Does anyone know some way to record long audio segments (e.g. lectures, seminars) on a laptop? What kind of equipment or software would i need? Or, if this would be too difficult, is there someway to record audio digitally? I know that most people just use a hand-held tape recorder to record audio, but I want to be able to edit and play this on the computer, so i want the audio as a digital signal. Thanks for any recommendations!

All you need is an audio program (Total Recorder and Audacity are two I use) and a microphone. Your laptop should be fast enough to do 'on the fly' compression, or else you will use a ton of HD space. With voice quality MP3 compression, you should fill less than 100 Kbyte per minute. You might also consider a pocket sized portable digital audio voice recorder that has a USB port.

For what it sounds like you are doing, go with the PVR(Personal Voice Recorder) and then transfer from it onto your laptop via USB. You can pick that up for about 70 bucks, will automaticly compress into MP3 as it records and saves as digital signal so you can edit as you need to. Saves you a lot of hassle with other hardware and batteries running dead etc.

Audacity is a fine peice of software to do the editing with and is completly free.

Seablade