Recording

I have a Phillips digital recorder that I use for my French classes.  I record them so that I can listen to the discussions again, especially when the instructor is pronouncing things for me.  It should be possible - even easy - to set up recording with Skype - certainly multiple web sites would lead one to believe this -- but I've never been successful at it.  I get recordings of her, or me; not both.  So this works.

The thing is, the recorder is a complex little instrument.  I do truly believe that it could be used to mix a souffle and launch a nuclear weapon.  There aren't a lot of buttons on it, but those that exist have multiple functions.  Some make sense; others....not so much.

When I want to delete files, I hook it up to my PC, change to the directory with the recorder's files, and delete them.  Every time I try to do a deletion on the device itself, it doesn't quite work.  So this evening, I read the instructions slowly, and stepped through each one.

Turns out that one of the problems is that the instructions refer to a control that's not on the recorder.  Another is that it mentions something that is true...but misleading.  So I finally wrote my own checklist.  Here it is.  Look upon it in awe.

When recorder is stopped:

Press the INDEX button until folder A,B,C,D or Music appears.

Press and hold Delete (right side, lower button) for 3 seconds.  DELETE appears on screen. (Press DEL again to get out of delete mode)

On center button, outer rim, right side, press the arrow-arrow-button to jump from Folder to File to Index.  To delete a file, stop at FILE. 

Press center button, center, to bring up the first file number in the selected folder

On center button, outer rim, right side, press arrow-arrow-button to scroll through files in that folder.

Press center button, center.  Word NO is displayed

On center button, outer rim, right side, press arrow-arrow-button to select YES

On center button, center, prss to confirm deletion.

Obvious to the most casual observer, right?