in said category on new project options. Then I went to the 49th measure where I wanted it to cut the audio made the cut and exported. Simple as that.
I wish you Linux lovers would stop bashing the Mac, back when I was Mac-less I tried using Linux and it sucked so bad. It was worse than windows when it came to U.I. and sure the wobble windows and the cube where cool, I just wished it wasn't so had to do anything.
Oooooooh, BURN! Telling someone to shut up, two years after date.
You obliviously didn't look hard enough.
2 years. As you noted, Rym most likely used an older version of Garage Band, take that idea further, perhaps there was no MP3 encoder yet in Garage Band 2 years ago.
What's worse is that you did NO research for alternative podcasting programs for the Mac.
Why would he limit himself to the Mac only when he can do research into alternative podcast programs over ALL major operating systems?
I had a complex problem that no PC programs could solve.
Mac is a brand. PC is an acronym. Even those biased and funny Apple commercials tell you that.
I wish you Linux lovers would stop bashing the Mac
Hey, the universe needs balance, there need to be people that counter the Mac loving Linux bashers like you.
Okay, first, shut the hell up. You obliviously didn't look hard enough...
Ok, aside from the fact that this is an ancient thread from back when Garage Band was much worse than it is now, you obviously don't understand my complaints about the program.
Those options you showed us don't do what I need. Not even close. All of our editing/exporting/encoding is now automated with fairly complex scripts, and Garage Band simply does not have the ability to do anything even remotely similar. The few things it can do, it cannot do quickly or in an intelligently automated way. Post-production would take ages longer, and we would still be limited heavily even with the newest version of the program.
Garage Band is like MS Paint. It's great for doing something simple and quick once, but terrible for doing anything serious or complex, let alone anything repetitive. It's great for people who don't know anything about audio, and terrible for anyone who does.
Audacity is like the GIMP. It's powerful enough to do all the basics, and non-professionals can get away with using it for most things, but it's extremely limited and amateurish when it comes to more complex workflows.
We're professionals. Audacity or Garage Band (or anything of their ilk) simply can not meet even our basic requirements. Trying to pretend that they somehow can is ludicrous.
What's worse is that you didNOresearch for alternative podcasting programs for the Mac.
There's no such thing as a "podcasting program" for someone who knows what he's doing: there are simply audio editors. Some run on the Mac. Some don't. The good free ones fall under the latter. There was thus absolutely no reason to bother using the Mac for podcasting. If we were really unprofessional, or if we did maybe one show a month, it might have been almost enough, but it would have been outright stupid to have tried to use it four nights a week. A manual screwdriver is fine for one or two screws. When you have a thousand screws, you use an electric screwdriver instead. Anything else is a waste of time and effort.
(Now let us allow this zombified thread to rest peacefully yet again)
Okay, first, shut the hell up. You obliviously didn't look hard enough...
Ok, aside from the fact that this is an ancient thread from back when Garage Band was much worse than it is now, you obviously don't understand my complaints about the program.
Those options you showed us don't do what I need. Not even close. All of our editing/exporting/encoding is now automated with fairly complex scripts, and Garage Band simply does not have the ability to do anything even remotely similar. The few things it can do, it cannot do quickly or in an intelligently automated way. Post-production would take ages longer, and we would still be limited heavily even with the newest version of the program.
Garage Band is like MS Paint. It's great for doing something simple and quick once, but terrible for doing anything serious or complex, let alone anything repetitive. It's great for people who don't know anything about audio, and terrible for anyone who does.
Audacity is like the GIMP. It's powerful enough to do all the basics, and non-professionals can get away with using it for most things, but it's extremely limited and amateurish when it comes to more complex workflows.
We're professionals. Audacity or Garage Band (or anything of their ilk) simply can not meet even our basic requirements. Trying to pretend that they somehow can is ludicrous.
What's worse is that you didNOresearch for alternative podcasting programs for the Mac.
