Apple recently announced lower prices on DRM-free (iTunes Plus) tracks. In addition, they have the “largest” such on-line library in the world. Could be true but in my little test, Amazon is still better with their MP3 tracks. Amazon tracks are 89 cents compared to iTunes 99 cents. On a single download it may not be much but on 1,000 tracks its $100 bucks! Enough for another 112 tracks. I decided to check if the two albums I purchased a couple of weeks ago were available on iTunes.

Cat Stevens Greatest Hits is available on iTunes but not in DRM-free format. The bigger surprise, however, is that Greatest Hits: 30 Years Of Rock is available from Amazon as an MP3 download for $8.99 and from iTunes for $12.99. I think I’ll stick with Amazon.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could buy any song you wanted, from any source and play it on any device.  As previously mentioned, I’m a big iPod fan but not iTunes.  I buy my music in MP3 format from Amazon.  A recent article in BusinessWeek mentioned that Universal and several other major music distributors may be pulling the plug on iTunes.  Seems they want a bigger piece of the action.  Surprise, surprise.

I’m not a big fan of the recording industry as a whole.  However, it appears that Universal is at least going to “test” selling DRM-free MP3s.  See quote below:

In August, Morris announced a five-month test with Wal-Mart, Google, and Best Buy. The three companies will sell music downloads that can be played on any device–a freedom not available to buyers of iTunes songs, most of which play only on Apple devices and software. Morris wants to see if the downloads, which won’t have copy protection, will help cut into piracy and hike sales.

So…give it a shot.  Buy a few MP3s instead of iTunes downloads.  Let’s do our part to show the industry there will be less piracy if it is easy to buy music that can be played on any device.

I listen to a lot ton of audio books. Most I listen to from start to finish. Some I give 15-30 minutes then turn them off. I probably buy 20% of the books that I “read” with my ears. My preferred source is Amazon.com since I can often buy used Audiobooks for less than an Audible.com download.  Plus, when I’m finished I can donate the audio book to my library for others to enjoy. (Click here to search Amazon’s audio book selection.) I only use Audible when I absolutely must have a book now! Personally, I’m not crazy about the quality of the download (probably because I listen at high speed.)  So where do I get free audio books?

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I had lunch the other day with a fellow audiobook enthusiast. I mentioned that I listen to everything at high speed. It took a little getting used to but eventually I learned I absorbed more content. Similar, I suppose, to speedreading. Your brain can process incoming information much faster than the typical spoken word so it is constantly waiting for you eyes or ears to catch up! In fact, the other day I started a new book while driving to work - The Personality Code. (Yes, the audio version.) I was having difficulty following the dialog until I noticed my iPod was set to normal speed. Changed it to fast and I was back on track! To learn how to make your podcasts and mp3 audiobooks play faster on the iPod, see the rest of this article.

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It’s back! My favorite podcast aggregator is back online and is in the process of moving to open source. This just made my day. The dopplerradio.net site hadn’t been updated since March 2007 so I was beginning to worry. Doppler is the only aggregator that I’ve found that can do nearly everything I want in a podcasting program. Such as automagically…
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If you’ve ever tried to rip an audiobook in iTunes, you know it is a hit or miss event. Even when CDs are part of a set, iTunes tends to inconsistently name tracks. In order to combine tracks, you must manually join CD tracks before each rip. Plus there’s no easy way to combine tracks from multiple CDs. Markable from iPodSoft.com is a simple $15 solution to this problem.

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Today, I bought my first digital download music! I’ve had my iPod for about 18 months now. My entire CD collection has been ripped to MP3 (about 10,000 tracks.) I chose MP3 for the greatest flexibility. For instance, I use Audio Faucet to stream music from my PC to my TiVo. Protected AAC or WMA files are not an option. Today I discovered Amazon.com’s MP3 Downloads and so far, I love it.

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