Note: This site is currently "Under construction". I'm migrating to a new version of my site building software. Lots of things are in a state of disrepair as a result (for example, footnote links aren't working). It's all part of the process of building in public. Most things should still be readable though.

Hacking audio books

I'm on yet another trip. This time by car to North Alabama to visit the mom. Before I left I went to the library to see what books on cd were available and found "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown, which I haven't read yet. Back in October, CJ loaned me a copy of Digital Fortress (also by Dan Brown) which I actually managed to find time to read. Even though there were a few pretty big flaws in its logic, I enjoyed the book and decided listening to the Da Vinci Code would be a nice way to spend the 20 hours or so of road time I would cover round trip. The library CDs have seen a fair amount of use and a few are quite scratched up. I managed to get through most of them without missing but a few minutes collectively across the first seven disks. The eighth CD however was a different story. It simply would not play past the first couple of minutes. Luckily, I hit this CD shortly before I arrived so I simply spent the last little bit of the outbound trip listening to the radio instead. Since the CD player I put in my car also plays MP3 CDs I figured I'd try to rip the rest of the thirteen CDs to MP3s for the return trip. One of the CD rippers I have (CDex has some ability to do "Jitter correction" and also power through scratches. While there are a few little blank outs in the mp3 they are much more minimal than what was occurring while I was trying to listen to the original CDs. Not the easiest way to go about things, but it's effective. I plan on putting the MP3 CD in with the rest of them when I return it to the library. Maybe someone else can benefit from the little hack as well.