PCs All-in-One For Dummies®, 5th Edition

Chapter 2. Dude, MP3 Rocks!

In This Chapter

• Understanding the MP3 format

• Ripping MP3 files from an audio CD

• Playing MP3 files

• Downloading MP3 music to your MP3 player

• Comparing other audio formats with MP3

• Burning audio CDs from MP3 files

Can you name one or two truly revolutionary technologies that have arrived in the past 20 years? Perhaps CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs, cellphones, or Oprah? (Okay, that last one was a deliberate attempt at humor.) Anyway, historians often claim that no person can accurately point to a world-changing technology in his lifetime because we just don't have the perspective to recognize its importance when it happens.

Well, guess what? MP3 is here in your lifetime; it absolutely rocks, and, my friend, it is indeed one of those revolutionary technologies. You can quote me on this, with a Mark's Maxim I coined several years ago that made me a visionary (who wears glasses):

Note

The creation and distribution of digital music will permanently change everything in the recording industry, including the career of every musician on the planet.™

To be honest, that wasn't really such an earth-shattering prediction — in fact, it's already happening! In this chapter, I tell you what's so incredibly cool about MP3 digital music, how you can create your own MP3s, and (here's the spoiler) why the recording industry would love to stop you from using MP3 files altogether.

And yes, MP3 is legal when used correctly. Sorry, Big Brother Music.

An MP3 Primer

First, what is a furshlugginer MP3, ...