I tried two different FM adapters and never found a frequency that worked in my car.

That's one of my concerns too -- the airwaves around here are pretty crowded.

Better quality than a tape adapter is going to be one of those direct-to-console inputs

At this point, I think anything requiring installation is out.

That Best Buy dude can bite me.

Believe me, I'm tempted to go back there, find him, and tell him how much he can bite me. And you.

Maidengurl, this is iLounge's rundown of tape adapters, with a summary of what they don't like about FM transmitters.

[link]

The cassette adapters are also substantially cheaper.

Totally go with cassette. There's one out there that lets you control some of the iPod functions with the deck controls (FF, RW, I think). I need to work out how to google that, if you want me to check.

And here is their summary of FM transmitters, which I haven't read yet:

[link]

There's one out there that lets you control some of the iPod functions with the deck controls (FF, RW, I think).

This one? [link]

You found it just as I did. Griffin's got the coolest iPod stuff, I swear.

Believe me, I'm tempted to go back there, find him, and tell him how much he can bite me. And you.

Bring a video camera!

There's one out there that lets you control some of the iPod functions with the deck controls (FF, RW, I think).

I think it's Monster's iCruze. Which doesn't work if you already have an external CD player.

ETA: Oooooh. I hadn't seen that one before!

Speaking of PDFs, is there an innexpensive program that will allow you to modify them? I'm thinking here not of forms but of simple copies of documents. What I'd like to do is the equivalent of underlining or writing notes in the margin.

The one I really like for this is ScanSoft PDF professional. (Light might also work for your needs.) I like the ability to convert a pdf file into a word file (or even PDF tables into excel spreadsheets). I can save back to pdf by doing a "print to pdf" thing. Note while most of format is preserved, some fonts and formatting is almost always lost in round trip. Damn handy though - especially if you end getting huge amounts of data to analyze in pdf format.

I have the Griffin iTrip because, when I was looking into them, I didn't have a cassette in the car I was using. Tape adapters offer much better / clearer sound quality, especially when the FM stations are already so crowded like they are in So. Cal. I am thinking of buying one now that my car has a tape deck.

That said, I like the iTrip for radio use.

I use the casette adapter, because luckily, my car plays them. But with all the travel I do, I sometimes wish I'd gotten the FM adapter, so I could use my iPod in the rental cars (which never have tape players). OTOH, one more thing to distract me while I"m lost in a strange city, so perhaps just as well.

My dvd player has given up the ghost (or, more accurately, refused to open up its mouth so I guess more of a hunger strike) and my vcr is now dead too.

I was looking for a new DVD player and was enamored of this: [link]

Has anyone here used a combo deck? Also the idea of being able to write dvds from Replyed shows on the same box thrills me to no end -- if it works.

I have a backup vcr so if it's not a good thing to include, I can work around it.