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Record Online Meetings in Pear Note

While Pear Note is primarily geared toward recording notes in the physical world, it's possible to use it to record things in the virtual world as well. For instance, you can use it to record and take notes on Skype calls. To do this:

  1. Download Soundflower and install it (along with the Soundflowerbed app that comes with it).
  2. Download LineIn and install it.
  3. Start Soundflowerbed, and select Built-in Output (or whatever output you'd like to listen to the conversation on).
  4. Start LineIn, and select your microphone (e.g. Built-in Mic) as the input and Soundflower (2ch) as the output, then press Pass Thru.
  5. Open Pear Note Preferences, select Recording, and select Soundflower (2ch) as the audio device.
  6. Open Skype Preferences, select Audio, and select Soundflower (2ch) as the audio output and your microphone (e.g. Built-in Mic) as the audio input.
  7. Hit record in Pear Note and make your Skype call.

This will allow you to conduct your Skype call while Pear Note records both your audio and the other participant's.

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Networking | 01 Sep 2009 | Print Printer-Friendly Version of This Article

Gmail Web Interface Down; IMAP Working

by Adam C. Engst Send Email to Author

[Update: As expected, Gmail's Web interface came back up roughly 100 minutes after going down. To check Google service status in the future, see the Apps Status Dashboard. Google has also posted a note explaining what went wrong. -Adam]

I'm still working on a set of articles about why I've transitioned from Eudora to Gmail, and not just Gmail, but Gmail's Web interface as viewed through the lens of Mailplane. Since that switchover, I've been a bit of an evangelist for Gmail's rethinking of how email should work, but having Gmail go down today was a distinct downer, not that I really needed to use email at the moment.


I fully expect that Gmail will come back up quickly - it has every other time it has gone down. But I do worry a little that there could at some point be a catastrophic failure at Google that would result in the loss of my email. That's why I use another email client (Apple Mail at the moment) to connect to my Gmail account via IMAP and bring all messages down to my Mac (POP would work too, but then I'd need to do local filtering). I almost never view my email via Apple Mail, but it's there in case I need it.

So I was intrigued to discover that while Gmail's Web interface was reporting a Server Error and telling me to try again in 30 seconds, Mail had no problem connecting to Gmail via IMAP and pulling in the latest messages.

The moral of the story - backup, backup, backup. The smart computer user who can't necessarily afford to be offline for a long period of time backs up not just data, but access methods. If Gmail's Web interface goes down, I can use IMAP. If Gmail stops working entirely, I can use my own server or my MobileMe account. If my cable modem goes down, I know where I'll take my MacBook for Internet access. And so on...

 

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