I have a client who is looking to record a phone interview (with
permission of course :) and have the audio available on her website. 
I think she is looking to use the mp3 format but I'm sure would be
open to whatever format would be best for downloading and/or
streaming.  We're looking for the easiest/most cost-effective way to
record the interview and create a high quality digital file from it. 
Any thoughts?

You can use PhoneBot to do this, have it answer with no message and
pick up the phone when the call comes in. It will record your
conversation in full, and, even has a text to speach function as well.
Very cool system. You will of course need a modem and it setup, but
the setup is very easy.

The suggestion below in the comment area is also valid. I've done this
with recorded conversations (not off the phone) and have been very
happy with the resulting quality of the mp3 that I got from the tape
later.

Phone Bot can be found at 

http://www.thephonebot.com/

thanks, 

webadept-ga

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Clarification of Answer by webadept-ga on 01 Dec 2004 06:40 PST

Hi again, 

I ran across TRx phone recorder last night, and thought I would drop
this in here as well. This software is specifically designed to record
conversations.
http://www.nch.com.au/trx/

Although it says that it saves the conversation in wave format, wav is
easy to convert to mp3 using common utilities. The one I use is CDEX,
The latest version of CDex can be downloaded from
http://cdexos.sourceforge.net or
http://www.cdex.n3.net . It is very easy to use and install. 

thanks, 

webadept-ga

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Request for Answer Clarification by jpbischke-ga on 13 Dec 2004 21:54 PST

I passed this along to the person in need of the help and am waiting
to hear back as to what the solution ended up being.

If one of these solutions was not used, I would still like to reward
the researchers.  I'm not sure how to do that though.

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Clarification of Answer by webadept-ga on 13 Dec 2004 23:01 PST

Hi, 

You need to do nothing else to allow payment, however, if niether of
the options work out, let me know and I'll do some more looking around
for you. I think these will be enough for what you described though.

Thanks, 

webadept-ga

Buy a Radio Shack CTR-123 cassette recorder, which also records phone
conversations. After the conversation is taped, run a cord from the
earphone jack of the recorder to the sound input jack of your
computer, and PLAY the recording into a sound input program on the
computer. Works like a charm.

Thanks for the suggestion.  My only concern there is quality.  Would
the quality remain high under such a set up?

I have personally done what anonoboy mentioned.  I used a device from
Radio Shack (approx. $25) and taped the audio onto a digital voice
recorder (~$50 from WalMart).

Doing it this way means you have a portable 'system', which you can
use on any phone with removable phone cords.  When you want to create
an mp3, just connect the recorder to your computer and use some
software to make the mp3.

Once you have the conversation recorded on your computer as listed
above... it should be in the file format of .wav  You can get a
program for free called dbpoweramp by going to http://dbpoweramp.com
and using their "music converter" program to compress a .wav file into
an .mp3  They have help pages there that can give you instructions on
how to use this.

Good luck.

You will find the RecServer 101 Phone Recorder at
http://www.taris.com.br/GravadorTelEng.htm.
This is a very nice mp3 Phone Recorder, with excellent sound quality
and that also has the online "calls listening" feature. A mp3 Player
is included.