Gadgetry
June 13th, 2007
Last week I bought my first mp3 player, a Creative Zen V. I commute about 30 minutes to work each way, so I've come to rely on the radio and CD player to keep my mind running while driving. At first, I listened mostly to NPR (National Public Radio), which is a decent source for the high-level news stories. There are only four other stations within receiving distance. So NPR is really my only serious radio option. However, even that has begun to lose interest for me. Day after day of listing to the litany of our defeat in Iraq, with a few breaks here and there to outline how our top public officials are diligently focused on a presidential election that won’t happen for a year and a half. Occasionally a great story breaks through, but for the last year or so I've mostly listened to books on CD. In fact, I've nearly exhausted the Sandpoint library's small collection of CDs, so I needed a third option. Enter mp3 player.
Lucky for me, the library began offering a digital book service a while back. It's pretty nifty. You can log into your library account online and download media files to your computer. Then you transfer them to your portable player, and the files expire after 20 days. I'm just waiting to receive my FM transmitter, which will allow me to broadcast my mp3 player to my car radio.
4 Comments Add your own
1. jared | June 14th, 2007 at 8:36 am
what types of content are on these cd's that you listen to?
also, I would recommend:
http://www.econtalk.org/ I rather enjoy these as I commute.
2. James | June 14th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Jared, thanks for the recommendation. I hadn't even thought about podcasts (I still haven't received my FM transmitter in the mail). I didn't realize how much content is offered for free online (like http://podcasts.yahoo.com/). This means I can download just the NPR stories I want to hear... excellent! And it looks like most news sites also have free downloads.
3. Derek W | July 19th, 2007 at 7:57 am
Have you had success using your FM transmitter? I've heard some people say that they have to change freqs a lot as they drive.
I just ordered one for our big cross-Canada trip and I'm hoping that it will work well. Since we'll be traveling through some of the least-populated areas of North America, we shouldn't have too much radio noise to contend with.
4. James | July 29th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Ours works great. We do occasionally have to change frequency when we pass through large cities, but if you stay on the sparse end of the dial it's not too bad. The model I have can override most weak radio signals.
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