Is this possible?

Tony, Mid-Levels

DQ: You are not alone. Many people possess vinyl records and cassette tapes and the content on those media can, indeed, be moved to either a Mac or Windows-based personal computer, but it is a painfully slow process and the sound quality may not be high.

The process should be easier to do now than it was a few years ago; most modern PCs can handle microphones and speaker systems. First, you will need a player of some kind with a similar outlet for such audio devices.

If you have a turntable, make certain you can connect it to the computer.

Next, it may be necessary to change your sound configuration; Macinstruct.

com gives detailed information about that procedure. After ensuring the sound input is set to 'Audio line-in port', you will need an application such as Audacity (audacity.sourceforge.net), which will allow you to record what comes into the port. You may need to convert what it produces to something that iTunes can recognise.

All of this will occur in real time.

In the digital world of the CD, it can take merely seconds to get a song onto your PC. With vinyl records or cassette tapes, it will take as long as it takes to listen to them. I hope you have the time to spare.

You once wrote about moving e-mail files from a Windows-based computer to a Macintosh system. I have a related problem: I need to move all my contacts information on a Windows machine to my iPhone.

Can you help?

Name and address supplied