In addition, I had been thinking about the possibilities of transferring my enjoyment of audio books to senior citizens and handicapped people. Mp3 players are pretty cheap nowadays, and very reliable. I like listening to them, even though I’m perfectly capable of reading books, because it gives me another way to “read.” I’m a voracious reader of books, and this lets me read and drive.

So, I’d been tossing these ideas around in the back of my mind, when I started riding the bus and happened to make friends with a coworker, who is also blind. One day, I just asked her, would you be interested in listening to audio books? She said yes, and I jumped at the chance to see how well I could make this work.
And of course, that gave me the excuse to buy a new player. After I gave her my Clip, I needed to have another player to listen to my current book, right? Of course.

I gave her the player about a week ago, and gave her a lesson in the cafeteria. So far, she can get to the songs I had loaded, but she hasn’t been able to figure out how to listen to the book. The music is definitely easier to navigate to–it only takes a couple of button presses, but the audio book is a little more complex. So, the jury is still out on whether this is a good idea or not.

I’d been reading about the Zune–it was a little high priced, at $200, but I’d seen that the price was going down. I only had three requirements for a player–music, video, and audio books. The Zune fulfills all three, and gives me much more. What a wonder for the price–the 16 gig model is now $165 on Amazon.

The extra features are:

• HD radio–it’s the only player on the market that has this capability
• Internet access–it’s pretty cool to go into McDonald’s and be able to browse the Drudge Report
• Wi-fi capability for transferring videos and songs
• YouTube videos–I can transfer anything on YouTube to the Zune
• Applications–including games
• High quality video–you can’t believe how good videos look on a Zune
• Accelerometer–useful for games, and also lets the screen rotate automatically into wide screen format

To say that I’m satisfied is an understatement. I have found though, that even though I can listen to audio books in the car with it, you have to go through a lot more steps to start it up and shut it down. So, I’ve ordered another Clip for the car. With the Clip, I don’t have to physically carry it back and forth–I just leave it hanging from my rear view mirror, and I can turn it on and off with just one button press, without even having to look. The Clip is the perfect tool for driving and listening to audio books. And Amazon is selling the Clip+ (has a micro-SD slot) for $26.95, free shipping). A steal.

The main feature that I offer to you is the ability to control your own content. In other words, you can change the text (yes, even pictures) on the web page that I build for you. Not everything, mind you, as the basic structure still has to be built using HTML, but the technology nowadays offers some neat tricks to get around me doing some of the changes on your web site. What does this mean to you? Lower prices, because you don’t have to pay me to make every piddly change that your heart desires. Running a weekly special? No problem, you can update the web page prices yourself. Has your phone number changed? No sweat, fire up your PC, make the change, and it’s on the web site instantly (almost).

How do I do this? By using a software product called WordPress. It makes changing content as easy as filling out a job application through a company’s web site. WordPress has been around a long time and allows me to build very user friendly pages. All you have to do is fill in a form, and click the Publish button. That’s all there is to it.

Not every web builder can do this. Or wants to. Sometimes they want to retain control of the web content–that way you must go through them to get any and all changes made. Simple– more money for them!

But, I don’t work that way. I’d rather give control of the web site to you–that way I can handle more customers, and you save time and money. I think this is a more desirable service, and I’m betting you will think so too.