How to Convert to MP3 With Windows Media Player

Windows Media Player is built-in to Windows and is not a very powerful software application. It is primarily designed to rip Audio CDs to WMA or MP3 formats and play them back. This means your options are to either use Windows Media Player to burn a CD and then rip to MP3 or find a program that will convert to MP3 without wasting CDs.

Instructions

1

Open Windows Media Player. Insert a Blank CD and choose "Burn" from the menu. Select "Audio CD."

2

Add the audio files that you want to convert to the Now Playing Field.Click on "Start Burn."

3

Click on "Rip" when the CD is finished. Select the "MP3" format from the drop-down Menu. Click on "Start Rip."

How to Get Paid for Reading Books

People who love to read tend to be interested in the claim that you can get paid for reading books. It sounds almost too good to be true. Although it is not always possible to make a full-time income reading books, there are plenty of possibilities for achieving this goal, as well as a few career choices where a full-time salary is possible.

Instructions

Reading Books Full-Time

1

Decide what your goal is. If you are hoping to make a full-time income by reading books, that is going to involve more prep work and training than if you merely want to earn a little bit of pocket change through your reading.

2

Get a college degree or other significant training in English if your desire is to get full-time employment in a field that involves reading. Your options for careers where your job consists of reading books will basically be to work in book publishing, where you can find a job as a proofreader, a copy editor, an acquisitions editor, or as a reader working directly under an acquisitions editor to screen manuscript submissions. These jobs tend to be coveted, however, which is why it helps to have a college degree when you apply.

3

Gain experience at a smaller level. Being able to list editing experience on your resume will help you to obtain a job working with books. Volunteer to edit for a small, local newspaper or nonprofit publication.

4

Take training courses specifically in copy editing and proofreading. Many publishers require an editing test from freelance and full-time applicants in order to be considered for work. You will need to know the industry standard methods for marking up a manuscript if you are attempting to work in copy editing or proofreading. Don't forget electronic editing, particularly in Microsoft Word, as this is increasingly being used.

5

Have realistic expectations about the work. For example, there is going to be much more work available working on technical and trade books than on fiction. Any jobs that involve reading fiction books are going to be even more competitive, and also there are simply less of them out there.

Reading Books Casually

6

Consider writing book reviews. This is generally the easiest way to earn money by reading casually, but unless you're very experienced, you probably will not be able to make a full-time income by reviewing books. When you start, you may only be able to earn a few dollars for your book reviews or even just a free copy of the book.

7

Read a lot of published book reviews in magazines and newspapers. If you hope to make a lot of money writing book reviews, it helps to learn from people who are already achieving this goal. Note the style and tone of book reviews that are published in high-profile magazines, and see if there are lessons you can apply to your own writing.

8

Start small. Try writing for an online review site first in order to gain some clips and work samples. Write a review for a merchant site such as Amazon (you won't make any money from these reviews, however) or post a review on a website that offers you a small amount of money by the number of people that read your review.

9

Offer to review books for your local newspaper or for local magazines. Use your online reviews as work samples. Local publications might be willing to pay you a small fee for a well-written review of a recently released book.

10

Send a resume and published clips to larger magazines that cover the subject matter about which you wish to get paid to read. Many magazines keep a list of qualified reviewers that they contact when they have a need for reviews, or they may accept offers to write reviews about soon-to-be released books. Larger publications are more likely to pay larger sums for published book reviews.

11

Keep an eye open in media job sites for full-time or freelance positions as book reviewers. Note that any advertised positions are likely to receive hundreds of applicants, so you are only really going to have a chance at these after you have documented reviewing experience and several published clips. You may have better luck sending unsolicited resumes to publications that are known to have staff reviewers, as there will be less competition if you happen to find a company that has an open position that has not been advertised.

How to Generate Short Story Ideas

Open your eyes, ears and mind and you'll discover that short story ideas are everywhere. Train your story-generating "muscle," and more and more ideas will come to you. Never force it, rely on your imagination to put something interesting together from what your eyes and ears pick up.

Instructions

1

Carry a small notebook and pen wherever you go so that you're prepared to write down fleeting flashes of inspiration. Place it on your nightstand table when you go to bed - dreams and insomnia often lead to great ideas.

2

Keep your mind open. Use your daily events and observations about people and life as potential short story fodder.

3

Take a bus ride around your city. When you see a person who interests you, imagine yourself in her shoes and begin your story.

4

Be on the lookout for an intriguing photograph - a compelling image can fuel your imagination. What story does the photograph tell you?

5

Scan newspapers and seek out real-life sagas that would make compelling short stories.

