I have been using a Roadrunner now for about a year.  I would be satisfied
with the Roadrunner if it would allow for the replacement or addition of
files rather than an entire tree structure.  This causes you to either, read
all articles that you have started to their conclusion, or load an updated
structure and laboriously skip ahead to where you left off in those
articles.

I have used a program Nextup to take text files and make MP3 files out of
them.  I thought that this might  be more convenient than a purely text
reader and, as a side benefit, I could include music.  If I am using it
correctly, the Nextup Text Aloud program generates mammoth MP3 files.  For
example, I converted a 469k text file and got back a 98 meg MP3 file.  If
this is representative of the conversion ratio that can be expected, not
much else would fit on a 128 meg MP3 player.
I have three questions.

Is my experience with text to MP3 conversion ratio typical or is it
unreasonable.

There have been several programs mentioned that can do the text to MP3
conversion.  Would I get a different ratio if I tried another program or is
the difference in size a function of the two file formats?

I know that the original company that made the Roadrunner is gone but did
anybody pick up it's development.

          Bud Kennedy

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