The teachings can also be transferred to a computer hard drive or to portable media players (like iPods).

Transferring them to your hard drive can make it more convenient if you listen to the teachings from your computer. It eliminates the need to switch CDs in and out depending on which teachings you want to listen to. Additionally, navigation to the teachings is easier because the menu structure will show all of the books of the Bible at once.

Transferring them to a portable media player (like an iPod) is a convenient way to take the teachings with you.

If you wish to do either of these, the first steps are the same. (These instructions assume a Windows computer. The same general concept holds true for Mac computers.)

1. Create a new folder on your computer that is a subfolder under the "My Music" folder (Windows Vista calls it "Music"). Call this new folder "Courson" (without the quotation marks).

2. Copy the MP3 files from each of the CDs into this folder. Do not copy any other files from the CDs except the MP3 files. Also, do not create any subfolders in an attempt to better organize the files (they will end up being organized correctly by putting them all in this one folder). The MP3 teaching files will take about 17GB of space on your hard drive.

3. On the very first CD (Old Testament 1 - Genesis) there is a folder called "extra" which contains some additional files. These files are helpful when putting the MP3 teaching files on your computer hard drive or portable media player. Copy all of the files in the "extra" folder to the "Courson" folder that you created on your computer hard drive. (This is the same folder which should now contain all of the MP3 files you copied from the CDs.)

Using the teachings on your computer

To use the teachings on your computer, locate the file in your "Courson" folder that is named "courson.htm" and create a shortcut to this file on your desktop or start menu or quick launch toolbar (whichever you prefer).

When you use this shortcut, it will open up a web page that shows all the teachings by book and you can simply click "play" for the teaching that you would like to hear.  (Note: This will look very similar to our website, but you are accessing everything from your computer, not from the internet.)

Some security features on your computer may prevent the teachings from playing. The main one to check is a setting in Internet Explorer that disables "active content." To enable this setting to allow the teachings to play, go into the "Tools" menu in Internet Explorer, select "Internet Options," then the "Advanced" tab. Toward the bottom of all the Advanced options is a section called "Security." Make sure that there is a check mark in the two options in the "Security" section that say "Allow active content" (one for CDs and one for the computer).

Using the teachings on your portable media player (like an iPod)

Once the teachings are on your computer hard drive in the "Courson" folder, it is easy to transfer them to your portable media player. You would do this the same way that you transfer songs to your portable media player.

If you are using an iPod, you would do this with iTunes. Many other portable media players use Windows Media Player.

iTunes or Windows Media Player may automatically add the teachings to your media library. If the teachings do not show up automatically in your library, then you need to simply tell the program to read these files.

In iTunes you do this by selecting the File menu, then "Add folder to library." With Windows Media Player you select the File menu, then "Add to library," then "Add Folder."

In either case, you will point the program to the "Courson" folder and the program will read all of the teachings into the library. (Note: If the program offers to move the files to another location, select the option so that it does not move the files.)

Playlists

Some of the files that you copied from the "Extra" folder into the "Courson" folder were playlists.

These playlists help to organize the teachings in iTunes or Windows Media Player. The playlists can also be transferred to your portable media player. These playlists make it much easier to navigate through all of the teachings - after all, there are over 1,200 teachings!

There are playlists for each book of the Bible. When the playlist is selected, it will only show the teachings for that book of the Bible and the teachings will be sorted in the order in which they were taught.

There are also three additional playlists - one will show only the Midweek Verse by Verse teachings, one will show only the Sunday In-Depth Topical teachings and one will show all teachings. Again, the teachings will be sorted in the order in which they were taught.

If you are using Windows Media Player (and you followed the above instructions), then all of these playlists should already show up in the playlist section of your Windows Media Player Library. They would have been automatically added when you added the MP3 files of the teachings.

If they do not automatically appear in Windows Media Player, then you can add them by selecting the "File" menu, then "Add to library," then "Add file or playlist." From the dialog box that pops up, you can add all of the playlists at once by selecting them from the "Courson" folder.

The playlists can be identified by their .m3u extension and they all begin with a number. This number is according to the order that the book is in the Bible. For example, the Genesis playlist is "01-Genesis.m3u" and Exodus is "02-Exodus.m3u" and so on. (Note: Some computers are set so that the extension does not show. In this case, look for the file type which would probably say ".m3u")

In iTunes you can add these playlists by simply dragging and dropping them one at a time. In Windows, you can do this by having both iTunes and Windows Explorer open at the same time. Windows Explorer should be on top of iTunes with the left part of the iTunes windows still visible. This is the part of iTunes that shows playlists.

In Windows Explorer, navigate to and select the folder which contains all the files (the "Courson folder). On the right hand side of the screen you will see all the files. Right click anywhere in this section and choose "Arrange" and then arrange them by type. The playlists (which have an M3U extension) will then be grouped together.

Before dragging and dropping the playlists into iTunes, go to the File menu in iTunes and choose New Folder. Create a folder called Courson.

Now you can drag the playlists one at a time and drop them in the blank space below "Playlists" in iTunes. This blank space will fill up. When it does, drag each of these playlists in iTunes to the new Courson folder. When you drop the first one, it will expand the Courson folder. Click the arrow next to the folder to close it and keep it closed.

Now simply continue dragging the playlists from Windows Explorer until the blank space fills up. When this happens, again move them to the Courson folder under Playlists. Continue this procedure until you have dragged and dropped all the playlists from Windows Explorer into iTunes and then subsequently moved them in the Courson folder under Playlists.