Audacity and Skype Don’t Mix Well with PC’s

Dan writes:

Bud,

You’ve told us you used Audacity to record Skype calls. But how?
I’ve tried and failed several times (with a PC running Windows XP). I’d
love to know your secret!

Best,
Dan
(I’m an English Prof in South Dakota who uses blogs – and Audacity – with his students)

It’s a good question.  Unfortunately, Dan, you’re not going to like my answer.  I tried to use Audacity on my PC to record Darren and my conversation — and it didn’t work well at all.  While Audacity has a feature for recording the stereo out of a computer instead of the microphone, the levels are wildly different and hard to regulate. 
    The simple solution, in our case, was to let Darren and his Mac record our discussion.  Apparently, as I’ve been learning from listening to the Daily Source Code on my drive to work, PC sound cards are not the best when it comes to recording.  But Macs are.
    Dangit. 
    So, Dan, it seems that the easy answer is to buy a Mac.  There are other options, though.  Lots of folks have posted their suggestions.  I’m just not sure which one is going to work for my PC.          Anyone else know a universal PC Skype-recording solution?  Darren’s got better things to do than record all of my phone calls.