There are a lot of very good products on the market to help you enjoy music. Two products from Griffin Technology get my nod as two of the smartest.

The first is an inexpensive headphone splitter called SmartShare (list price: $14.99). Plug one end into your iPod or other music source and you have two similar outputs with which you can share the music. What makes the SmartShare special is that it has separate volume controls for each person, allowing them to listen at their own preferred volume level.

The other device, called radioSHARK is an AM/FM radio that plugs into your computer's USB port, giving you full radio sound out of your computer. The smart design of this device comes in several areas.

First, it's both FM and AM. Too many products on the market offer only FM, therefore excluding listeners from great programming -- especially sports, local news and talk.

Second, it allows you to record onto your disk in your choice of format. So you can hold onto your favorite selections as long as you need, and move them between systems -- or otherwise legally use them.

Third, it allows you to schedule recording. So if you have the tendency of oversleeping your favorite Sunday morning radio show, you can have it recorded and waiting for you when you're ready to listen.

RadioSHARK is sleek in its white design (reminiscent of iPods) with built-in lights that shine neon blue when powered and red when recording. It installed for me in five minutes. (Slip the software CD in your drive; plug the cord into your USB slot; then reboot the system when ready.) It includes a built-in equalizer, and it allows you to time-shift record so you can record and listen to different spots on the same radio program, like you would time-shift a TV program with a digital video recorder such as TiVo.

This is one product with truly thoughtful design -- both functionality and looks. Although I don't expect to be able to get good radio reception in all locations, it gave me fine quality in my home on most of the stations that I wanted to hear locally. But they've even thought through that problem by including a headphone jack that makes your headphone double as an external antenna. Plus, the product is very easy to use -- most people won't need to read the sparsely worded manual.

RadioSHARK lists for $69.99 and is available to plug into your Mac or Windows PC. More information on both products is available at griffintechnology.com.