Franklin McMahon of Creative Cow Podcast and Media Artist gives us a very helpful tutorial on how to write an RSS feed starting from scratch, with the programs you need, the correct iTunes tags, and how you can confirm your feeds.

To launch the video tutorial, please click on the image.

Recording telephone conversations for your podcast can be quite tricky, so here’s the skinny on podcasters’ picks.

For interviews or calls, a huge number of podcasters prefer to use Skype. It’s free as long as you’re both on computers and it’s a one-on-one call. Plus, you can opt for video call, which you can also record! So I’ll be focusing on recording software that optimized for Skype.

Anyway, here are our prospects:

Call Recorder by Ecamm – This is actually a Skype add-on and not a standalone software. It records both Skype audio and video calls (MOV format). What users like about Call Recorder is that it records their and their guest’s voice in separate tracks. It has a utility that can split the sound input into separate files, so you can balance out the volume in the final product and hear the voices of both interviewer and interviewee in the left and right audio channels. It’s built for the Mac OS platform and comes in at about $20.

PrettyMay – Unlike Call Recorder, this one can only record audio in MP3 and WAV file formats. This too is a Skype add-on, and not a standalone software (for Windows). Aside from the free Basic version, it has 2 premium versions: Business, and Professional. Both priced at $25.

Callburner – Want something that’s totally free? Then Callburner is for you! It can also record each side of the call in separate WAV audio file (uncompressed = better quality), which gives you terrific flexibility when editing (e.g. amplifying one side, editing out noise artifacts, etc).

Pamela – I haven’t tried out this one myself but one podcaster claims that the quality is so good that it’s close enough to ISDN (provided that the person on the other line has a good microphone). But of course he also adds that you’d have to be a broadcast pro to notice the difference. Price ranges from $20, $25, and $40 depending on which version you pick.

So there you have it! Four recording software for your Skype calls during your podcast. Aside from Callburner, which is already free, you can download and try out the free trial versions of the other three to see which of them you’d think has enough features that are worth your money.

Tip: Experienced podcasters strongly advise against recording the voices on each end separately because it’ll be almost impossible for them to sync up.