I was awfully excited when I discovered that my local library has an online area where you can download entire audiobooks in a single file, including a whole lot of Elizabeth Peters’ books that the library doesn’t have in CD book format (I love listening to those books being read aloud). “Hoorah!” I shouted, and proceeded to download one, only to run into difficulties. Firstly, the file had protection on it so that you couldn’t rip it onto a CD, or transfer it from one device to another. For some reason, our computer at home doesn’t recognise my mp3 player, so I needed to be able to transfer the file to my work computer. Secondly, the book was one 15 hour file, which would just be impossible to listen to as I don’t have a bookmarking facility on my player.
I knuckled down and spent a few hours researching and downloading programs trying to de-protect the file so I could transfer it between computers and then to a device, and chop it into smaller chapters. I eventually settled on Tunebites to remove the protection on the file (this involves re-recording it, and took about 5 hours), and MP3 Splitter to chop the resulting file into 6 minute chunks. Finally, I was able to put the book on my player and listen to it. It’s a little echoey, but it doesn’t matter so much for an audio book. So the net library does have some potential, although I’d have to invest a bit of time in each book. I think it’s worth it for the Elizabeth Peters novels though.
***
I received an unintentionally hilarious email from The Doctor today, which ran through some news about her work, and then announced prosaically, “Also, I am getting married.” Of course, it wouldn’t be like The Doctor to announce such news in anything but a calmly matter-of-fact way, but it still made me laugh. She went on to say she supposed she ought to describe her future husband, and did so by saying that he had a full head of hair.
I replied with many capital letters and exclamation marks and lots of questions (mostly wanting to know about details beyond the full head of hair). However, knowing her I won’t get any more news for a month or so, and that may be something along the lines of “Also, I have adopted seven children and joined the circus. How have you been?”
5 Comments
19 January, 2008 at 6:27 am
The Doctor sounds eerily similar to a very good friend of mine, who somehow thinks she will be taken less seriously as a professional if she responds to ANYTHING like a woman. Even the gooey, “I’m getting married!” stuff. It makes me insane.
I think I may send her an email very soon full of mundanities and end it with your last line up there just to see if she catches the irony.
P.S. If I haven’t mentioned it before, I love the clean lines of this new look. And I’ve actually now changed my bookmark to come straight here instead of routing through your old site, because I’m quick on the draw like that.
19 January, 2008 at 9:04 am
Aww, the Doctor doesn’t annoy me. She’s just not to sort to be really emotional about events in her life in an email
In addition, this is an arranged marriage, so while it’s something she’s been wanting for a very long time, it’s not really a situation where she’s going to be gushing about her future husband yet - I probably should have made that clearer!
19 January, 2008 at 9:05 am
Oh, and thanks! Regarding the new look, that is - I’m finding it much easier to use
22 January, 2008 at 1:49 am
Your site looks beautiful! And I’m in awe of you for figuring out how to make the mp3 player work the way you needed it to. Five hours is NOTHING when it comes to trying to get technology on our side.
Loved the story about The Doctor. I have a friend like that, too. It’s remarkable, isn’t it, how laid-back they can be? Thanks for telling that story.
23 January, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Thanks Sandi - I was rather proud of my technological solution!
Leave a Reply