Moving more analog to digital:

Since this is TheDigitalLife I have to share a digital moment that I am having right now. My wife recently discovered the joy of MP3 files as I bought her a Sony MP3 Walkman (without the need of the Sony ATRAC format, finally!). She is learning more and more about the possibilities of file compression and the joys of the digital format. This morning she asked if I could rip four language CD’s (she weird like that) and make them one MP3 so that she can listen and learn while doing house chores, or on a long drive (like the insane 48 hour round trip that we are about to take down south). “Sure , not a problem!” A couple of hours they were dully ripped and she is amazed at my techno-wizardry.

Oh, if it had only stopped there. I would have been the grand wizard of the digital domain and been content with my abilities. But then she dropped the challenge: can I take her audio cassettes and make them into MP3s? “Sure , no problem”. My heart quickened and my breathing became shallow. I knew of people who had done this, but could I pull it off? I have never really dabbled in the conversion of something analog into something digital, except to scan pictures. I have been wanting to take my video cassettes and make DVDs, and copy some of my old cassettes into CDs for a while, but just hadn’t done it.

Well I took a trip to Wal-Mart and bought a 6 foot male-male cable with audio mini connectors (the in technology section gave me a strange look when I asked for this and just said that I needed to go to Radio Shack. They had it, she just was clueless). Then I hooked up the boom box to the computer (through the microphone jack). I had to download a program to record long WAV files (Windows maxes out at 60 seconds) and then something to convert the WAV to MP3. It works, I regain the title of techno-wizard as I do my magic. I breath again as she starts to stack old Bible studies on tape on my computer desk and smiles.