So, I am glad to have the first Get Real show behind me. It was a messy business, with a lot of moving parts. The panelists were great, and even though we had some last minute change of plans, that was relatively smooth. But the various technologies I was trying to use -- teleconference service, Audioblog, bluetooth earphone, cell phone recording, bluetooth handsfree conference call gizmo, iPod recording -- conspired against me at every turn.

I really like my new cellphone, a Sony Ericsson T637, and the bluetooth capabilities seemed to be a way to avoid even more wires in my life. However, a series a problems arose, based on the intersection of the various components:

• During the show, we had Audioblog running, and that service (which otherwise works great) has one glitch: any key that you touch leads to terminating the audio recording. So, therefore, you have to conference in Audioblog as the last step, and then subsequently not touch any keys.
• I was using my Motorola M820 bluetooth earphone, which has the best recording quality of any phone in my office. But, it has the unforseen "feature" of timing out the audio if you don't speak after five minutes -- an event that did not arise during any testing. To redirect speaking to the headset, it is a simple selection on the cell phone -- which leads to terminating the Audioblog. Which is exactly what happened.
• I also have a record capability built right into the T637, but you need to turn it on after a call has started, and -- you guessed it -- touching any key turns it off.
• I thought that I could use a Motorola M800 bluetooth handsfree conference call gizmo, rather than the headphone, but whenever I did so some inaudible whine led to terrible sound quality with any recording tool I have -- most obviously with my iPod using a Belkin plugin for recording voice memos. That plugin works pretty well when sitting at a table with other people, but it is horrible for recording from speaker phone of any sort. So that is out.
• I looked into using Skype or Vonage Softphone on my Mac, but any audio capture tools I could discover only pull the audio out channel. There are apparently some folks who have gotten this to work on the PC (according to Stuart Henshall's blog) but the Mac technology is not as advanced, apparently. I hope that Apple just comes out with a solution.

In the final analysis, the disconnect between telephony and audio seems almost intractable. I intend in the future -- whenever recording via phone -- to

1. avoid using my bluetooth headset -- despite the fact that it sounds best -- because of the timeout issue
   
2. for short calls with one or two people (less than 30 mins) I'll use the built-in record capability on my phone
   
3. for longer calls or those involving multiple people or longer duration, I will use Audioblog recording (although I hope Eric will fix that UI problem where any keystroke leads to ending the recording).
   

Wish me luck!