There's no such thing as a "podcasting program" for someone who knows what he's doing: there are simply audio editors. Some run on the Mac. Some don't. The good free ones fall under the latter. There was thus absolutely no reason to bother using the Mac for podcasting. If we were really unprofessional, or if we did maybe one show a month, it might have been almost enough, but it would have been outright stupid to have tried to use it four nights a week. A manual screwdriver is fine for one or two screws. When you have a thousand screws, you use an electric screwdriver instead. Anything else is a waste of time and effort.
Comments
Anyway, to rewrite:
Anyone who uses software for a professional, productive purpose, paid or unpaid, such as the creators of GeekNights, should pay for software. If it's free open source software, you should pay by contributing to the project. However, if you do not fully utilize the software, or are just trying to learn it, you shouldn't have to pay full price, since the full price is intended for people who get the full use out of it. In Rym's example: CoolEdit, Audacity, and Rezound are worth paying for or contributing to. GarageBand (if it cost anything) would not be.
I believe Apple quite clearly represents GarageBand as the best podcasting application, and this is false advertising. But that's what their whole smear campaign has been about. You cannot compare Windows to Mac OS X on the basis of bundled software. It is not the OS creator's job to bundle software (linux notwithstanding).
Microsoft is just an OS creator. They write the OS. It's the job of Dell, the OEM, to bundle software, and they do. You have many choices, ranging from "free" included stuff like WordPerfect to the discounted Office installs, or you can just tell them not to install anything. Is WordPerfect worse than Apple's bundled software? Maybe, but reserve judgment until you've carefully considered the amount of money Apple has spent to make you think so.
Apple is both an OS creator and an OEM. Thus, they write software and include it with their computers. iLife doesn't strictly come with Mac OS X...it comes with Apple computers. Mac OS X is just a kernel, a shell, a GUI, and a bunch of drivers, just like Windows, just like Linux.
Apple computers are always great deals. You get a well-made computer (maybe?), a great OS, and a bundle of great software (for the price). It always costs a little more than the PC alternative, but they make you feel good about the purchase, which really is worth it sometimes.
But, for any professional application, you need professional software. That's why there are high-cost professional versions of every iApplication bundled with every Mac. They're just being nice by offering the free versions.
But remember: when comparing operating systems, you must compare only the features of the operating systems. Both Windows and Mac are easy to use. I don't know anyone who can't handle basic OS functions in Windows, but they can in a Mac. Anyone like that I accuse of self-enforced helplessness, and their antics would fail in a double-blind test. Both Windows and Mac have a wide variety of applications for everyday use. Both Windows and Mac support a variety of niche applications, but Mac cannot truly compare to Windows there, and neither holds a candle to Linux.
Only Windows supports games. Oh, but Macs play games? 5 year old games still cost $50 for the Mac. Not to mention you can only play about 5% of the market's games on a Mac, and almost no new games come out for Mac simultaneously with the PC release. Apple doesn't even pretend Macs are for gaming. Their ads never talk about it. You think BootCamp is for anything but gaming?
Only Windows supports the basic applications that 95% of the business world is used to: Office and Internet Explorer. Get a job, you'll find out quick. Only graphic designers, animators, and music creators use Macs professionally, and even they have to interface with Windows users to do anything else, like get a professional web site made for them. (And they have no idea why their StuffIt files and Mac fonts don't work on other company's PCs). People resist change. All the Mac OS X Insert-cat-name-here features in the world will not make the unswerving masses lose their blind faith in Microsoft.
It's not that the masses like Microsoft or hate Macs. They just don't care. All of the differences between the OSes are below their perception. Windows and its associated apps are there and they work. That's all 95% cares about.
Truly, the only thing that will ever dethrone Microsoft is their own mistakes. Vista has a small chance of being that mistake. If they get people to upgrade, and it sucks, maybe people will get Macs and linux. If everyone keeps Win XP forever, they may also, eventually, get tired of it. MS may be backed into a corner. Nothing Apple does now will ensure that they get the lion's share of the fallout...it will all be how they react.
Unfortunately, we need this box primarily for podcasting on the road. If I could dual-boot Ubuntu, I could at least run Rezound and Audacity for podcasts at cons, and use OSX for surfing, media stuff, and iTunes.
