I have joined the masses. I now own an iPod. It was a long time in coming. My first mp3 player was a 32 MB AudioVox MP1000. I got it for free through one of the many click-for-rewards programs that abounded in the late 1990′s. It was fun to have a new toy, but in the end, I rarely used the thing. It held only one CD worth of music, so it was worthwhile to carry a bunch of CDs and have some variety. My second mp3 player was the Sounds Good module for the Handspring Visor. This had 64 MB, enough for a long mix. Because it worked with my PDA, I was more likely to carry it with me, and used it occasionally, but on car trips I still filled the CD changer. At work, I used CDs on my computer. Though I’ve always been a gadget geek, the first big mp3 player in our household went to Leah. As a grad student without her a computer in her office, it made sense for her, so one day I surprised her with the Creative NOMAD Jukebox Zen NX, with 20 GB of storage. She loved it, but found the size prohibitive for her needs, and really wanted an iPod. So after a successful garage sale in the fall of 2004 (where I sold my first two mp3 players,) Leah got a 4th gen iPod, and I inherited the Zen NX.
Three years later, I was still using the Zen, having upgraded the hard drive to 60 GB soon after acquiring it. The battery was getting old, and it regularly froze up, plus the headphone jack was slowly starting to go. I started saving my pennies to replace it. Being self-employed, it takes a whole lot longer to save my pennies than it used to, but I finally saved up enough, when coupled with enough rewards points at MyPoints (the only remaining rewards program in which I still find it worthwile to participate) to get a $50 Amazon.com gift certificate. I guess those rewards programs and my mp3 players have a history together. So, a few weeks ago, I ordered the new 80 GB iPod Classic
. As for the madness: While waiting for Amazon to actually ship it, I obsessively cleaned up all of the tags on my MP3 files (I had them pretty well tagged in the first place, there was still some cleaning to do,) and added cover art for every last file. I figured out how to convert some videos so that I could play them on the iPod. I spent far too much time doing this, of course, using all of the time I wasn’t actually working.
Eventually, the iPod arrived, and all of my music was loaded on. More fussing was required to make the videos work. I started downloading all sorts of podcasts. And I’ve been converting audiobooks to the bookmarkable m4b format. Life is now returning to normal, and I absolutely love my new iPod. It’s small enough to actually want to bring with me, even on short trips. The photos above show the new iPod next to the old Zen NX. It’s a fraction of the size, with four times the (original) capacity. I don’t have to worry about keeping it charged all the time, with its 30 hour battery life. And all my work added cover art to my files sure does add some visual eye candy. I hope to now spend more time actually using it than loading it.
Having learned a bit over the past few weeks on creating iPod compatible files, I hope to present a few tutorials here. I used free software for just about everything. Today’s tutorial will be on converting mp3 audio books to the bookmarkable m4b format. My audiobooks are all ripped as mp3, with each track as a separate file. This was ideal when I was using the Zen, but with the iPod’s special Audio Book category, I wanted to take advantage of that, as well as the ability to save my place in my book if I wanted to switch to music in the middle of a book.
Step 1. I started with folders containing a large number of mp3 files. I use MP3Tag to tag all of my files, and using its file renaming tools, I name the files to include the track number, thus keeping them in the proper order.
Step 2. Combine the many mp3 files into one large one. For this, I used MP3AlbumMaker. (Merge MP3 is another free alternative.) I simply load up all of the files in the folder, and since my file names are intentionally written to sort by track, they show up in the correct order. The output is one large MP3 file.
Step 3. Use dBpoweramp Music Converter to convert the mp3 file to m4b. This can take a while, especially if I have a lot of files to convert, so I usually use the batch converter and run it overnight.
Step 4. Now the files are in the desired format. I go back to MP3Tag and fill in all of the track information, add the cover art, and it’s ready to go.
Step 5. Add the file to iTunes, and it will automatically show up as an Audiobook.
Hopefully someone finds this helpful. I’ll try to add more tips on file conversions in the future.
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Happy Halloween! Oneonta’s annual Halloween parade was held this evening, so I headed downtown to shoot some photos to share with you. The weather today was perfect, with the temperatures near sixty even at the time of the parade. The parade was actually surprisingly large, given the size of the town. Most of the participants in the parade marched with their respective schools, with a few businesses thrown in. The Oneonta High School Marching Band performed, nearly all in costume. All in all, it was another enjoyable taste of community in our small part of the world.
sits on my desk, bookmarked partway through. Last year, His Holiness the Dali Lama spoke at my alma mater, the State University of New York at Buffalo, as part of their Distinguished Speakers series. I learned of the event rather late, but put my name on the wait list for tickets. As it turned out, my name came up, but the only way to get the tickets was to purchase them in person, and I couldn’t do the eight-hour round trip to Buffalo from Oneonta just to buy a ticket, and then another trip to actually hear him speak. He was recently in Ithaca, but again, I learned of the event only at the last minute. 
, he also graced us with a few moments of his music. The chant was breath-taking; I felt the entire sanctuary resonate with it.
