interface

M-Audio Fast Track US44010 USB Audio Interface with GT-Player Express Software
$129.99
I haven't tried the included software but it works great with garage band. I didn't install the drivers simply plugged into my Mac, opened Garage Band and selected the correct input. Works perfectly. Can't believe how easy it is to record.

Designing Interfaces
$49.95
I had to get this book for one of my classes and I will admit it is not a book for experts in the field of "Designing Interfaces", but it's great for beginners and good for anyone less than an expert but more than a beginner.

Tidwell brings design patterns you see daily on the web and in programs like Microsoft Word to your attention and then gives them a name, tells you how to use it, when to use it, and why to and not to use it.

I liked the organization of the information, and although the font is a little tough to read with the san serif font used but it's not a big enough problem to keep me from reading it.

I feel that in the end the book gave what her description promised, It's gonna go next to Steve Kuges book "Don't Make Me Think" and Tuftes book "Visual Explinations" on my book shelf.

M-Audio Fast Track Pro 4x4 Mobile USB Audio/MIDI Interface with Preamps
$249.99
This unit really improved the quality of my recordings out of my home studio. And by the way, it pairs nicely with the M-Audio Nova condenser mic which you can get for around $100. I'm running this on an AMD dual-core with 4GBs of memory and a couple of 7200RPM drives with Windows 7. I think I had to get the Windows 7 drivers from the M-Audio forum, but everything is working just fine. I'm using Acoustica Mixcraft for my recording software, and it does take advantage of the 24-bit capabilities of the FastTrack Pro. It's a sweet setup for not that much money.

Interface
$16.00
Earlier reviewers are correct to observe that this is not Neal Stephenson at his finest; the book needed an editor's eye (especially in the last third) to pick up repetition at the sentence level--still, the events in the US 2008 presidential campaign have made this book amazingly apt, and much funnier than it was even a year ago: an election taking place during a U.S. financial crisis that renders families homeless and feeling hopeless and has an incumbent president offering silly solutions, combined with professional media analysts who understand that content matters less than camera angles, a pseudo-populist politico who tries to manipulate prejudices with coded language, and other things that look all too familiar. If you want something readable that will make you laugh and wince at how much a satire published fourteen years ago got 2008 right, this is it. The plot gets out of a hand in the last pages as Stephenson gives into his recurring temptation to write "action" scenes, but it remains fun throughout.