I just poked around Newegg, and I can make one hell of a PC for $600...
Our rationale for keeping the thing is that we can use it as a media PC on the downstairs TV and a podcast recorder for road shows. We have until Sunday night to get it to work, since I'd have to return it by Monday to get a refund.
I'm sure people out there have gotten it to work. All BootCamp does is partition you hard disk, install a bootloader, and burn a CD with Mac hardware drivers for Windows XP SP2. Other OSes are probably possible. I think the SP2 prepatched thing is probably Windows Update's fault, failing to detect your PC as valid hardware or something.
I'm not sure, but I think the only way to blow away your OS X install in Boot Camp is to destroy the partition with another OS's installation process. Windows installer was quite capable of doing so. Unless the destruction of OS X occurred before any foreign OS discs were inserted, it is likely it was the foreign OS, and not BootCamp.
The Mac Mini is all right as a media PC, but you'd need a dongle for the video (unless you have an HDTV with a DVI input), and there's no digital audio out. The MacBook Pro is actually better for that, but that's silly, because who would use a laptop as a set-top device?
I guess the lesson to be learned here is this: unless you are a basic computer user with simple needs, do not buy a Mac for the bundled software. Instead, buy it for the hardware and the OS.
That being said, would it be so hard to make a dedicated podcast recording app? It'd just be a simple wave recorder with real-time markers, decent filters for speech, and real-time compression. Perhaps it would even support upload to various podcast repositories. That would definately be what Apple said GarageBand was.
*A cookie for the one who can peg that reference without google.
Excerpted from The Apple Core
Rym: Tribooting instructions are here
I can say that if you are willing to leave iTunes MP3 encoding settings set to "podcast level," which I don't normally do, since I want to keep any files I rip in high quaity MP3, you can use Apple's "Automator" to automate the creation of an MP3 file. I dropped a huge AIFF file (105.6 MB) onto the application icon that I created in automator and got a 13.6 MB mono mp3 file with a 48 kbps bitrate and a 22.050 kHz sample rate as a result, after less than three minutes of conversion. (I arbitrarily chose settings to shrink a huge, low-fi audio interview.) Automator, which I have only dabbled with a little bit, seems to be capable of doing lots more, to the extent that it looks like you can drop an AIFF file onto it and end up with a podcast uploaded to your hosting service and possibly updated RSS feed information without further intervention.
The other issues I wanted to address concern Microsoft in one way and another. The first is your mouse, I am bewildered by the problems you describe. Have you been to the System Preferences and looked in the "Keyboard & Mouse" pane? My tracking speed isn't even turned half way up and my Microsoft Intellimouse (the one wiith all the buttons that is great for games) tracks clear across my 1024x768 display in less than three inches of real movement in any direction. Maybe it's just this particular Mouse that works so well with OS X, and has, ever since I got it (I use one of the big Kensington trackballs with Windows XP at work, so I really can't do a direct comparison, except that it is much more responsive than the Logitech mouse I used to use there before we found the trackball while cleaning out a closet).
The other thing is to refute a bit of FUD I saw above, where someone says you can't get Microsoft Office for the Mac. While I wouldn't advise anyone to get/use Office if they have any other reasonable choice, that is clearly untrue, and except for Access, which the Mac version of Office lacks (probably because FileMaker Pro is the dominant "off the shelf in a box" database on Mac OS; I also feel that it's better than Access on Windows as well...). The Mac version of Office uses the same files and has the same (bloated) lot of features as the Windows version. It even has a mail client/callendar app that is compatable with Microsoft's Exchange email server. (I can't think of it's name of it right now, it is the only thing in the Office for OS X pack that doesn't have exactly the same name as the Windows version.)
p.s.
As for myself, I wouldn't hesitate to add memory to a Mac Mini if I had one, even after watching a video about it. ;)
I don't think you quite understand how sensitive I like my mice to be. That's incredibly slow. I track across my 1280 display in less than an inch of movement. ^_~
Actually, I did edit the registry on my former Windows box a long time ago. I'll try to recall what it was, but you could probably find it with minimal poking around.