6

Select an event from your real life and give the situation a different or even extreme conclusion.

7

Listen to your relatives. Our elders, especially, often have interesting stories to tell. Take special note of dialect, intriguing names, characters, etc.

8

Keep a freewriting journal. Write for 15 minutes daily about anything that pops into your head, and try not to edit yourself. Read your freewriting journal and look for interesting passages, phrases or ideas that might inspire a story.

Inspirational Stories of Perseverance

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail." Stories of how other people persevere in the face of obstacles can serve as inspiration to anyone struggling in the face of failures, lack of support from the outside world or other obstacles. Many people with success stories achieved their goals only after experiencing a series of difficulties and setbacks.

Milton Hershey

Milton Hershey started three different candy companies in three different cities, only to see each of these ventures fail. With this track record, he could not attract loans or investors for his fourth attempt. He barely scraped together the funds to start the Lancaster Caramel Company. His caramels became so popular that he was able to sell that company in 1901 for $1 million. He then concentrated his energy on his chocolate company, although chocolate was not a popular candy in America at the time. The company became so successful that the town where it was located changed its name in honor of Hershey Chocolate.

Thomas Edison

The teachers of hearing-impaired young Thomas Edison labeled him "stupid" and "unteachable." As a child, he accidentally burned down the family barn. As a young man, he was fired from his first job working for the railroad company when his inattentiveness to his work resulted in a train derailment. Even after he began his career as an inventor, his work did not earn him recognition. A British Parliament committee in 1878 described Edison's inventions as "unworthy of the attention of practical or scientific men." Asked in his later years about the many detours and roadblocks on his road to success, the famous inventor said "I never failed once. It [success] happens to be a 2,000-step process."

Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo, a Mexican painter, suffered physically debilitating conditions for much of her life. As a child, she had polio, leaving her right leg and foot damaged. While she was a young woman attending art school in Mexico City, a steel handrail drove through her pelvis during a collision between the bus she was riding and a streetcar. She had several miscarriages as a result of this accident. As physicians attempted to heal her shattered body, she underwent more than 30 surgeries. She painted even while most of her body was immobilized due to being bedridden or wearing a full-body cast. She drew on the physical and emotional pain she experienced as the subject of several of her 143 paintings. One of her paintings hangs in the Louvre, and she has been depicted on postage stamps in both the United States and Mexico.

David Seidler

Although the movie "The King's Speech" tells the story of one kind of perseverance as George VI overcomes his stutter through speech lessons, the story behind the film tells a more modern tale. David Seidler, the 73-year-old screenwriter for the film, is the oldest winner of an Oscar for best original screenplay. Prior to the Oscar-winning film, only one of his screenplays was ever produced, and there was more than a 20-year lull between that script, "Tucker," and "The King's Speech." He was inspired to write the story of the stammering king because he suffered from the same disability as a child.

How to Use Text Structure to Teach Reading Comprehension

Learning thrives on structure, and one way to increase reading comprehension is to teach students about text structures that they are certain to encounter when reading. When students know what to expect, they are able to read with confidence. Thus, by teaching students about common text structures such as description, sequence, problem/solution, cause/effect and compare/contrast, you are able to help students to feel comfortable about the reading process regardless of their literacy levels.

Instructions

1

Introduce students to a new text by using pre-reading activities. For example, encourage your students to examine the way the text is organized before beginning to read. Does it contain any photos or other visual inserts? Do such images help one to predict the content of the text? Is a logical and sequential work suggested by means of bar graphs or maps? Conversely, do these images use appealing colors or designs to suggest a descriptive work?

2

Identify commonly used text structures. Expository writing relies on structure to develop ideas. Thus, logical reasoning in a text often proceeds sequentially, while free-form writing still may contain vital structural components such as description, elements of cause and effect or instances of comparison. Newspaper articles, for example, abound with these text structures. Thus, when budding readers are taught to recognize these structures, they are empowered with increased understanding of the substance of material they are studying.

3

Provide clues to alert readers to the occurrence of structure within text. While reading a passage aloud for your students, place added emphasis on sections of the work where a text structure is occurring. For example, if a comparison within a passage is represented by a row of columns, slow your reading speed or add volume to your voice to draw extra attention to this section of the text.

4

Solicit the participation of your students to cooperatively diagram a text's vital passages. One of the best ways to capture the attention of your students is by means of discussion in front of an overhead projection of the passage. Solicit student response, and highlight text structures with wet erase markers. Encourage students to highlight these same lines on their own copies of the passage.

