Today, I was poking around in the open source Audacity sound editing program. It is a good example of the type of free tools can be created and shared through open source movement. The program is designed for editing sound files; I am looking into it for a later podcast project which can be edited with this program. The parts in particular I was watching today where several basic ‘how to’ podcasts made as a tutorial for the program. The tutorials where made by Jason Van Orden author of Promoting Your Podcast and general podcasting consultant. He does not go into great depth in the tutorials, instead sticking to the basics of sound editing. This is a plus, as it gives new users a great starting point from where they can experiment and learn on their own. This was perfect for me as I have had very little experience with editing audio files (or editing of any kind, really). It strikes me as a useful skill to have in the modern digital culture with so much of the information and new artist media being connected to such technology. People have made their living off programs like these and that alone is argument enough for me to learn at least the basics about it. I would not be surprised to see schools starting to offer students programs to allow them to learn how to use useful open source software.