Rick, you can download and use iTunes from Apple for free. It's a really easy to use music program and doesn't cause problems like Real Player. You can buy songs from their music store for .99 or copy your own CD's into it.

Podcasts are a lot of different things. They can be audio blogs, instructional tips, news stories or anything else that usually fits into a few minutes of audio. And they're usually free. With iTunes, you can subscribe to podcasts so that it will automatically download the latest podcast from that series. Some come out once a week and you don't need to remember to download the latest - it's done automatically, and automatically uploaded to your iPod when it's plugged into your computer.

I almost wish my drive to work was longer...