Aide-memoire

I've been thinking about getting one of those small pocketable voice recorders.  

During the course of a normal day, items come to mind that I would like to write down for future reference — these could be unfamiliar words that I come across in my reading and can't immediately check in the dictionary; interesting news bits that I pick up from the radio or television; sudden flashes of inspiration that may take time to check out.  That sort of thing.

The ol' memory is not what it used to be, of course.  (Whose is, anyway, at our age?)  So any little help, electronic or otherwise, will come in handy.  For years I kept a small pocket diary that doubled as an aide-memoire.  I still carry one around.  But the act of writing in it may be inconvenient at any given moment (while driving, for instance), and oftentimes to be seen writing something down in a notebook in public may raise some suspicious eyebrows.  Especially nowadays.

So a small voice recorder that has a built-in or replaceable memory capability may do the trick for me.  Nothing fancy, not a handheld computer, or a PDA, or a cell-phone with all sorts of extras.  Just a palm-sized gadget with a tiny microphone and simple on-off and playback controls will do.

The advantage of using such a gadget is that, since so many people seem to be talking to themselves these days on cell-phones with midget lapel mics, anyone making a voice recording in the manner described would not attract undue attention.

Now if there is a simple means to transfer the voice recording over to my home computer, that would be perfect.