A little quick experiment showed me that it was no problem for me to record a little bit of myself with Voice Recorder on my Zaurus, export that .wav file to the iBook and then import it into Audacity. Cool cool cool! That means that I have the potential to do mobile audioblogging. If I run into some celebrity on the street, I can do a quick interview with them or whatever. This would have been great back in the radio show days, particularly at the SF conventions I was covering as a journalist/radio personality.

I might even do some routine posts just out and about, getting a little local color in the audio. I am mindful that here, in this little southern coastal town, I am different than most of the people here. I look different, act different, talk different, have a different sort of career. Thus, I might want to be a little careful about becoming "the crazy guy who wanders the streets talking to himself." Maybe if I am out and about recording stuff into the Zaurus, I should hold up my cell phone as a decoy.

The worst thing about recording the audio with both the iBook and Zaurus is that both have internal mics and neither has a line in or mic jack. I'm a radio guy, I miss having the mike staring me in the face. It was really weird recording today's audio entry, just sort of talking towards the upper right hand of my iBook's screen. I should research if there is some USB audio input gizwhickey for Macs. A little USB microphone would be nice, or even some gadget that connects to USB or Firewire and accepts mic-level or line in level inputs with mini-stereo plugs. Then we'd really be cooking with gas.

You can tell, if I am this interested in the toolset, that I'll be continuing with the audio stuff. That's always how you can tell when someone is passionate about a hobby or a total duffer. When the tools and the mundane, boring parts of a pastime still excite you, are are totally hooked.