Do the Stu - Ya, I'm definitely not looking to get rid of my ipod touch. It's a GREAT mp3 player and video player. The problem is that I feel like I have to be extremely careful when I handle it. Also, I use an ipod shuffle when I run. I have been using that for about 18 months or so. It's great for what it is, but you have zero options with it. You just push play and that's it. No control over anything. I think I want to get something for everyday use, kicking around and running. thanks for the tip on the Sansa. I really like the bang for the buck. More gigs per dollar is always a good thing. I want to get good features with the one I get. Maybe an FM tuner along with some other things.

Skippygirl - I would love to go through it. Ok, sit back this will take a minute =)

First open your itunes and look at your playlists. There is a playlist titled Purchased, located directly under the itunes store button. Not the one that says purchased on "name" ipod. Just the one that says purchased. If you are like me and you never deleted any songs out of this playlist, then everything you ever purchased from itunes will be in this playlist. If you have deleted the songs out of that playlist you will have to create a playlist with the songs that you want to back up from your library. Once you have your playlist, you will notice a button at the bottom right of the playlist. It says "burn" click that button. It will give you an option to burn an audio cd or an mp3 cd. choose audio cd. This will uncompress your music to nearly cd quality. If you have more than 12 to 15 songs on this playlist it will tell you that it will take multiple cds. Click the button that says "audio cds" Then click burn. Each disc takes roughly 10 minutes, depending on how fast your burner is. At the end of each disc the tray will pop open and prompt you to load another one. Keep track of the songs you are burning. If you are not able to finish it in one sitting, you will need to delete the songs that you put on disc. Delete them from that playlist. They will still be in your library, but just gone from your playlist. this is important, because when you come back to it and start backing up the rest, it will start from song number 1. So you don't want it to redo all the songs you already burned.

Once you have finished with all your discs, open your windows media player. Click the "rip" tab at the top of the page. It will prompt the quality. Choose the mp3 highest quality. I think it's something like 320 kbps. Itunes best AAC is 256 kbps. Once you start ripping the cds the music is stored in a folder labled "unknown" in your music folder. Also, none of the songs have titles or artists. If you want that info in the library, you will have to add them yourself. Once your library is ripped you can then put your music on any of your media players.

It's always good to back up your puchases. The cd's will play in any cd player. And the qulity is really pretty good. You will use a lot of hard drive space if you decide to rip your cds to mp3 format. If you have one, I would recommend storing your mp3 copies onto an external hard drive. Either way, you will at least have your music backed up. You'll be safe if your computer ever decides to crash. I'm not sure that you can retrieve your itunes songs if your computer crashes, so you will want to get this done. Plus once they are ripped to mp3 you will not be super glued to an ipod. By the way, ALL Itunes Plus music can be put on any mp3 player. They are not DRM protected.

Skippygirl, sorry, I guess I did miss any previous posts where u asked me...but no, I don't play guitar. I just appreciate the hell outta anyone who can :) Especially Joe :) My son plays...he's the one in our family who discovered Joe and kept trying to get me interested in listening. He lucked onto a cd of Flying in a Blue Dream at a tag sale...he'd been looking at an EVH cd and we were talking about it and about how Chris was at the time just learning guitar. The guy selling the stuff said "Oh, if you're into guitar players you HAVE to check out this Joe Satriani guy, he's a MONSTER on guitar!" So my son put down the EVH cd and we bought Joe's....and haven't looked back since, LOL!!

Lets get the chat active!!!!

How many people can the chat hold at one time? I'm thinkin if people think Joe's gonna be in there at a set time, the chat will be flooded with people and Joe himself might not be able to get in, lol! He does pop in to the chat as a surprise now and then, when he can, but he's a busy, busy guy.....anyway, good luck with what yer trying to do!

It's frickin Tuesday...alllllllllll day again. >:(

sup all you freezing cold people. its a terrible 78 degrees here or 25c. brrrrrr

Good Afternoon Satchland.....How Are You ?

I ran accross this vid on D' Addario's site. Joe talks about how titled PFATMOR, possible guitar string line and a bunch of other stuff. Cool little interview. Enjoy !!!!!

keniko..ah yes ..P..FAT..MOR fat for Christmas ?!?