I take the opportunity some mornings on the bus to read in the Book of Mormon. Some times the bus is a great place to read, but other times Chatty Cathy, Cell Phone Boy, or Bus Driver Buddy make it a bit difficult to concentrate. I carry my iPod around with me pretty much where ever, including the bus, so when I saw a billboard (no props to Mormon based parasitic businesses or billboards) suggesting I could listen to the audio I went and did some downloading. The files from this leach like business were mono, only available to individually download chapter at a time or whole book no indexing, and had an odd naming/sorting convention. I gave up on those and went strait to the distribution center to get the audio cd’s. I digressed and used iTunes to rip and load. Usually I prefer Exact Audio Copy, MP3Gain, and Winamp, but needed m4b format, so iTunes it was. The m4b format has a few advantages over mp3:

• files can be removed from the “random” play lists, so no Mosiah during that all iPod randomize
• audio books can be played at slow, normal, & fast speeds for slower/faster read alongs; less drama more action, sorry Bruce.
• files are generally smaller than mp3 files (bit rate dependent of course)
• files show up listed in the “Audio Books” menu section

I spent a big chunk of time trying to get the variable speed, listing in order, naming convention, and no random play to work out and show up in a logical way. I had a few miss starts but think I have it figured out. The books and chapters are in order and listed under the artist “The Church of Jesus Christ Of Later-Day Saints”. The album name is the book title with a two digit ordering prefix. The song title is the chapter name with a similar two digit prefix. When I finally got it right I backed it up using Winamp and then saved it to two cd’s. It just barely didn’t fit on one. The files are here to download unless the RIAA or Bruce gets wind and tries to sue.

Part 1.zip (284 MB)
Part 2.zip (463 MB)

Enjoy!