I am an educator and have been trying to find a good-working solution for podcasting my lectures for most of Fall and Winter. Then I stumbled upon this program. As it came out at the same time as iLife '06 I had changed my previous set-up (capturing audio with Audio Hijack Pro, producing the podcasts with Podcast Maker - a must-have program, one of those rare programs that make the Mac OS shine like no other, these guys paid attention to the tiniest of details) but once I used ProfCast, it became an obvious choice for this particular purpose. The programs I mentioned all are superior to the capabilities of ProfCast - but if you have ever tried to get your lecture in an enhanced podcast format manually, you know how much time and effort this requires.

The beauty of ProfCast is that it automatizes the extensive work otherwise required to create good enhanced recordings (that is, recordings where your audio is accompanied by the slides you use during your presentation) of lectures or presentations. Trust me, I have spent hours on this before I used ProfCast, because usually you record your lecture and then you have to go over the entire recording again, guessing, where to put the next slide.

ProfCast simply does the following: it records your audio in a good quality (the same that Apple recommends and that is a good compromise between size and quality) and also records the information what slides you show at any given moment during your presentation or lecture. When you are done, it brings both of them together, producing what Apple calls an "enhanced podcast" in which your slides move along automatically with the audio.

Sounds straightforward and it is. It does all of this in the most unobtrusive manner. You only have to click once to get it is started and if you change something - say, get out of Keynote or PowerPoint to show something from the browser during a presentation - it shows a very nicely designed little window, asking you if you want to to stop or go on, and you can quickly click this away. Then you can easily go back to your presentation. Afterwards, you have several options of publishing this newly created enhanced podcast, asking you all the relevant information before it sends it off to its destination or lets you simply save a copy if you want to produce a file that you then use in iWeb (which is what I do).

I have been using ProfCast for the production of the podcasts of my three courses for the last month and I have to admit that there were some quirks in the beginning. But hey, this was version 1 and the feedback and comments I sent were immediately addressed. The developers are extremely responsive. As with all recording set-ups, you need to find a working solution for your particular circumstances (how to record the audio, how to post the enhanced podcasts, etc.). Now, I record, click, click. Done. Seriously, two clicks. I have a perfect, enhanced podcast and haven't done squad when previously I had spent usually 1.5-2h to produce something similar.

The program is in need for more features, such as greater control over the audio and the graphics. Especially the audio part is in need of more controls, such as turning off the input audio for through-put (monitor-off). Apparently, these things are in the making and given the early stage of the program, one can be confident, these features will make it in future versions. As it stands now, the program delivers the most important elements well if you can live with these limitations (and if a control-and-feature lover like I can do so, I would think, the vast majority of users can, too ;-) In part, theese limitations are part of the beauty of the program. Click 'n Teach. Or Click 'n Speech. Click 'n podcast - enhanced with slides.

If you are professor, lecturer, speaker, or anybody who presents and needs a recording of their presentation that presents both the slides and the audio in the same way the live audience sees it, ProfCast is the best solution out there. No other software that I am aware of - and I have looked all over - does a better and easier job at getting those two things together than ProfCast. I would not recommend it for people who want to produce radio-like podcasts with different segments, multiple audio, etc - but if you need a program that produces enhanced records of your lectures and presentations, there is not better solution available. Period.