Sujan Joyner

I am a pretty savvy customer and I can usually see through what the advertisers are trying to get readers or viewers to do with their campaign. (and usually get annoyed with them trying to shape our opinions with their tactics)

Desperate Housewives recently finished airing in NZ and the show following Desperate Housewives is “The Mentalist”.  I didn’t really know what it was about but after seeing some cool campaigns around Auckland city I wanted to see it.

Advertisers wanted to get people to see the show, and I knew that’s what they wanted to do yet I still wanted to see it! (I call this GREAT campaign!)

I don’t know if they do identical campaigns around the world for a TV show - but here’s what they used on billboards to promote the show in Auckland, New Zealand.

There maybe a few reasons why you may want to record a telephone conversation.

1) You may be a freelance journalist conducting a phone interview (and you would want a recording to go back to for verification purposes)

2) You may be wanting to record a certain person A saying a statement B as a proof for legal reasons

3) You maybe wanting to snoop on someone in the house and may want to snoop in “stealthily” by walking around the house when the phone convo is being recorded secretly in another room

Whatever your reason maybe there are a many ways you can do this and I want to share one way that I have found to work.

I had to do this so that we had a recording of a phone interview for reference - nothing illegal or dodgy there!

What you need : telephone, telephone cable (from wall to the telephone), telephone recording adapter  (there are different versions of this you can get - the one I got had 3.5mm audio plug & a RJ 11 male out cable  as well as an RJ 11 female slot) & a recording device (voice recorder, or it could even be a computer)

Here’s how it is set up.

1) Telephone cable should be plugged into the wall and the other end of the cable into the telephone recording adapter.

2) Telephone recording adapter has another RJ11 cable going out from the unit - plug this to the back of the telephone.

3) Telephone recording adapter’s 3.5mm audio plug, plugs into the recording device.   This could be :

- a voice recorder

-your computer microphone slot (you would need audio recording software on your computer)

4) Start the recording button on your recording device and make your phone call.

VOILA!

Some additional notes :

- There are different types of telephone recording adapters you can get.  The particular one that I used looked like this :

http://www.tvps.com/Products/ECS-TRX-20-35-Telephone-Recorder-Adaptor–35-mm—New__VE-TRX203-prd-5.aspx

This works with any landline telephones (cordless and corded).

However you can also get :

For cordless telphone handsets:   http://www.dynametric.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=125

For cellphones: http://www.dynametric.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=124

Really the two units above are pretty much the same (the only difference being that Cellphone recorder version uses 2.5mm audio jack while the cordless telephone version uses 3.5mm audio jack).  You can probably get one unit above, just buy a 3.5mm to 2.5mm conversion plug (or vice versa) and use it for either the cordless or the cellphone.

When you record, you can also have an earphone plugged into your recording device for monitoring.  (volume, spiking etc)

Recording Device:

There are a lot of voice recorders in the market.  We got Olympus L-10 voice recorder which had the ability to record in RAW  WAV file (as opposed to mp3 or WMA, both of which are compressed audio file types).  However you can plug the audio plug 3.5mm to your computer and use a recording device to record as well.

Recording Quality:

To be completely honest, unless the people on the other side of the telephone line have a clear voice & reception, the recording quality all up will be pretty poor.  In my recording, the person on the other end sounded pretty quiet -  but it could have been because it was an international call where the sound does sound slightly furtherer away anyway.

To summarize, recording a telephone conversation is actually really easy but don’t expect to get a crisp CD quality recording even with the best voice recorder in the market.

Some things that I think could improve the recording quality:

1) a better phone line - if we all had crystal clear phone lines where everyone sounded loud & clear, we probably would have had a better recording.  Recorder can only record what it hears.

2) Maybe a better telephone recording adapter? I’m not sure if this has any effect - but a good controlled study would definitely test different recording adapters.

SJ

Today, we decided to go watch Bruno with a couple of our friends who have a 7 months old baby. It was a post-dinner spur of the moment decision and since the baby is one of the quietest well behaved happiest baby on the planet (he only cries when he’s hungry) we thought, he wouldn’t be a problem in the cinema.

Movie Theatre 1 : We get there 30 minutes before the movie and the movie is SOLD OUT! okay…fine.  Check nearby movie theatres for a different session time and there is another one playing in 25 minutes.

Movie Theatre 2: We get in line to get the tickets, and when we finally get to the counter, we get told “I’m sorry sir, you do realize that this is a R16 rated movie and that you can not take your baby in”.

We argue: ” He’s not going to see or comprehend anything we watch.  In fact, he may even sleep!  Surely we can take the baby in?

Cinema Employee: “Sorry sir, we can’t let anyone under the age of 16 into this movie.”

What does this mean for parents who can not find a baby sitter or afford a baby sitter - no R rated movies until they can afford a baby sitter or until the child is old enough to be left home alone (age 14 in New Zealand)?

I understand, once they make some exceptions to the rule, it maybe difficult to enforce.  However, if the baby can not walk or talk - should they be barred from being taken into a R rated movie?

My proposal:

Any babies under the age of 1, or can not walk or talk should be allowed in PROVIDED they don’t ruin other people’s movie going experiences.  (Obviously this would have to be determined by the parents… and if the baby acts in an unexpected way in the theatre, appropriate action taken promptly.)

What do other parents in the world think?