Skype

After much experimentation, I've finally figured out how to record a Skype call on my Macintosh without having to use external hardware or hearing an echo of my own voice.

This will enable me to record my phone conversations and then share them as podcasts in order to help develop the community -- both calls to regular phone numbers by using SkypeOut for two cents a minute, but also directly to other Skype users for free.

Beth Kanter made a very interesting diagram about "Audio as Online Conversation for Online Communities Experiment" that is rich with ideas -- so there is a lot of issues to explore. (via Nancy White)

So I hope to experiment with mediating audio conversations here on EchoChamberProject.com by using the RSS feeds associated with the folksonomy tags served up by Drupal.

A lot of the "How to Record Skype Recipes" include Audacity and Soundflower Bed, but I finally got it to work with WireTap Pro (shareware program for $19), LineIn, and Soundflower, a pair of headphones and a USB Mixer / Microphone.

Here's a schematic and table of the input and output settings of these programs that I used to get it to work -- as well as a screenshot of the preference settings for a quick reference and sanity check.

It's also possible to record the USB Mixer / Microphone input directly through the Built-In Audio, but there was a really annoying delay and echo of my own voice. It's really difficult to talk with delayed feedback being piped into your ears. Some people use speakers to eliminate this feedback, but then there is additional feedback or an echo. Passing the microphone input through LineIn and then Soundflower eliminates this echo when using headphones.

Below is a screenshot of all of the preferences as well as some afterthoughts...

I went through my first big blogging dryspell throughout the month of April. I have been writing all of these really long and intellectually dense blog entries in the name of planning out the theories for a new paradigm of journalism.

The lesson? People want to see a proof of concept -- Theory is too abstract and -- well, theoretical. I've had a ton of people say to me, "You know, I try to read you blog, but it's just too confusing. I don't know what you're talking about."

I would usually discard these criticisms by saying, "Well, I'm trying to reach a specialized audience of the movers and shakers of the New Media movement." And then when I actually got to talk face-to-face with a lot of these technologists at SXSW I realized that they understand me when I talk to them face-to-face, but that they still aren't gleaning some of the major ideas from my writing.