Wednesday, July 23, 2008

I Just Love Technology

I love to listen to NPR on my way to work. I have an hour long commute, which would be OK if I could listen to NPR the whole way. Unfortunately, about 15 minutes into the commute, I go over a Monument Hill and suddenly I get competing signals from the other NPR station in Denver which broadcasts at the same exact frequency as my local station. It turns out that both stations have signals strong enough so that I have interference all the way up to work. Argh!

I've been filling up my time with some Podcasts and/or books on tape...these have been filling in pretty well...but I really want to hear the news in the morning. I've been stuck with this dilemma for a couple months...that is, until now.

Last month I installed Ubuntu Linux on my computer. The nice thing with Linux is that it comes with a whole bunch of extra programs that help you do what you really want to do. Today on my way home from work I had completely run out of things to listen to on the road. So, instead, I spent the whole time in complete silence thinking of what I could do to fix my situation.

At first I thought up an idea to connect an FM radio to the input jack on my sound card and then have my computer automatically record Morning Edition from 5 to 6 in the morning. Then I thought, "wait, you moron, KRCC provides an audio stream, see if you can record that instead". I did a little research, installed a couple of utilities, and voila, I can now record Morning Edition every weekday morning and have it ready to go on my iPod when I'm ready to leave.

There will be no procrastinating the next time my station holds a fund drive. This extra service that they provide is not cheap and it is allowing me to listen to one of my favorite shows.

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