Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Mac Daniel's Advice

MP3 and the Mac, Part 1

Korin Hasegawa-John - 2002.05.14

Now that Napster is dead and the RIAA is attempting to put tighter controls on CD use, you might wonder "Is the 'revolutionary' MP3 audio compression scheme dead?" Not by a long shot. (Alternatively, you might wonder "What in the world is MP3, and why is/was it revolutionary?" - read on.)

MP3, for those who have been living in a fallout shelter since about 1998 or have been obsessively avoiding the news since then (or just those not interested in music and CD burning and everything else) is a compression format. It can compress a CD quality song into about 1/8 to 1/10 of its original size without very much loss in quality. Basically, this means that you can store 8 times more data in the same place. A 70 minute CD holds about 650 MB, whereas in MP3 format it would be equivalent to 65-80 MB depending on quality.

Now back onto the main track.

Unlike Napster, MP3s are alive and well. Their use has changed slightly, however. Now MP3s on the Mac side of things are primarily used for storing a person's CD collection on their Mac. They are also used for creating custom CD mixes. The most popular MP3 player and encoder on the Mac is iTunes, which is available free from Apple. iTunes allows you to burn custom CDs from your MP3 collection using a CD burner. A third use of MP3s is to carry large amounts of music on the move with an MP3 player, such as the iPod or Creative's Nomad series.

MP3 files can still be downloaded over the Internet using software such as Mactella, Furi, or LimeWire. All of these clients use Gnutella, which is a peer-to-peer file sharing service. Peer-to-peer means that there is no central database of files, making this type of service much harder to shut down. Napster functioned with a central database, so when this database was shut down, the service was rendered useless. A downside of peer-to-peer is that finding files is much slower. There was a recent Mac Daniel article on these clients, What Is Gnutella?, so I won't address this.

Once a group of songs is encoded to MP3 (called "ripping"), a CD can be burned with it. iTunes is the easiest software for this. To make a new CD, just create a new playlist and drag the songs you want to the list. The playlist should not exceed 60-70 minutes, depending on the capacity of the CD-Rs (called "blanks"). Your blanks should be labeled with their playing time.

A note about burning and blanks: If you're buying new blank CDs, name-brand CDs work the best and most consistently. They tend to be more expensive, but in the long run they are more cost effective because fewer are wasted. Recommended brands include Memorex (my personal favorite), Sony, and Maxell. Blank CDs are compatible with different speeds. In general this isn't a big deal, but if you have a 24x burner and try to use 12x compatible CDs, they'll be toast unless you burn at the lower speed. You can change the speed at which your burner will burn CDs. In general, set this to the fastest possible speed, but never go beyond the top speed of your blanks.

Once you have assembled your playlist, pop a blank in your drive and just hit the "burn CD" button in the upper right corner. (You have to hit it twice, a safety feature.) After a while, depending on your Mac's speed, the number of songs, and burner speed (in general, 8-35 minutes, since the computer must decode the information before writing it to the CD). Your CD will be ejected as soon as it is finished, and before doing anything at all, grab a Sharpie and write something informative on the CD - not just "Mix" or "Mix 1," but something like "Mix 1" and then "incl. Blink 182, Counting Crows, Simon and Garfunkel, and The Beatles," for example. I have a lot of discs that I have no idea what is on them, so it's a good idea to start out labeling.

After you've diligently labeled your new CD, it's time to test it. If all goes well, when you press "Play" it'll work, and you'll be rocking (or swinging, or funking, or whatever) to your own custom CD. Have fun, but keep it down so the cops don't come. ;-)

Next time: MP3 players, the Mac and MP3s.

Not sure if you should upgrade your old Mac or replace it? Check the Mac Daniel index to see if we've already addressed your problem.

Recent Mac Daniel columns

WiFi Hardware Compatible with Desktop Macs Running OS X, MetaPhyzx, 03.11. USB, ethernet, PCI, and other wireless hardware compatible with Mac OS X.
WiFi CardBus Adapters Compatible with PowerBooks, MetaPhyzx, 03.11. CardBus hardware and drivers compatible with PowerBooks running Mac OS X.
WiFi PC Cards Compatible with PowerBooks Running OS X, MetaPhyzx, 03.11. PCMCIA/PC Card hardware and drivers compatible with PowerBooks running Mac OS X.
WiFi PC Cards for PowerBooks Running Mac OS 9, MetaPhyzx, 03.10. PCMCIA cards and drivers reported to be compatible with PowerBook running the Classic Mac OS.
More in the Mac Daniel index.

Links for the Day

Mac of the Day: iMac Core Duo, Jan. 2006 - The first Intel-based iMacs ran at 1.83-2.0 GHz, came with 17" and 20" displays.
Group of the Day: Mac Pro List is for those using a Mac Pro.
November 23 in LEM history: 99: Should I buy a USB card? - 01: Can a low-end Mac be an only Mac? - Palm Desktop without a PDA - CyberDog saves the day - 05: How Consumer Reports could compare Macs fairly - Speakers for your Mac - Living with the hi-res 15" PowerBook - Birth of the PowerBook - Daystar 1.9 GHz iMac G4 upgrade - 1.92 GHz PowerBook upgrade
Support Low End Mac

Recent Deals

Best eMac Deals, 11.18. Used 1 GHz Combo, $100; SuperDrive, $269; 1.25 GHz Combo, $119; SD, $319; 1.42 GHz Combo, $289; SD, $498.
Best Mac OS X 10.6 and Mac Box Set Deals, 11.18. "Snow Leopard", single user, $25; 5 users, $45; Mac Box Set, single user, $139; 5 users, $180; Server, $414. Shipping included.
Best Xserve Deals, 11.18. Used 1 GHz dual G4, $649; 2.3 dual G5, $795; 3.0 4-core Xeon, $1,899; refurb 2.26 4-core, $2,499; new, $2,888; refurb 8-core, $2,999; new, $3,449; more.
Best 15" MacBook Pro Deals, 11.17. Used 1.83 GHz, $750; 2.16, $800; 2.33, $900; refurb 2.4, $1,299; 2.53, $1,449; 2.66, $1,699; 2.8, $1,899; new 2.53, $1,579; 2.66, $1,799; more.
Best Power Mac G4 and AGP Video Card Deals, 11.17. Used 400 MHz, $50; 933 MHz, $80; 500 dual, $60; 867 dual, $90; 1 GHz dual, $150; 1.25 GHz dual, $225; 1.42 GHz, $499.
Best Mac OS X 10.5 Deals, 11.17. "Leopard" upgrade, $80; single user license, $135; 5 users, $173; Mac Box Set, 5 users, $230; Server, 10 users, $340; unlimited, $850. Shipping included.
Best Mac mini Deals, 11.16. Used 1.42 GHz G4 mini, $379; 1.66 GHz Core Solo, $419; 2.0 Core 2, $450; new 2.26 GHz nVidia, $580; 2.53 GHz, $769; Server, $990.
Best iBook G4 Deals, 11.16. Used 12" 1.07 GHz Combo, $210; 1.33 GHz, $298; 14" 1.33 GHz, $398; 1.42 GHz, $479; SuperDrive, $498.
Best iPod shuffle Deals, 11.16. Used 1 GB, $35; 4 GB, $65; refurb 1 GB, $39; 2 GB, $59; new 2 GB, $55, 4 GB, $75. New and refurb prices include shipping.
More deals in our archive.

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.