Here's an oddball question for this thread: I need to get some good decible-reducing earplugs. Ones that will lessen the goth club volume levels around me, but not make things so muffled that I will need to take an earplug out to hold a conversation with someone I'm sitting next to. I know I've done damage to my hearing over the years, and since I'm not giving up going out dancing any time soon, I'd like to stave off more damage.

(Drew, I'm especially hoping you'll have some suggestions.)

How much are you willing to spend? Some musician friends of mine had custom earplugs made which required visiting an ear doctor to be fitted. I believe they cost $100-$200, but it was years ago and I can't remember exactly.

I use a pair that are like cones with ridges, that have a metal cylinder inside them. They block frequencies more evenly than your basic foam plugs (which tend to cut out high frequencies more markedly). They are under $20(?) and you should be able to find them at your local pharmacy. Amazon has something similar to them: [link]

How much are you willing to spend? Some musician friends of mine had custom earplugs made which required visiting an ear doctor to be fitted. I believe they cost $100-$200, but it was years ago and I can't remember exactly.

Dang. I may have to look into that eventually, but I don't want to start off with those.

I use a pair that are like cones with ridges, that have a metal cylinder inside them. They block frequencies more evenly than your basic foam plugs (which tend to cut out high frequencies more markedly). They are under $20(?) and you should be able to find them at your local pharmacy. Amazon has something similar to them

Ah-ha! That seems more like what I'm searching for, thank you.

OK, Mac people: So I have a friend, who happens to be a fellow Mac user. Said friend highly appreciates much of the music I have on my computer/iPod.

What is the easiest way for me to get much of this music (some of it purchased from iTunes, some of it not) onto his computer? Legally or not? I am willing to burn CDs, but since it would be quite a number of CDs, if there is an easier method of hooking the computers together, using a flash drive, downloading some program and hooking his iPod to my computer or mine to his, etc etc....without, of course, one or both computers going "THIS MUSIC IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE PLAYED ON THIS COMPUTER! STOP! STOP!"

help?

If it's on your computer, and it's stuff you've ripped from CDs (or, you know, downloaded in ways that might not stand up to the bright sunlight of close scrutiny), you can just copy them from your Music folder. If it's stuff that you bought from the iTunes store, you'll have to burn it to CDs in order to remove the copy protection.

If it's on the iPod and not on the computer, use Senuti to get songs off the iPod.

The stuff you buy from the iTunes Music Store you have to burn to a CD as regular music CDs, and then your friend has to rip those. The non-iTunes Music Store stuff you can just copy.

x-posty....

OK, that's pretty much what I figured, re: music store stuff. CDs it is.

For non-music store stuff, what's the quickest way to get from one iTunes to another? Most of the stuff in iTunes is under all these folders under music, by artist, so it's kind of a PITA the way iTunes organizes it (love iTunes generally, but not if I'm trying to move music in bulk)--can i move it from iTunes, or just from the root folder?

As long as it's not the protected stuff, you can just drag whatever you want from iTunes to the desktop.

(edit: or to whatever folder, external drive, etc. you want. Which I'm sure you get but I feel a compulsive need to say.)

You just saved me so much time.

t /lame

You're so not lame. I've walked probably hundreds of people through using iTunes, and I can count on my thumbs (with maybe a few extra thumbs) the ones who figured out dragging to the desktop on their own.