<decloak>
Jeroen said:
> Dragging CD's along isn't practical; first because it would add to the
> weight I have to carry around, second because playing CD's on a laptop is
> about the fastest way to drain the batteries. The solution: MP3 files.
Actually, if you're concerned with both being FREE and NOT illegal,
you might want to check out using the Ogg Vorbis sound compression
software. Chances are, any mp3 compression program you can get for
free that offers near-CD compression quality is going to be illegal
because whoever made it probably isn't giving Fraunhofer-IIS money.
Ogg Vorbis creates sound files of comparable size and sound quality
of high-quality mp3 files, but you don't have to give anyone money
to use it. It's currently in a beta format, but from what I've
used, it works very well.
Homepage:
http://www.vorbis.com/
Downloads:
http://www.vorbis.com/download.html
For playing Ogg Vorbis files, I'd recommend (for Windoze) using
Winamp, which is the same program I'd recommend for Mp3s. You can
get a Winamp plugin from the Vorbis download page that allows it
to play .ogg files.
This won't help you rip audio from a CD, but I felt I had to get it
out here. :)
Good luck,
CJ
</decloak>
