I love to listen to audio books. Over the last year I have listened to over thirty business oriented titles. I can listen while driving, exercising, or walking.
The venerable ipod has really changed the way I learn from books. With an audio title, I always finish the book. I can easily bookmark sections, and play popular sections over and over.
The only real problem I have with the format is making notes while listening. If I’m driving, or out walking it’s hard to write down notes. Since I usually don’t have a written copy for reference it’s hard to go back and find an exact section to capture notes at a later date. This also makes it harder to review the book since I don’t have access to the written copy for pullouts and quotes.
With over 30 great books to review, I’ve struggled to find a way to bring them to you in a review format. I’ve resorted to buying the hard copy in some instances or relying on an author’s website for additional information. In preparing for a seminar that I’m doing this week on podcasting, I’ve run into a little device that may really help to capture notes along the way.
The device is called the I-talk Pro from Griffen technologies. It’s a small microphone that plugs into the bottom of newer iPods and allows you to record hi quality stereo audio to your iPod in Wav format. When you sync your iPod with your computer, this audio is automatically moved from your iPod to your computer and the disk space is reclaimed.
I ordered one of these from Amazon last week and have been amazed how well it works. You plug the device into your sync port at the bottom of the iPod and it automatically pulls up a recording screen. It gives you a choice of high quality (stereo) or low quality (mono) audio recording and has a recording button. It’s as simple as that.
I usually choose high quality on my video iPod since I have a lot of disk space. The recording quality of this unit is superb. When I want to make notes about an audio book I’m listening to, I just plug it in and record. It’s really as simple as that. To go back to listening to my Audio book, I just remove the unit. It’s fast and simple.
This is an ideal unit for recording podcasts. It is especially useful for recording group conversations as it can be placed on a desk or table where everyone can talk into it. The pickup range is good and the stereo separation really adds a spacial effect.
After recording some podcast material I have realized how useful this will be for Audio book reviews. When I’m done listening to an Audio book, I can listen to my notes at home and put together an informative outline. Then it is just a matter of putting together a book review podcast. This unit makes it fast and easy to record the podcast almost anywhere, with great sound.
I plan to use this unit to create reviews of many of the great books I have listened to over the past year and bring them to you with a written outline, three major points, and a podcast that you can subscribe to. I hope to be able to make this site a resource for audio book reviews that you can take with you.
About john