I remember that I had to search high and low for a simple-ish solution to my need to record sound from my computer. My specific example is due to the podcast that I record remotely. Others may want to record a movie clip, or a song to convert into a ringtone. Either way, Hardy Heron doesn't make this as easily as I'd like.

I use Audacity for all of my podcasting and music mixing. There are other free options out there, but for the sake of this blog we're going to record sound using Audacity.

First, double-click the volume control icon found in your top panel. In my install it is on the top right of my main screen.

Go to Edit > Preferences and make sure you have a check mark by the following: Master, PCM, Line-in, Line-in Capture, CD, CD Capture, Microphone, Microphone Capture, IEC958 Output, PC Speaker, Mix, and Duplicate Front. I'm not sure you need all of these, but this is how I got it to work. :)


Next make sure that you have unmuted all of the options except the PC speaker. Increase the volume as well. Here's how mine looks:


Next click on the Switches tab and check Mix as well as IEC958 Output and close the window. Again, not sure if you need IEC958 Output, but this is what's working.

Next you'll want to go to System > Preferences > Sound. Change all of the devices to use ALSA - Advanced Linux Sound Architecture except the Default Mixer Tracks. That one should be VIA 8237 (Alsa Mixer). Click Close.



Now one final step before you can test!

Open Audacity and click on Edit > Preferences. You should see two options for the Audio I/O. Make sure that the Playback device is ALSA: default and Recording is ALSA: VIA 8237: VIA 8237 (hw:0,0) and click OK.


Now you can test! The easy way to test this is to fire up your music player and play a file from your computer. Open Audacity and click the Record button. You should see the blue line jumping up and down as it captures sound.



Hope this helps someone out there. I know I may need to come back to this blog should I ever rebuild or need to help someone else.

Edit: Ok, this FF extension makes life just that much easier.

Yesterday I made a discovery of some new software that seems to have no one but me all excited. Go figure.

I was looking for a better way to handle my Gmail accounts since I don't really like having tabs open with email, calendar, and reader. It's also a pain if you are composing an email and want to use ALT+Tab to switch between email and the web. I started using Thunderbird to help keep Gmail in and my calendar in another window, but as most Gmail users with Thunderbird know, keeping the Calendar and Contacts synced is a pain. Of course wonderful Mozilla has already thought of another way to do things that I love.

Enter Prism.

Luckily for me, they have a download for Linux. So I downloaded Prism and had a look around. It's pretty easy to use right out of the box, but you can also download some of the extras that give you the links to Gmail, Calendar, Reader, etc. (See how Mozilla rocks by incorporating Google stuff?)

As for those of us using Google Apps, I just opened Prism and put in my webmail URL, gave it a name, and a desktop shortcut. Simple as that. I opened my Gmail by double-clicking on the desktop icon and signing in.

Now I have my email in a separate window. I did the same for my Calendar. I modified the shortcut icon to use the appropriate icons for the apps (the red M for Gmail) and then added them to my Cairo-Dock. Life is much easier now.

I was so excited about this yesterday, but Jer didn't really share my enthusiasm. I tried to explain to him how wonderful this would be for our kids' computers since we can limit where they go on the web as well as make things easier for them to find by setting up several of these shortcuts. We do use a firewall and monitoring system which doesn't let the kids to very much on the internet, but this would allow us to control the freedom just a tad bit more.

This would also be great for businesses where the employees are easily distracted by web surfing all day. Give them a few shortcuts and let them go. I'm sure that I could figure out a way to surf the web through this window, but it sure isn't easy.

Here is a screenshot of my Gmail in Prism. I've blurred out all the good stuff for fun. :)



So I know... You can't see anything different right? It's what you don't see that's so cool. If you look at the bottom, you will see a grey bar with a little icon on the right. You have a similar bar at the top which allows you to maximize/minimize/close the window and that's it. It's simple. It's not distracting. It's perfect.