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Posts Tagged ‘self help’

When it comes to burning (or copying/writing) a downloadable audio book into CD, you must be sure that it isn’t for commercial purpose, but strictly for personal use. Violating this law can get you into serious copyright infringement problems.

Yes, the actual audio book content is still owned by the publisher an therefor it is still under copyright.

The only example of audio books that are not under copyright anymore is when the author or translator dies over seventy years ago. There are also some publications that are made by the government that are not under copyright.

But the rule of "only for personal use" is still ultimate when it comes to burning any downloadable audio book into CD or any such formats.

Even though it is for you own use, there are some publishers that will not allow you to burn your audio book to CD. Such audio book publishers will then choose to disable the ability to transfer the file onto a compact disk.

To be sure if your audio book publishers allow this, check it out before going ahead to buy it.

It would be terrible to buy a Audio book with the intention of burning it straight to CD but then finding that you are not permitted to do so.

Also, when it comes to burning audio books into CD, you might certainly need more than one CD for an audio book. For example, an audio book of about 10 hours can take you as many as 7 CDs to copy into, especially if you want to playback the CD with an MP3 player.

Saying that, These following instructions show you how to burn an audio book onto a compact disk

NOTE that the below instructions are based on Windows Media Player Version 10. If you have a previous version installed you can install the most up to date version from Microsoft's website. Here's the exact link - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download

First, the computer you want to use to burn the audio book into CD must be equipped with a recordable CD drive and CD-burning software.

In other words, it is this CD-burning software that can burn the audio book into the CD. And it is your CD drive that can be used for this purpose.

Second, play the audio book on Windows Media Player. Ensure that you choose "Full Mode" when doing this, not "Skin Mode".

Third, you will notice the "now playing" information displayed on the right-had side of your Windows Media Player. If it isn't displayed, you should click the "Restore the Video and Visualization Pane" button to display it.

Fourth, you can now click the "Library" tab. You will notice the “Start Burn” button displayed.

5th. You will now need to insert a blank CD into your PC.

6th. Now you need to Select 'Start Burn'. Now your PC will start to burn the CD with your audio book.

Lastly, Most audio books will be larger than one CD, if your's is, Windows Media Player will ask you to insert a new CD. You can take out the CD and replace it with a new one.

When the entire burning process is finished, it will display the status as "Complete".

An excellent source that I have found for audio book downloads is Spoken Network.

This is where you can get them:

www.spokennetwork.com?cam=ama0018

There’s no denying what a perfect combination audio book technology and the introduction of MP3 portable players have become.

You now have options of listening to your audio book, not just on cassette tape players, CD players, and your computer, but also on your MP3 player.

So, if you are like me and would greatly prefer the freedom of listening to your audio book on your MP3 player, rather than sitting at your Personal Computer, you can.

Below are the exact steps you need to take to make this possible.

NOTE- This guide is for Windows Media Player Version 10. If you currently have a previous version installed on your PC you can get the latest version from Microsoft's website.

Here's the exact link - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download

First, you need to put the audio book into the computer from where you want to copy it to your MP3 player. If you have the audio book on a Compact Disk you will first need to 'rip' the audio book to your PC.

Second, you need to plug in the USB cable to both the computer from which you want to copy the audio book and the MP3 player (all MP3 players come with this USB cable).

When you connect your MP3 player to your PC, your PC will show a message to say that it has found new hardware. If you are not indicated about this then there may be something wrong. Just disconnect the cable and then reconnect.

Third, open your Windows Media Player and open the audio book you want to copy. This will open the audio book in the main display area of Windows Media Player.

Forth, with the sync list open on your Windows Media Player, add your audio book file.

Fifth, now you should click on the Sync tab on the Windows Media Player. This will bring a pull-down arrow on the left-side box of the Sync tab. You need to make sure you choose the named "Removable Disk (E)" when you are choosing the location where your audio book is transferred to.

Sixth, you will see a display with an option to "start sync". Go ahead and click on this option. When you have done this, the Windows Media Player will indicate to you that it's sending the audio book into your MP3 player as "Removable Disk (E)".

