An interesting thing fell out of my NaNoWriMo effort this year. I started ripping CDs.
(For those even less technically inclined than I am in this arena, this means copying music files from CDs onto my PC, usually converting them into a less sizable format.)
It occured to me I wanted music. I didn’t want to be dependent on whatever CDs I had around — particularly since it usually meant mismatched discs and cases between work and home.
Doyce, of course, has been doing this for eons, and when he solicited musical contributions for his own writing time, I felt vaguely Neanderthalic giving him a stack of CDs to borrow, when everyone else was either e-mailing or burning-and-mailing CDs of MP3 files. (“Oh, look, Jackie! CDA-formatted tunes, a dozen or so to the disk. How … positively quaint!”)
So I ripped some music off the CDs I had at the office. I also ripped some music off of some games I enjoyed (game music, like soundtracks, are my preferred entertainment during writing).
I initially made use of some of the media player software I already had — WMP, Real, as well as one that comes with the CD burning software I have. They were nice, but vaguely restricting, and generally limited in what formats they could run. So, like so many folks getting into this, I downloaded Winamp and started playing with that.
So now I have music wherever I go (or wherever I go with my notebook, which is most places). Sweet.
Of course, I realize I’m still probably several years behind the technology curve here (“Why, look, Mary … he’s using Winamp and ripping to MP3. How … positively quaint!”), but, hey, I’m a pointy-haired manager, so give me a break.
You are well ahead of the curve, compared to me…
Nope. As someone who has been round the bend on this for some time now, I must say that I prefer WinAmp and MP3 formatting to anything else out there.
I have about 14.8GB of music on my work PC alone. Never mind what I have at home. Most of that is sitting in Doyce’s home right now. It is a blast. I don’t know how I ever got along carrying all those CDs around. I have a bunch of CDs with MP3s as opposed to hundreds of CDs. For instance, one 700 MB CDR can hold about 6 full CDs of music ripped to the highest quality MP3 format. Gotta love that.
All toy need to do now is get an MP3 CD player for your car. I picked an Audiophase Portable CD Player with Integrated MP3 Decoder and Car Kit up at my local Best Buy for $40. It was well worth the investment. Play CDs, burned CDRs, and burned MP3 CDRs all on the same player.
Food for thought.
Well, since there’s a new car on the horizon this spring, I might do that. It would be an interesting alternative to a CD changer.
It’s certainly something I’d want to look into in my next car purchase.
Then again, all I really have to do is talk you into it and then convince you that a Mini Cooper is the thing to have, and I can live the life vicariously. 🙂
If I do, you have to buy a TiVo.
I just bought the Audiophase cdm-357 from Best Buy for $29.99 to replace a nice mp3 cd player that was stolen.
Unfortunately the player doesn’t recognize any mp3 CD’s burnt with iTunes or Toast (from OS X). It did recognize one mp3 cd burned by a friend’s PC. However it didn’t see an AUDIO cd burned by his same computer.
So, its useless to a Mac person, and sketchy even for PC users — hit or miss.
Not recommended.
Hmm. Good input. Thanks.
Regarding that AudioPhase CDM-357 and Macs, I just got one and tried burning in iTunes w/o success too. Using Toast 5.2.2 I DID manage to burn a disc of mp3s using ISO 9660 format! All the other formats didn’t work as Chuck said.
;-p
I should have left more detailed (and accurate) info last time I posted. First, Toast is at version 5.2.1 (not 5.2.2). Use ISO 9660 with CD-ROM XA format. I burned several discs at 8x which the literature states is the maximum. You can burn up to 99 directories with a max. of 999 songs. These were burned on a Mac using OSX 10.2.6 and all these discs work on both the CDM-357 and the cheaper ($19.99 BestBuy) CDM-450! You’ll have to drag the folders of mp3’s onto the Toast window with ISO 9660 selected. iTunes can’t help you here 🙁