MP3 Player

We spent the day purchasing a MP3 Flash player. First studying the available players at Wal Mart, and then on their web site.

Since I wanted to get the thing and learn how to make it go today, I needed to select one that they had in stock here in Olathe. That Wal Mart is about a mile away, and it didn't make to much sense to chase around town looking for just the one, when they are much the same.

I settled on a 2 Gb Phillips that had a small screen, and a FM radio. Seemed like that was about the right mix of funds laid out verses features acquired.

Once I got it home, I had to learn the things that all 14 year olds all ready know, the difference between the various files. The player wouldn't play .wav files that are on the CD's but would play .mp3 and .wmv files. I messed with microsoft's media player, and never did get it to read a file and rewrite in an acceptable format.

So a Google search, for a conversion program led me to some that cost money, and a free one called Switch Sound File converter. This allowed me to rip the songs from the CD to my hard drive while converting them directly to mp3's. Cool.

The player shows up just like a thumb drive on the "my computer" screen, and a simple drag and drop moved the songs to the player. It works like a dream.

So even though it is my birthday, Loyce got the present today of the MP3 player with several disks worth of "her" music on it. She was upstairs messing with it this evening, and declared that it was a good thing. The FM radio works well also.

Messing with computer stuff causes the day to disappear in rapid fashion. So I nothing else was accomplished here that is of merit.

Perhaps tomorrow will be more productive.

Retired Rod