A small mic avaialble from most PC shops will suffice. We're not performing at the Royal Albert hall - so don't go overboard when buying one.

The sound you can expect to get will be as good as this example from a £5 mic.

The mic is attached to the pink or red port on the back of the sound card

This will bring up the sound control panel for all the different inputs and outputs on the computer.

We're interested in the microphone settings and most of the time you'll find this is 'muted' to avoid and reduce feedback with the speakers of the PC or computer.

There is no finite setting for this - it all depends on how efficient and at what setting the mic is built for. In this example you'll see exactly where mine is set for - slightly over half way. You shouldn't need to go into advanced settings - this contains a booster for low mics, just be sure to turn the speaker sound down if you are going to change this setting.

You'll get howling feedback and scare all the cats away !

Once this is set - that's all you need - you can now either go and record sound directly into Powerpoint or read on and find out about working with another application called Audacity - This is freeware, no charge and very very effective.----------->

Audacity is a mini recording studio, which allows you much more control over how you record and how you export the final sound - very good if you are wanting to use a lot of sound in either webpages or Powerpoint.

Admittedly it does look complex at first, but it is merely a tool to enable you to record and compress sounds to workable file sizes.

Very easy and very effective. More about it here.