Seventh, as soon as the sync (or copying) is complete, you can verify if it is in your MP3 player.

One last note, make sure you select the hardware icon (found in the system tray - near the clock) to ""safely remove hardware"". Be sure that you do not disconnect before you get the "it is now safe to remove the hardware" message. NOTE--not doing this before removing the USB cable can damage your computer and/or your MP3 player.

When all of this is done, you can then try to playback the audio book from your MP3 player. After you have gone through the above steps your audio books should appear on you MP3 player.

If however you are using an older version of Windows Media Player, you can still follow the exact steps above. The main difference will be that where it said 'Sync' it will will say 'copy'. You can click on it and follow the same steps above to have your audio book copied to your MP3 player.

A really good place that I came across to get all your favorite audiobooks is

Spoken Network. You can locate them at:

www.spokennetwork.com?cam=ama0017

It’s really amazing that you can get the exact value listening to an audio book while doing your normal chores as you would reading it.

Some experts have even said that we can absorb information better when we are actually not paying full attention to them.

But when did this audio book phenomenon really start? In other words, what is the past of audio books?

Audio books seem to be a brand new invention, right?

WRONG!

It is very easy to make the assumption that audio books are a recent invention because of the mention of CDs, downloadable digital formats, MP3s, PDAs and other technological jargons each time audio books are discussed. But audio books started way before now.

In order for us to know just how long audio books have existed, we first need to know what audio books actually are.

Forget about any other jargon you have heard, audio books are simply books that are recorded to be heard, instead of read.

Even so, recorded versions of books have existed for a very long time, far before now. To be completely specific, you could say that they have been around since for the last 50 years.

It could even be much longer, if you take into account the Library of Congress recordings especially made for the American Foundation for the Blind and distributed free throughout the U.S.

However, according to Robin Whitten, the editor and founder of the only magazine which is dedicated solely to the audio book industry – Audiofile–http://www.AudioFileMagazine.com, Caedmon (now a subsidiary of HarperCollins Publishers) can be credited to have started the recordings of literature as far as 50 years ago.

Going further, he said Caedmon was just a small company way back then in New York, which started recording the audio of great authors and poets of the 1950s. Specifically, he said one of the earliest recordings were by greats such as Dylan Thomas, T.S. Eliot, Fitzgerald and Robert Frost.

What happened then was that they were simply recorded while doing their own works and made as vinyl records.

But the early recording made here could be argued to be the very first collection of audio books ever made.

However, the transition of these book recordings into audiocassette tapes didn’t happen until the late 1970s up to the 1980s. From thence, it blossomed until audio books in audiocassette tapes came to be accepted by all and sundry.

For whatever reason however, the audio book phenomenon didn’t really kick off until the 1990s.

And with the transition from audiocassette technology into CDs, more people have become interested in audio books.

With the explosion of the world wide web and everything that comes with it, audio books have now gone from vinyl records, tapes and CDs into downloadable digital formats. These can be listened to in many different ways, on a desktop PC, laptop, MP3 player etc.

If you are still interested in “going back in time” you can get the original book recordings that started this audio book industry.

Impossible?

Not really.

Some of those early 1950s analog recordings by Caedmon which were performed by the greats of those days can be purchased today on the Internet.

For example, recently I was able to browse the Internet thoroughly and found the original recording of “The Lord of the Rings” as read by J.R.R. Tolken.

You can find that classic you have always dreamt of in audio book format if you search hard enough on the Internet.

An excellent source that I have found for audio book downloads is Spoken Network. You can find them at:

www.spokennetwork.com?cam=ama0016

Something really great about audio books is you have many options when it comes to listening to them.

For those of us who like to be given lots of options for doing certain things instead of being forced to adapt to just one choice, you definitely have lots of options for listening to your audio book.

If you find your self preferring sitting in your favorite chair, or sitting at your desk then cassette tape if the option for you.

But if you have a desktop or laptop computer, you might prefer listening to your audio book from it.