Ok.
I love Mac and have loved Apple since the IIc days.
I guess you do what you like and what you know.
As for all the tech shit.... I don't know. It does what I want it to do and all of my friends constantly complain about windows shit.....
Linux is an option but as far as I'm concerned Mac is the shit versus worms, virus, trojan, etc, etc, etc, etc, ad infinitum.
I guess, ultimately, sorry it didn't work out for you. For many people it really just does work without any bullshit on any side of the equation.
Ultimately do what you are comfortable with and if you have something that works for what you want to do then use that.\
For me and others Mac fills this niche. If it does not work for you then don't use it.
The difference is that Garage Band lacks a great many features and has a terrible editing interface. Even if I manipulated it maximally, it would still be significantly slower than editing with Rezound due to the numerous extra steps that must be taken at every juncture.
The only difference -is- that I use a different program. That program makes all the difference in the world.
If Apple wants to make a specific Pod-Casting app, they'll probably call it i'Cast.
I just listened to your show on the Mac Mini, and checked the Help menu in iTunes.
Right there, it tells you how to make a copy of a song in another format.
Somewhat counter-intuitively, it's in iTunes/Preferences/Advanced/Importing.
I would prefer this be listed under "Export", but it's not.
On the other hand, the conversion quality goes up to 320 KBPS VBS Stereo for MP3's, which isn't bad.
I tried a conversion of a few low-quality clips I'd downloaded and it cleaned up the sound quality on two out of three.
As for your sound editing question, have you looked at iMovie? As I recall it's got some sound editing ability.
let me show you...
~Where to look
~Export options. This part is nice and simple( like everything else on the Mac) AAC or MP3 & Good Quality, High Quality, Higher Quality, Or Custom...
~Options Under Custom
What's worse is that you did NO research for alternative podcasting programs for the Mac.
Garage Band worked great for me because I had a complex problem that no PC programs could solve. All I wanted to do was edit a song from StepMania so that I had only the last part of it, instead of trying to guess and check the sound or use a stop watch all I had to do thanks to Garage Band was enter what beat I wanted (4/4 notes) and entered in the BPM (157) for the song in said category on new project options. Then I went to the 49th measure where I wanted it to cut the audio made the cut and exported. Simple as that.
I wish you Linux lovers would stop bashing the Mac, back when I was Mac-less I tried using Linux and it sucked so bad. It was worse than windows when it came to U.I. and sure the wobble windows and the cube where cool, I just wished it wasn't so had to do anything.
I'm done.
Seriously, you sound like an.
Those options you showed us don't do what I need. Not even close. All of our editing/exporting/encoding is now automated with fairly complex scripts, and Garage Band simply does not have the ability to do anything even remotely similar. The few things it can do, it cannot do quickly or in an intelligently automated way. Post-production would take ages longer, and we would still be limited heavily even with the newest version of the program.
Garage Band is like MS Paint. It's great for doing something simple and quick once, but terrible for doing anything serious or complex, let alone anything repetitive. It's great for people who don't know anything about audio, and terrible for anyone who does.
Audacity is like the GIMP. It's powerful enough to do all the basics, and non-professionals can get away with using it for most things, but it's extremely limited and amateurish when it comes to more complex workflows.
We're professionals. Audacity or Garage Band (or anything of their ilk) simply can not meet even our basic requirements. Trying to pretend that they somehow can is ludicrous. There's no such thing as a "podcasting program" for someone who knows what he's doing: there are simply audio editors. Some run on the Mac. Some don't. The good free ones fall under the latter. There was thus absolutely no reason to bother using the Mac for podcasting. If we were really unprofessional, or if we did maybe one show a month, it might have been almost enough, but it would have been outright stupid to have tried to use it four nights a week. A manual screwdriver is fine for one or two screws. When you have a thousand screws, you use an electric screwdriver instead. Anything else is a waste of time and effort.
..just saying...
(Now let us allow this zombified thread to rest peacefully yet again)