Before you jump in and get ready to export your podcast to MP3, you'll need to install a library that allows you to encode (or digitize) MP3 files. Due to software patents, Audacity can't package these libraries with the program itself, so we'll download and install manually.
We're going to use LAME, a high quality MP3 encoder licensed under the General Public License (GPL). This means that it can be widely distributed with open source software projects like Audacity. Installation is easy, in that you just have three basic steps: download, extract, and save the files to the Audacity folder. So let's do that.
Open a web browser and go to the LAME download page at http://lame.buanzo.com.ar/.
Find the appropriate LAME file for your computer's operating system, and then click...