Most PCs have Digital Audio Players for playing audio books. If your PC doesn't have any (very unlikely), you can still download them completely free on the Internet. The 2 best digital audio players that you can get completely free to download from the Internet include:

- RealOne Player: This can be downloaded free of charger here; http://www.Real.com

- Windows Media Player: This is available for download free of charge on their website - http://www.Microsoft.com

But if you would rather listen to your audio book while doing your household chores, dancing, exercising, jogging, commuting to and fro work, etc, then you would need portable audio playback devices that you can carry around and listen to, preferably with an earphone.

With the ever expanding market of portable audio playback devices, it goes to show that more and more people are now using them, because of the wonderful benefits they provide.

The most common form of these portable audio playback devices are the normal audio CD players or CD-ROM devices. These can be carried easily when you go around the shops, go for a run or when you are on the way to work for example.

The more advanced form of these portable audio playback devices for playing audio books, especially those for listening to downloadable audio books, include:

— Audio-ready PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants). Some of these PDAs include Casio CASSIOPEIA and Compaq iPAQ. Both can be pretty expensive, costing as much as about $500 for the Compaq iPAQ and about $400 for the Casio CASSIOPEIA.

— Compatible Portable Audio Players. Some of these include the Creative’s NOMAD Jukebox 3 and the SONICblue’s Rio 900. These are cheaper than PDAs. For example, you can get the SONICblue's Rio 900 for about $250 from sites such as Sonicblue.com

Finally, like I said in the start of this article, whatever tool you decide to use in listening to your audio books will depend largely on “how” you prefer listening to your audio books.

For example, for the "young and restless" teenagers they can't do without the PDAs. I bet you wouldn't too if you were their age, right? But for the "aged and rusty" who just prefer the ease of being seated on their favorite couch, nothing can be better than listening to their favorite audio books from their "good old" cassette tape player!

An excellent source that I have found for audio book downloads is Spoken Network. You can get these at:

www.spokennetwork.com?cam=ama0017

Despite how great CDs are, many people still prefer audiocassettes to them, especially when it comes to listening to audio books.

Below are some of the reasons why:

1. Audio books in CD format can only contain a maximum of seventy five minutes of audio whereas audio tapes can hold an extra 15 minutes, sometimes even more, of audio content.

I agree you can have the entire audio book spread out in several CDs, but not many people like to carry around too many CDs.

So, while you might need just one or a few audiocassettes for a particular audio book, you will need many CDs for that same audio book.

Two, many don't like to spend extra to buy audio books in CDs when they can get the same audio book cheaper in audiocassettes.

For example, while purchasing the unabridged version of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" on twelve tapes has been found for only $31.96 on Barnes & Noble website, the CD format from  the same Barnes & Noble costs almost double that amount – exactly $55.96 for 17 sets of  CDs!

Of course, its not that they want to rip you off because it costs much more to produce CDs  than it does to produce audiocassettes.

Three, when you put off your CD player while listening to an audio book, you won't be able to resume from the particular spot you left off.
But when you have a tape, you can simply press play and you'll be where you left off.

With CDs it can be frustrating when driving because each time you put off your car, it would mean restarting the audio book or trying to locate where you stopped.

Of course there are modern and more advanced CD players that now save your location on a disk when you turn off your car, thereby allowing you to resume at the exact same spot you left off.

This won't work when you put off the car AND take out the CD.  But it will work with an audiocassette!

Four, because audio books are mainly just narration, many users don’t see why they should spend the extra money to buy CDs because of issues of recording quality when they can get the exact quality with audiocassettes.

Their argument is that if it was sound "quality" they wanted, they would go for audio books in CD formats, but sound quality is the same with audiocassettes and CDs when it comes to audio books.

In more concise terms, a persons voice doesn't have much to gain from a greater sound quality (as there is no drumming or music to compete with) on CD format!

A really great place to find audio books is Spoken Network. You can find them at:

www.spokennetwork.com?cam=ama0014

Old habits die hard, they say.  How right they are.

I am a novel freak and have been since the 4th grade when I read an amazing novel that started me down the road of reading.

I continued this craze for reading right into college and even early in my career. Nothing stopped this craze, not even when I got married and had my first child.

