iPhone® Fully Loaded, Third Edition

Chapter 3. Ripping CDs

The Skim

Ripping CDs

I promise you it's true: I held an actual CD in my hands. It was, well, two or three months ago. But I remember the experience clearly.

It was a little freaky. Kind of like that point in the guided tour of a zoo where you get to touch a boa constrictor. It's a little colder and stickier than you thought it would be. I didn't freak out or anything but still, it was an exciting enough moment that I couldn't stop talking about it to my friends for days afterward.

(And it actually had a little book inside the case! On paper and everything! With pictures, and lyrics. And Bono had, like, a lot of things to say about the situation in Costa Rica, but the text was teensy-tiny so I'm not really sure precisely what kind of trouble the folks down there are in. It still made me want to send the guy a lot of money, though.)

A whole generation is growing up without ever having had to remove the titanium shrink wrap and those sticky strips from the edges of a brand-new CD. Which is just another explanation for the older generations' envy and hatred of today's youth.

For all the benefits of buying music online or downloading it via podcast or directly from a band's Web site, the CD will still offer lots of practical advantages over any other method. I shall start you off by mentioning that at this writing, one and only one Stan Freberg track is available from ...