Voicemail

I'm amazed that in this digital age there are still very few options for managing voice mail for the services I use. My home internet is through Charter Communications which does not provide for emailing voicemail messages or even sending you alerts that you have new messages via txt or email.

On the iPhone there is no software way to export a voice mail despite the much touted visual voicemail feature. You can't export from the phone, or from desktop software, or even through AT&T's web site. This is an oversight that many web sites are complaining about.

Anyway, the quick and dirty solution is as follows:

1) Find a simple 3.5MM male/mail audio cable plugged into the iPhone (easier with a 3G) and into the Line In on your mac. 

2) Make sure "Line In" is selected in the Input tab of your Sound preferences. 

3) Run Garageband, create a new basic track, picking something like "Male Basic" for type

4) Press record at the bottom of the screen and then hit play on the iPhone visual voicemail to record. 

5) When the voicemail play is complete (watch the iPhone screen). press record again in Garageband to stop recording

6) In the menu choose share, export song to disk, choose MP3 and "Good Quality" and give it a name

You can do something equivalent on the PC. I used Garageband because it was there, there are free programs out there for all platforms that can do the garage band steps for you. 

Sounds complex, but this whole process took me 2 mins including finding the cable in the basement and running Garageband for the first time ever (i'm not musically inclined (which is why I like country :) ))