But as you would expect, as I climb higher in my career and the kids increase from 1 to 3, I am beginning to have less time to spend doing what I loved so much--reading novels.

Being a die-hard at anything I do, I continued to read novels, albeit, sadly, I took 3 months
to get through only one book, not the three hours I used to spend reading when I had more free time.

I'd go through maybe one chapter now and then put it away. Read another chapter in 2 weeks time when I had free time on my hands.  Read another chapter in another 2 or 3 weeks.  And so on, until I would finish just one novel.

I didn't like this and knew there had to be a better way of STILL getting the value of a novel in the same 3 hours it used to take me, instead of the 3 months it now takes me to finish just one novel.

I was trying to think of a way out.

Thankfully, I found a way out…

In audio books!

I pick the novel I want to buy and I receive it as an audio book. It contains all the same content, just as spoken word!

Now I don't have the limitations I used to have with "reading" my favorite novels.

I listen to my novel in audio book format when getting ready in the morning, getting dressed and working out. When I'm travelling to my office, I pick up from where I last stopped.  During break at work, I also listen. And before driving back home from work, I complete the remaining part of the novel.

Total time spent--about 3 hours for each novel.

Phew… how I love audio books for saving me so much time, yet still getting the same value!

If you haven't seen for yourself how awesome the advanatges of audio books are yet, don't hesitate.

Apart from novels you can get almost any kind of book in audio book format.  You can now find business audio books, professional audio books, motivational audio books, etc.

Go on the internet and find the book you've never had the time to read but always wanted to do so. It's easy… using audio books!

Just go to your favorite search engine, like Google, and search for 'the title of the book + audio book'.You are given the result of web sites where you are able to purchase the title of your choice in audio book format.

Yeh, it's now a breeze to get your hands on your favorite book in audio book format!

An excellent source that I have found for audio book downloads is Spoken Network. You can find them at:

www.spokennetwork.com?cam=ama0012

Spiritual Growth Meditation

To grow spiritually is to take a closer look within yourself toward your inner soul.

For us as human beings and to grow spiritually in a world defined by power, money, and outer influence is surely a Herculean task. Modern conveniences such as electronic equipments, cell phones, and tools as well as entertainment through dvd players, magazines, and the internet have predisposed us to direct our attention mostly to our physical needs and wants. As a result, our ways of seeing our self-worth and self-meaning are scattered. How can we strike a equalize between the spiritual and material aspects of our busy lives?

Challenges

Many different cross roads will come our way as we take this journey through this life. There are some roads that lead to a life of single blessedness, marriage, and spiritual vocation. Some of these pathways could ultimately bring us happiness,fame and fortune on one hand, or hopelessness, isolation and poverty on the other. Some of these pathways lead to brilliant happiness as there are roads to deep sadness, roads towards sweet victory and exultation, and roads that will ultimately lead to failure and dissatisfaction.

Examine

When we look deep within ourselves we should go beyond the recollecting of recent events thattook place in a day, week, or month. You will need to look closer and reflect upon your inner thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and motivations. Take time out to examine your experiences, the decisions you can make, the relationships you are working on, and the things you take part in provide useful insights on your life goals, try to focus on the good traits you must sustain and the negative traits you have to discard.

A good mental and spiritual cleansing is absolutely necessary for the soul.Moreover, it gives you clues on how to act, react, and conduct yourself in the midst of any situation. Like any skill, introspection can be learned; all it takes is the willingness and courage to seek the truths that lie within you. Here are some pointers when you introspect: be objective, learn to forgive yourself, and focus on the areas of needed improvement.

Growth

To grow spiritually in within,is to develop your capabilities.
Each and every time that you exert effort to improving the quality of your life and your being, be it to cleaning up your house, extending your hand and helping a friend, to fail on school exams and brushing yourself off and trying again, maybe you have offered in the taking care of your Familys sick cat,life has a way of giving you karma points for that.
Religion and science have alternate takes on these unknown matters of the human spirit. Religion views people as spiritual beings temporarily living on Earth, while science views the spirit as just one dimension of an individual. Mastery of the self is a recurring theme in both Christian (Western) and Islamic (Eastern) teachings.

