Those that know me know that my MP3 player has more podcasts and audiobooks on it than music. I'm out and about a few hours a day and have a job on the side of the studies which is more or less a muscle memory job. Listening to the same music over and over would drive me crazy, so some years ago I started using podcasts and audiobooks to keep myself entertained instead.

When it comes to getting audiobooks, you have several options, from libraries to audiobook services online. Then you have to select a player - if you want Audible support, you need a player that can support it and so on. Then there are players which have special audiobook sections that give you extra options regardless of what format the book is in, while others treat audiobooks as music. Read on for a guide on how to get started with audiobooks.

As some people might know I'm a very heavy user of digital content in any form. When it comes to audio, I currently have Audible's most expensive membership plan as well as subscribing to 36 podcasts (and counting). What I find to be an increasing problem especially with audio books is the quality of the narrator. Lately I've found myself browsing audio books based on narrators I like instead of authors I like. That's not how it's supposed to be.

I'm now 5 weeks into my summer job and being in a job that allows for using an MP3 player I have been searching around for stuff to listen to the last few weeks. Music is all good and well, but when it's 6 hours a day 6 days a week you do get tired of your "favorites" playlist rather quickly.

My way of thinking has always been to happily pay for something as long as it's a reasonable fee for something I can actually use. 10 years after the first MP3 players reeked havoc in the music industry one would think that there's been some steps made in the right direction when it comes to legal content for our beloved players, but has it really or are we still more or less left to illegal downloading if we want the good stuff? Read on for a look at what's available in the realms of legal content now in 2008.

Having used a Cowon D2 for over a year I must admit that I was losing hope in the manufacturers' ability to make useful firmware updates that actually fix stuff and add useful features instead of breaking what's already there and adding "scicntific" calculators. Luckily it's not just Samsung that knows how to do firmware and the latest update to the Sansa Clip shows that there is still hope if a player doesn't have everything you want at release. Read on to find out what's new in 1.01.29

Say goodbye to that annoying .AA extension for your audoibooks and get ready to take those files you legitimately paid for to your various digital devices. Random House publishing will be the first to distribute their content in DRM free MP3 with Penguin publishers thinking about following suit.

The really interesting part of this story is the experiment that Random House conducted on piracy. They sold DRM free books online and water marked them to track them on P2P networks, but what they discovered was the pirated copies on these networks were from ripped audiobook CDS and cracked from DRMed audiobooks. Legitimately, purchased DRM free audio books did not show up on P2P networks. Random House concluded, “Our feeling is that D.R.M. is not actually doing anything to prevent piracy.”

[NYT thanks Charles]