I have been off-blog for a couple of days as my wife and I are adjusting to a newborn in the house to go along with our four and a half year old daughter. She is trying to figure out why she can’t have all the attention all the time like she did a handful of days ago. Sleep is off schedule — especially for my wife as she is feeding him every couple of hours … but I will say I am much more prepared for it the second time around. All in all it is everything I expected but so much more. Getting to experience this a second time is amazing.

All of that is throwing my reading and research off in a big way. I am spending all of my online time engaging with real work … you know the place where I hang my PSU hat. When I can stretch away to connect I am finding that I skip NetNewsWire Pro for Mail.app so I can take part in work conversations. I am jumping on iChat and asking a few questions, but for the most part it is email. Tonight I got an email from Rogue Amoeba announcing a new application, Fission. Funny, I usually get all my news via RSS and it came in the side door via email.

I haven’t tried it yet (it is downloading right now), but from what I am reading on their website it has potential as a podcast assembly tool. What I am struck with more than the features however is the fact that another company is getting into the simple audio editing application space. I remember the day that us Mac users could only love Macromedia’s Sound Edit 16 — from what I can tell that has become the basis for Audacity. To me, it speaks to the overall interest in podcasting and audio production in general.

I am disappointed to read it doesn’t look like it can record … they say to use Audio Hijack Pro instead. Back during the From the Basement days, I used AHP as our podcasting application. It is still the best multi source podcasting application for the Mac I can use — that is the big qualifier, that I can use. I am good on my Mac, but I am not a pro applications kind of guy. I rely on simple applications that do a couple of things well — and do them easily. Looks like if this thing could record it could be gaining on the Macintosh podcasting champ … maybe.

This post isn’t about Fission — I haven’t even tried it … it is about new people getting into the audio space to make it really easy. We could all use a little help in the audio authoring space … as you can tell I pay very close attention to the Mac platform … my big parting question for tonight is about pulling all this off on a PC … what are the easy to use killer podcasting applications for Windows? There is a big statement in there — easy to use … are there apps like GarageBand, ProfCast, and now Fission for the PC? Something easier than Audacity?