Beliefs

The needs of the human body are recognized but placed under the needs of the spirit. Beliefs, values, morality, rules, experiences, and good works provide the blueprint to ensure the growth of the spiritual being. Psychology notes that the realizing of one’s potential is called self-actualization. The psychologist Maslow identified several human needs: physiological, security, acceptance, esteem, cognitive, aesthetic, self-actualization, and self-transcendence.

Needs

Material,emotional,ans spiritual are three aspects that James earlier categorized. It seems that it is human nature that when you have satisfied the basic physiological and emotional needs, spiritual or existential needs will follow. Achieving each need brings you to the total development of the individual. Perhaps the biggestdifference between these two religions and psychology is the end of self-development: Islam and Christianity will believe that self-development is a means toward serving God, while modern psychology views that self-development is an end to the means unto itself.

To grow spiritually is to seek for a deeper meaning

Religions that believe in the existence of God such as Christianism, Judaism, and Islam suppose that the purpose of theirour existence is to serve the Creator of all things. There are several theories in psychology that propose we passionately give purpose to our existence. Whether or not we believe that life’s meaning is pre-determined or self-directed, to grow in spirit is to realize that we do not merely exist. We do not know the meaning of our lives at birth; but we gain this wisdom and knowledge from our interactions with people and from our actions and reactions to the situations we are in. As we uncover this sense of purpose, there are certain beliefs and values that we reject and accept.  Our lives have purpose. This purpose puts all our physical, emotional, and intellectual potentials into use; sustains us during trying times; and gives us something to look forward to—a goal to achieve, a destination to reach. A person without purpose or meaning is like a floundering ship at sea.

Religions stress the concept of our relatedness to all of life, be it animate or and inanimate. Thus we call upon others as our “brothers and sisters” even if there are no direct blood relations. Moreover, deity-centered religions such as Christianity and Islam speak of the relationship between humans and a higher being. On the other hand, science expounds on our link to other living things through the evolution theory.

Connection

This relatedness is very clear in the concept of ecology, the interaction between living and non-living things. In psychology, connectedness is a characteristic of self-transcendence, the upper most human need according to Maslow. Recognizing your connection to all things makes you more humble and respectful of people, animals, plants, and things in the world. It makes you appreciate everything around you. It moves you to go beyond your comfort zone and reach out to other people, and become care-takers of all the things around you.

Growth

Growth is never ending, thus to grow in your soul is a day-to-day activity. The important thing is that we learn, and from this knowledge, further spiritual growth is forever within our reach.

If your growth stops then you are dead.Never stop the learning of your soul. Learning is life.It is the bread and butter of our life and our earthly existence.

No doubt about it.

I am very enthusiastic about books.

I love books and have been reading since I was a little baby. My parents made sure they instilled the love of books in me. Unlike my other mates throughout school who always had problems reading, I never had such problems.

Reading was fun to me. I didn’t even do it to get good grades at school, I did it because I loved it.

My devotion to books has continued into my life as a grown-up.

Just one example of how significant my love of books is – I even met my wife in the library.

It became a little more difficult finding the time after we had kids, but I absolutely love to pick up a good book. I love books so much, and it’s great to see that my children are starting to feel the same.

I used to make it a habit to read to my kids EVERY night before they go to bed, no matter how tired I am when I get home from my job.

At this point in my life, I had never realised that audio books were available to anyone and everyone – I never even knew that you could download audio books directly on the Internet.

I never expected it to, but my long hours at work meant that I would always get sleepy while reading to the children at bedtime. In many occasions I have even fallen asleep before my kids right whilst I’m reading to them!

There was just no way that I could continue reading to my children every night… unless I found another job that would take up less of my time (but still pay me good wage at the same time – impossible to find such a job, right?)

At that same time that I was thinking of that, I was promoted in my job. Unfortunately, this resulted in longer hours at work – a full hour before everyone else started, and another full hour after everyone else had gone home.

Sheesh, that’s an hour every morning reading motivational and inspirational chapters and an hour spent reading to my children after I get home from the office – all down the drain.

