July :: 2005 :: Thinking Home Business | Practical Tips For People Who Work From Home

This is about some information I found today on creating and tweaking audio files.

Like many other home based business owners, I usually have to be my own tech support. That’s ok, except I’m not a technical kind of guy.

Whenever I get stuck with some technical problem with computers, the web, blogging, podcasting etc, I work from the assumption that somewhere on the web there will be an explanation which is expressed in sufficiently non-technical language for me to sort out the problem. And I like to find solutions that do not include laying out real money.

I am rewarded regularly with practical solutions for previously intractable problems and at no dollar cost (there is of course usually a time cost).

My big find today was that, after spending a lot of time using the free-to-download Audacity program to record a promo message 5 minutes long for a friend and then learning how to save it as an MP3 file (technically ‘export as MP3′) , I discovered the file was over 5 Mb. I knew the file it was to replace was under 1Mb and as this was to be just a recording of me speaking and mono would be fine, I figured there was something I could do to reduce the file size.

But how?

An online search took me to Jason Salas’ Weblog and specifically to his post Optimizing MP3 Exporting in Audacity. Using one tip in that post – changing the File Format Bit Rate default from 128K to 64k – reduced the file size to just over 2Mb, which was fine for my purposes.

On Jason’s blog I also found an item of considerable interest in relation to my intention to record and podcast some interviews using Skype. This sort of info will be very helpful when I get into podcasting more seriously than I’ve done so far (ok, I’ve only done one, but I have plans!)

As well as being a helpful sharer of info, blogger Jason turns out to have a pretty interesting, multi-tasking role as software development lead, news anchor and sports producer at Guam’s largest TV station.

It’s good to be able to tell a story of exemplary customer service.

To back up for a minute, back in March this year I ordered from Amazon a copy of Dr Stephen Covey’s book, The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness. I’d previously borrowed a copy from the local library and had viewed some of material on a DVD that comes with the book.

The book arrived in due course and I read it sporadically, not opening the DVD envelope at the back until a couple of weeks ago.

Uh-oh! Faulty disc. I’ll get Amazon to replace it, surely. Wrong – Amazon has a no returns after 30 days policy.

Ah, think I, FranklinCovey, Dr Covey’s bunch, will have a higher standard of customer service. Well, not to the extent of replacing the disc, as I find when I phone the Australian office: sympathy, but no free replacement disc. They have a 30 day policy too and as I bought through Amazon I would need to go back to them (but they won’t listen because of the 30 days – Catch 22), so no disc unless I pay AU$20 plus postage, getting close to what I had paid for the full book and disc from the USA. Evidently they don’t carry any spare discs for such eventuality and would have to take one out of one of the books, which they would have to pay for.

Same basic story when I email FranklinCovey in the USA – except it appears I can buy a disc from them without them having to rip it out of a book.

Never mind. To give FranklinCovey their due, they don’t send me away with nothing. They give me an email address at Simon & Schuster, who had produced the book and DVD. I email Simon and Schuster, not very optimistically at this stage, you understand.

Surprise! Faster than a speeding bullet the response comes back from Simon & Schuster’s customer service person, Sarah Stewart: certainly they will replace the faulty disc, no problem, could I please provide my postal address?

I could. I did.

Disc is on its way.

Great service. Cool. I like Simon & Schuster .