When out in the field, what do I need to take with me? For theirwork interviews I need a notebook and pen, GPS machine, digital camera and a dictaphone.

If only the GPS could take photos, I lament. Or if only, says Emmet, the digital camera could geotag its images. And now we suggest, if only the GPS could track the trail of conversation as well as the trail of footprints.

And so I have this garmin GPS machine, a canon digital camera and an old sony taperecorder - how do I juggle all these things as I interview someone? And should I upgrade the sony to digital, to match the rest of the gear. And then, oh dear, what kind of digital dictaphone do I purchase? The market is as daunting as the GPS.

We were discussing if it was worth getting an ipod nano with a voice recorder attached, - but what of the quality? Emmet pointed out I could run linux on it to get past the sound quality issue. But maybe I should do more homework and look for a great digital dictaphone that I don’t have to get someone to hack in to - one that’s already open. Especially as we’ve been left to figure out how to get the garmin to transfer data to a pc and a mac, whilst others are left to the less important task of trying to get their white ipod earphones to match the black nanos.

If I feel a hack should happen because

I suspect the next version of the ipod won’t allow booting in to linux and/or this type of recording. Enjoy it while you can…with all the podcasting people out there apple should consider not crippling our ipods so we can all use ipods to record, apple could do this now with a simple software update… Phillip Torrone

I better keep an eye on here http://ipod.hackaday.com
Read the rest of this entry »