I was in a great dilemma about what to do. I didn’t give up reading my children’s bedtime story, even though my wife suggested that she take over.

I was still battling for a way out when I discovered audio books on a website I stumbled upon! The website I found was called Spoken Network. www.spokennetwork.com?cam=ama0005

Eureka… the savior had arrived.

After just six short weeks, my predicament is no more.

You may have read another article I wrote recently, about how hectic my life was before I found audio books. My life has changed so much since then, that I really wanted to tell you more.

Not only have I gained back the 2 hours taken by my job, I have added many more hours to my life because of audio books.

How?

First of all, I now manage to get an amazing two hours of reading every morning before I to the office.

It usually takes me around an hour to prepare for work, but this is a pleasure now because I can listen to an audio book at the same time.

During the 1 hour or so it takes me to commute to and from work, I listen to an audio book.

I even manage to squeeze in a chapter or two of an audio book during my lunch and break times.

Total time gained with audio books is 3 incredibly educative hours in the mornings and afternoons.

I can still work hard in my job, while continuing to enjoy listening to books.

Secondly, instead of spending the 1 hour reading to my kids each night when I get home tired, I play an audio book for them instead. It was a bit of a shock to learn that they prefer listening to an audio book than to Dad.

I think I heard my daughter mumbling about how the voice from the audio book is “more awake than dad’s”. It just goes to show how tired I can get on some nights while trying to read a bedtime story to my children.

Now… aren’t audio books wonderful?

If you have had similar problems to me, you can gain back your time by taking advantage of the amazing value of audio books – especially audio book downloads – these are fantastic value.

Many, many best-sellers are now available as an audio book, and they really do make it far more interesting.

To get started, go online and search for the audio book version of that book you have been dying to read. A great site that I found is Spoken Network,  http://www.spokennetwork.com?cam=ama0006

I found that even books your wife and kids love reading are now available in an audio book format. There’s such a huge selection. If they are, they will be a great time saver for you.

I didn’t believe it the first time I heard a friend of mine say -

“I benefit from the reading of 50 books each year… without reading a single word”.

Knowing how demanding her time was because of her top position in her job and because she is a single mom, I was certain she was lying and I told her so.

Smiling, she insisted that it was the truth. I would have gladly continued our argument, but then she told me that she didn’t actually ‘read’ them at all, but someone read them to her and she just sat back and listened… in time she had spare.

Not giving me any opportunity to argue, she went ahead and played an audio book on her CD player for my perusal.

She explained that this was how she had almost any book she wanted read to her as audiobooks while she prepared for work in the morning, while she prepared her daughter for school, while she did her exercises each day, while she commuted to and from work and any free time she had on hands that didn’t involve using her mind.

I was surprised, to say the least, that I could have been doing the same thing in my spare time, instead of just commuting to and from work doing nothing.

You see, my work is one that requires a lot of my time involvement. I’ve set off to the office at around 6.30am and then spend nearly two hours commuting. Then, when I get to work, I don’t get a spare minute until I leave for the night.

From what this friend of mine explained to me, I knew I had to give audio books a try.

I did and was very impressed.

Now, I can proudly say I also benefit from the ‘reading’ of up to 50 books each year.

Still don’t think it’s possible?

Fine, let’s do the math:

For an audio book that takes 4 hours, you can have it read to you in just two days – 1 hour each day while preparing for work in the morning and 1 hour each day while commuting to and from work. That’s just 4 hours in just 2 days.

So, if it takes you 2 days to have one audio book read to you, that will be 365 days in a year divided by 2. That will equal about 133 books each year!

That’s over double the original 50 audio books we were targeting, right?

Audiobooks are indeed the secret formula that many people use to get the value from the best books they want to read. Audio books, take away the drudgery of reading and make acquiring new knowledge and skills so much more enjoyable.

For the bookworms back in college that want to continue reading but can’t afford the time anymore, you now have a solution in audio books.

Whether you want to use your PC to download audio books, cassette tape player, CD or even any PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), it is now possible and within your reach for peanuts.

One excellent source that I have found for MP3 audio books is Spoken Network. You can find them at:

www.spokennetwork.com?cam=ama0003