Sunday, March 6, 2005

Internet Radio

I enjoy listening to the radio via my PC. There are many interesting programs on when I'm not around to listen and I've wondered for a while about recording them. Looked through the MS Windows Accessories and there doesn't appear to be any software for recording, except via the microphone. Went to good ol' Google and found the answer in a nanosecond, downloaded Total Recorder from www.highcriteria.com and voila I have the software.
It's very simple to use, had to set-up a recording profile which was probably the hardest bit. Once that was done tried recording but nothing doing. It turned out that as I use Windows Media to listen to radio I needed to download some extra software, did that and I was up and running. I then recorded a 2 hour radio program. Replayed it the next day and it was superb. There are also options in the software to convert the sound files to the format needed for burning to CD etc. This is a great little piece of software that will provide me lots of extra listening pleasure.

Tuesday, March 1, 2005

Tuesdays with Morrie

This book should be compulsory reading for everybody. I first heard about "Tuesdays with Morrie" by Mitch Albom on ABC radio. Morrie was one of Mitch Albom's University lecturers. About 20 years after Mitch left Uni, Morrie appeared on TV after being diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease, which Mitch happened to see. Mitch then started visiting Morrie regularly and wrote about their discussions until Morrie died of the disease. Mitch & Morrie talked about all the big questions in life, ie love, marriage, children, death etc. It is so simply and touchingly written, I was reduced to tears. I found it to be a very "grounding" book that reminded me of what the really important things in life are.