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Originally Posted by clarabel
I'm signed up with itunes but have never really checked out anything like that. Didn't realise it was free!
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I have put my credit card on iTunes and have an account with them since it requires a username and password. You're never required to buy anything. If you go to the Store (it's an option at the top of the page), there is a free song every week from a different up-and-coming group or artists. I always get the free tune and they ask me for my password for that but there is still no charge. I have bought a few tunes that I really wanted to make a 'mix-CD' with so it IS a temptation (a tune costs 99 cents, usually).
When you are in the Store, go to the podcast option (they have movies, TV, music, audio books, podcasts, etc.) Once you are in the podcasts, go to the self-help section (I think there's a list of categories on the left) and just start browsing all the podcasts. Or go to Health. There are weight-loss podcasts, fitness podcasts, running programs, music to walk or run or work out by, hypnosis, diet discussions (The Diet Detective is one). There are hundreds and hundreds of podcasts - close to a thousand, I reckon.
I get the American stories, The Classics read aloud, Poetry in various languages (if you are interested in learning a language, you will find the selections to be excellent for learning Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Italian and English, to start!) - I burn the CDs (Garrison Keillor Lake Wobegon podcasts are some of my favorites) and listen to them while shopping, waiting, or most important, walking.
When you find a hypnosis podcast (Michael White makes hypnosis podcasts and at least one addresses weight loss but all of them are good), you can download one to a CD of the type 'Music CD-R' in your computer's CD drive.
First, look at the list of episodes out there for Michael White's Hypnosis (just for an example). Click on one a couple of times and if you have speakers attached to your computer, you can listen to the podcast of that episode. That's free, of course. If you like that, go to the right on the line that lists that episode and click on the 'get episode' button (or whatever it says to get....) It will start downloading and you can see a little icon appearing on the far left, making little swirly arrows to show that it is downloading. It will download to a library that will appear in your music area (the place where you can create playlists) that is an intermediate library area called 'Recently Added....' When you click on that Recently Added library, you will see all the stuff you have picked. Then just drag them over to a playlist you create. They have the standard setup that allows you to make folders and then put playlists in them. I have a playlist just for hypnosis and one for fitness, one for French, one for Talk radio (NPR, WNYC, Dennis Miller, Bill Maher, etc...) Once you have a playlist containing your hypnosis stuff, you can click on the playlist and see all your episodes listed together. These are all free. If you buy an album or a song, it comes up and asks you for your password again.
Pop a Music CD-R in the CD slot of your computer. iTunes will come up and ask you if you want to burn a CD using that and you respond affirmatively. Then just click on the Burn CD icon in the lower right hand corner and wait while it copies your selected episodes to the CD. Then you use that CD in your CD player or just play it on your computer.
Whew! That's all I remember and I hope you can navigate your way through that. I found it a bit hard to figure out at first.
The best part of all this is that the podcasts are free. Free, free, free! Usually but not always, the speaker will point you to a website which is the place they try to make their money. But it is a surprisingly commercial-free atmosphere out there in podcast land.
If you like something (like Classic Tales, for instance, which is a podcast of stories read aloud), you just click on 'Suscribe' back at the store entry for the podcast. Every time they have a new episode, they will send it to your 'Recently Added...' area. Then you can just listen to it or put it in a playlist and burn a CD. By the way, I don't think you have to have it in a playlist to burn it. You could probably do that from the 'Recently Added... ' area. But I tend to group things and burn several CDs from time to time. I send them to friends.
If you don't use iTunes every day, the subscribed downloads can build up, I notice. I try to just keep iTunes open on my desktop and I check it once a day.
Good luck!
I have found the hypnosis stuff very relaxing and refreshing. It may be helping me with my diet but how would I know? I am dieting successfully and I do feel motivated. Maybe this support forum is the reason. Maybe my weekly trips to WW to weigh in are the reason. But the hypnosis stuff is reinforcing and relaxing. There are tons of podcasts that have to do with self-esteem and gaining confidence. 'Motivation to Move' is a good one by Scott Smith. He does some self-promoting but has a real radio voice and has a good manner so listening to him is really pleasant reinforcement to diet and exercise.
I don't want to forget to mention this: you can pop one of your own music CDs into your computer and upload the songs. Then, from 'Recently Added...' you can mix those songs in with others and the spoken word and make some interesting CDs. My kids used to do this for me and now I do it myself. I'm sending my daughter a bunch - she's away at college.