Actually, a few questions…

First, the digital music ones:
1) I know that Timmer has, and loves, his IPOD. I’m pondering taking that jump myself, since my car stereo doesn’t read MP3 cd’s, and I don’t want to replace my in-dash 6-disc changer with my single-disc in-dash MP3 player. I know that if I got an IPOD, I could also get a car adapter (FM transmitter, since I have no cassette deck for a cassette adapter (and when will they come up with some other type of adapter, I wonder?). Do I need to? (get an IPOD, that is). All I’m interested in is digitizing and having easy access to my music collection. I’m not interested in downloading music, at this point.

If I get one, I would get one with a huge hard-drive, and try to store my entire music collection on it, as well as some of my photos. But do I really need to, or am I just having gadget-lust? I know, y’all can’t read my mind to answer that last question. Let’s try these questions, instead.

What are the benefits of getting an IPOD? If you don’t like IPOD, what do you recommend in its place? What are the reasons to NOT get an IPOD?

2) In addition to my CD collection, I still have a fair amount of those little plastic cases with thin mylar strips wrapped on 2 wheels – I think they were called cassette tapes? 😀 How can I digitize those, and also my vinyl collection. I’m looking for least amount of fuss – I’m not a huge audiophile, so perfection isn’t necessary for me, although I must admit it would be nice to clean up the scratches, etc. Related question: Is there an easy way to copy my audio-cassettes or vinyl to a CD?

Now, the visual ones:

1) I recently purchased (and look forward to using) a scanner that will scan slides, 35mm negatives, and (if I purchase an adapter) APS negatives. One of my winter projects is to digitize my 10-years of 35mm photography. It wasn’t until after I bought it that I realized it will NOT support the negatives from the first 30 years of my life — remember the old Kodak Instamatics and 110s? And the Brownie? I had the first 2, Mom had the Brownie. I inherited all the family photos when Mom died, which includes the negatives. Am I going to be stuck scanning those photos, or is there a scanner out there somewhere that will support those negative sizes?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this topic. Please include links, where applicable.