After my post earlier this week about transmitting Mac audio, readers contacted me about extending this solution. Although they liked the idea of direct audio while working out on a treadmill or exercise bike, several stated that they also wanted to watch from the sofa once the spouse or the kid go to sleep. The idea was the same: audio transmission to an iPhone or iPod touch. The source was different. They wanted to watch live cable TV or their TiVo. And for the punchline, their media center Mac lacks a tuner. Was there a similar quiet Mac-based solution that would let them transmit the TV audio from these non-Mac sources?

If your Mac has a microphone jack, internal or even through an external USB solution, the answer is yes. You can easily connect your TV audio to your Mac just like you would connect it to a pair of speakers. Run a cable between a spare audio output (modern TVs usually offer more than one, if not, you can use a splitter) to the microphone jack on the Macintosh. On my low-end TV, this means an RCA stereo cable that feeds to a standard stereo minijack plug.

Setting up the Mac host is simple. Instead of feeding audio via Soundflower, as described in the earlier post, choose your microphone audio input in the Skype settings. Start a call to your iPhone or iPod touch, switch the TV source (usually via a "Source" button that picks which signal to watch, such as Composite 1, Component 2, etc.) to your normal cable or TiVo input. Set the external speaker volume to zero. The signal arrives at the Mac microphone independently of those speakers.

You may find that the audio out signal tends to be on the low side. Many TV speakers provide their own amplification. If this is a problem for you, you can hook in an inline amplifier. (I use an old Radio Shack 277-1008C.) Alternatively, you can boost the audio via a third party program like Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack Pro.

This solution takes a few more cables, components, and connections than the Mac Audio-to-iPhone through Skype set-up discussed in the earlier post. But if you have the cables on-hand already, it offers an inexpensive solution compared to many other wireless TV headsets on the market right now.

I've been perfecting a very specific efficiency aspect of my workflow: taking notes during Skype calls. I use a Skype-in number as my primary phone number, and -- with permission -- record client calls for future reference. I can't tell you how many times this has come in handy. On long calls, though, going back and finding a specific point where something was mentioned can be a time-consuming hassle. What I wanted was the ability to record a Skype call while taking notes, and to then be able to reference my (abbreviated) notes back to the exact point where they were taken in the conversation.

I've played around extensively with doing this in Pear Note and Transcriva, and both work very well once you get the audio routing right (Soundflower is gold). However, I love taking my notes in a mind map format, and usually create a MindManager map before I start a call. This is especially valuable with long, long calls where keeping things organized and grouped on the fly as the conversation meanders and backtracks can be vital. So I donned my AppleScript hat and started seeing what I could do.

I'm using Audio Hijack Pro and Mindjet MindManager 7 Mac in these scripts. I had these readily available and they both have excellent AppleScript dictionaries, thus were conducive to satisfying my requirements. A little hacking could make these work with a variety of other applications. To set this up in Audio Hijack, I used the default Skype session and had my scripts check to see if we were recording, starting it up if we weren't. From that point, I could add quick bookmarks to my MindManager topics during the conversation. When I read back through my notes, I can instantly play back the associated part of the conversation. Read on to find out how I did it!

Today brings a lovely treat from Rogue Amoeba, the makers of Audio Hijack Pro and Fission. They've posted MakeiPhoneRingtone, a free utility that converts any AAC file into an iTunes 7.4.27.4.1-compatible Ringtone. Drop the file onto its window and a second or two later, it appears in iTunes as a new ringtone. No file renaming, no special tricks. It just worked. I synced it over to my iPhone without any snags.

Of course, Rogue Amoeba hopes that you'll use its Fission editor to make those ringtones. If you're like me and prefer non-music-ringtones, its Audio Hijack Pro may be a better choice for recording sounds like a knock on the door or the most annoying ringtone ever made.

Rogue Amoeba, purveyors of all sorts of wonderful audio software, have been releasing details on pending updates for two of their most popular products: Airfoil and Audio Hijack Pro. Both upgrades seem like they're coming sometime soon, with Audio Hijack Pro 3 (a tool allowing you to record any audio from your Mac) sounding like it could land sooner rather than later. Details and screenshots (like the one above) of AHP3 are being posted to this forum thread, including thoughts on whether they'll charge an upgrade fee (though prices for new licenses should remain at $32). If Rogue Amoeba wants my two cents (which they admittedly didn't request), I'm all for developers, especially indies, charging upgrade fees for major point releases. It sure is nice when they don't, but I completely understand that underneath all that code and slick features there's a human being that's just trying to survive (and possibly provide) like the rest of us.

Rogue Amoeba updated two of their audio apps yesterday. Audio Hijack Pro is now at version 2.7.1 while Fission was bumped to 1.1.1. Each app gets improved AAC compatibility with the iPod Shuffle, while Audio Hijack Pro now works better with a RadioShark. Some other minor bugs were killed off as well.

Both updates are free to registered users.

Airfoil and Audio Hijack Pro, the slick Mac OS X audio broadcasting and recording (respectively) software from Rogue Amoeba, have just been updated with a handy new feature: minimize to menubar. It's a new preference that (you guessed it) will allow these apps to minimize into the menubar, with some features still accessible without having the entire app open on your desktop. Rogue Amoeba has provided a demonstration video to show off this small but functional new feature.