From Cassette to MP3

Yesterday we continued our emptying of boxes and consolidating of items from those boxes. I found a couple of books I knew I had but didn't know where they were and even the power charger for my PDA which I haven't used in 9 months. Amazing !

Dee went to work and I tried to figure out how to convert audio cassettes to MP3 and WAV files on the computer. We have a Christmas Barbershop tape of songs we sing, but few people have cassette tapes in their cars any more. I found a great website that had a free trial download of software that makes the conversion. Here's the URL: http://www.polderbits.com/recorder_uk.htm

The site has pictures of how to hook up your cassette player with your computer. I had the right cable for mine (It had a 1/8 jack on each end). I used the cable that I use to connect the ipod with the car radio, and it worked just great. I tried it and IT WORKED ! I made several discs that had all the songs on one track. Now I'm going to try and make separate tracks for each song, and then put them all on a CD so that people can select a song and play it back over and over if the want to. The software program costs about $35 so I don't know if I'll purchase it or just use it for the fourteen day free trial. So cool.

I went to Rotary for lunch. The meeting was held at Pine Richland Upper Elementary School. A state-of-the-art new school. It had Promethean boards (smart boards) in every classroom. The school was configured with 4 classrooms into communities and neighborhoods, with fourth, fifth and sixth grades together in a neighborhood. And they had a common collaborative area and 24 laptop computers for each neighborhood. There were trees growing inside the hallways and even an auditorium with theater seats. The seats could be rolled back (like the old bleachers of long ago)and the floor space used for other kinds of events. Every classroom had an overhead LCD projector etc. The whole place was one big WOW!

After lunch I stopped to see Dee at work to say hi, and then headed home to complete my chores. After dinner, Dee and I sat on the deck and just enjoyed the stars, our new rope lights and relaxing conversation. As it got chilly, we come inside and watched some of our favorite television programs that had been prerecorded to suit our schedule.