5

Let students use a graphic organizer to analyze text structure. Concepts such as cause and effect or problem and solution are sometimes easier to diagram on paper than they are to simply think about. Graphic organizers help students to visualize information in parts rather than as an overwhelming whole, and allow them to make quick connections between dissimilar ideas.

How to Listen to Audiobooks on Your iPhone

Listen to your favorite books while you are on the go using iTunes on your iPhone. You can download audiobooks directly to the iPhone or you can sync the iPhone with iTunes on your computer to transfer existing audiobooks to the mobile device.

Instructions

Download to iPhone

1

Turn on the iPhone and tap the "iTunes" application icon on the home screen.

2

Tap "More" at the bottom of the screen and select "Audiobooks."

3

Browse the featured selections or use the Top Ten list or Categories buttons to locate a book. Click on the book graphic or name to read a description of the book or listen to a preview. When you are ready to buy, tap the price button. Enter your Apple ID when prompted. The Apple ID is the same as the ID you use with iTunes to download music. If you don't already have one, the app will walk you through the steps to acquire an ID.

4

The audiobook downloads to the iPhone. Tap the "iPod" icon on the home screen. Select "More" at the bottom of the screen, followed by "Audiobooks." Tap the name of the book to listen.

Transfer from iTunes

5

Launch iTunes on your computer. Connect the iPhone to the computer using the USB connector cable that came with the mobile device.

6

Click on the name of the iPhone in the left navigation pane under "Devices."

7

Click "Books" above the main iTunes window.

8

Click "Sync Audiobooks" and then choose the audiobooks you want to transfer or select "All Audiobooks" to transfer all of them to the iPhone. Click "Apply" at the bottom of the screen.

9

Disconnect the iPhone from the computer. Find the audiobooks on the iPhone by clicking the "iPod" icon and selecting "More" followed by "Audiobooks."

What Is a Normal Thyroid Reading?

The thyroid is the gland that produces hormones that regulate your metabolism. It is located beneath the Adam's apple and is the only gland in the body that uses iodine to function. The thyroid gland is controlled by the pituitary and hypothalmus glands. As a group, these glands are known as endocrine glands. A specialist who manages thyroid care is an endocrinologist.

Thyroid illnesses are not uncommon and are caused by the gland either overproducing or underproducing two hormones, the T4 and the T3. A "normal" thyroid reading cannot be made without testing for at least one thyroid hormone in conjunction with the thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), which is produced by the pituitary gland.

T4 Hormone

When testing for levels of T4 hormone, your physician will order a blood test called either a Total T4 or a Free T4. Using a Total T4 test, a number between 4.5 and 12.5 is considered normal. Using the Free T4 test, the normal range is 0.7-2.0.

This test should be combined with the TSH and T3 tests to get a clear picture of the condition.

T3 Hormone

When testing for levels of the T3 hormone, your physician will order a blood test called either a Total T3 or Free T3. Using the Total T3 test, the normal range is 60-181. Using the Free T3 test, a number between 230-420 is considered normal.

This test should be combined with the TSH and T4 tests to get a clear picture of the condition.

TSH Reading

A TSH test measures the amount of TSH produced by the pituitary gland. This is also a blood test. The normal range for TSH is between 0.5 and 5.0. However, clinical tests done in the early 2000s showed that some people with readings at the 5.0 level actually had underactive thyroids. Because of this, some physicians use a scale of 0.3-3.0 when determining the normal range.

It is important to note, as above, that the TSH test is merely an indicator and is not conclusive enough to be considered alone and should be combined with tests for T4 and/or T3 levels.

What Does this Mean?

Because testing for production of T4, T3 or TSH individually is not enough to determine a specific thyroid issue, it is critical that these tests be combined. The pituitary gland produces TSH and may register at high levels if no or not enough T4 is being produced or lower levels if too much T4 is being produced. In addition, the level of TSH in the bloodstream may be an indication of a pituitary gland problem rather than a thyroid issue. Therefore, these results must be considered together.

Hyperthyroidism

A patient may be diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, also known as Graves' disease, or an overactive thyroid if test results show high levels of T4 and low levels of TSH. Symptoms of hyperthyroidism include weight loss, increased bowel movements, irritability, sleeplessness or nervousness. Hyperthyroidism may be regulated in the short term with drug therapy and in the long term through surgery or a radioactive treatment to destroy a portion of the thyroid gland.

Hypothyroidsim

A patient may be diagnosed with hypothyroidism, or an underactive thyroid, if test results show low levels of T4 and high levels of TSH. Symptoms of hypothyroidism include fatigue, weight gain and lack of motivation. Hypothyroidism is easily regulated with drug therapy.