MP3s and iTunes are the things that make the soundtracks of our lives portable. But what are they really? I promise not to drown you in a sea of technical jargon.

What is an MP3?
Did you know there is stuff – noises like music, voices, beeps and bangs that we don’t even hear?

An MP3,(MPEG-2 Layer 3) designed and developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group, is noise, or for our purpose, music, made smaller (compressed).

You won’t even notice. See, the sounds compressed are inaudible to the human ear in the first place. After the compression, you are left with a smaller file that takes less room. And the best part is that our ears hear the original quality.

When things are smaller they are easier to send places and keep for data storage. That is the magic of MP3s. They are small enough to send and download over the web and you can keep a fairly large collection of them in once place – like a computer or MP3 player.

My Take on MP3s
It’s like red licorice to me. I downloaded a couple of MP3s and found myself addicted. I have two players and several services that I use to download and buy new music.

Wait a minute! Isn’t my goal to download my entire CD collection? Well, one step at a time.

What is and isn't an iTune?
iTunes is not a digital file. It’s a player designed by Apple Computer to play and organize digital music files as well as video files. A short sweet definition would be: iTunes is an Apple media player.

There is an iTunes’ store where you can purchase media files and the iTunes’ library where you can catalog and organize your files on your computer. Some other points to note is that files from the iTunes store can be played on a Windows based computer. Also, and this is big, iTunes is a legal pay-to-own download service.

My Take on iTunes
To quote Will Smith, “I have got to get me one of these!” On my wish list – my birthday wish list – is a green Shuffle. I thought I would start small. I love those little metallic type colored squares. I read that you can hold up to 240 songs on this square that will go anywhere – (your shirt, pocket, belt, purse . . .) and each time you turn it on your music is “shuffled” around. It’s like a new play list of your favorite songs every time you listen. You can also play your songs in order.

My Mission
I’m working hard to crack the code of downloads, MP3s, iTunes, players, pod casts, web radio, ear buds, headphones, speakers . . . you get the idea.

I will be updating you on this site through weekly newsletters, and the forum is always open for your comments, suggestions and questions.

Have a great week!
Chel