[linux-audio-user] VAR/VOR audio recording

hello one and all, i would like a linux daemon that is always running and always listening to the microphone input of the soundcard and create a new file and record into that audio file when there is sound coming through the input. and say after a certain number of minutes of silence or so, it will end the recording and keep listening. then when sound comes across again, it will begin recording in a new file. i would like to have control over the sound quality to optimize space and mp3 compression wouldn't be bad. someone suggested ecasound with scripting to get it done, but i have no idea just how to do that. i am running redhat fedora 2, which has esound-0.2.34-2 with also the devel package, and it recognizes the soundcard fine because i can play mp3s out with xmms and record in fine with a linux gui recording program. thank you in advance. lucas