Between updating websites and producing audio and video for clients, there are many ways to get me in a hole, and you know the rule when you find yourself in a hole? Stop digging.
I have encountered a number of digital challenges over the years and more often than not I have found the solutions in an unlikely place, an Australian software company called NCH Software (www.nchsoftware.com/).
The company, founded in Canberra in 1993, manufactures a wide range of small software for very specific uses in audio, video, music, graphics and business. I wrote about the company’s FastFox Text Expander (Feb 2017), which allows you to use abbreviations that expand into blocks of text as you type. More recently, the company’s video tool, Prism Video Converter (www.nchsoftware.com/prism/index.html) came in handy when I needed to fix corrupted video file from live streaming. of a client.
I also recently dusted off my Olympus Transcription Footswitch USB device to more efficiently edit show transcripts. The foot pedal (if you’ve used a cassette dictation machine before, you may remember it) makes editing a transcription easy when paired with NCH’s Express Scribe transcription software (www.nch.com .au / scribe / index.html). You can set the playback speed to more than double the normal speed, and everything is still easily understood, but you can get through the edit in a fraction of the time.
NCH also offers a very compact audio recording program, ideal for recording remote podcast guests in the blink of an eye. The program, RecordPad, can be installed on a guest’s computer and record their portion of the conversation (www.nch.com.au/recordpad/index.html). Once completed, the program can even upload the completed recording via email or to a download site if you have access to an FTP server.
A few years ago, a customer for whom I record voicemail messages asked me to provide the recordings using a somewhat obscure audio file format. I have the latest audio recording software from several companies, but none of them support this particular file format. Enter NCH’s Switch Audio File Converter, which supports transforming modern WAV and MP3 files into the more obscure format the customer needed (www.nch.com.au/switch/index.html). Problem solved.
It’s not often that I need to burn CDs or DVDs anymore, but it does happen every now and then. Burning previously required complex software, but for fast and unique burning, NCH’s Express Burn (www.nch.com.au/burn/index.html) is small and easy to use.
NCH offers a wide range of other audio and video tools, such as Golden Records, specially designed if you are digitizing a collection of vinyl recordings or audio cassettes. The program can compensate for the audio signal from a turntable plugged directly into a computer without an amplifier, and its silence detection capability will divide LP recordings into individual tracks. (www.nch.com.au/golden/index.html).
The best thing about NCH’s narrowly specialized programs is that the company prices them reasonably, so you don’t feel like they’re taking advantage of you for having a unique technical challenge to solve. They are one of my go-to developers for tech utilities, and you should take a look and see if they have anything that fixes any of your computer issues.
Email steve@compuschmooze.com about the digital challenges you have solved and how you have overcome them. Follow @PodcastSteve on Twitter.
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