....of wanting something and not being able to relax until I get it :)

I fancy buying an MP3 player so I can go out and play golf and listen to music at the same time

Does anyone have any recommendations?....I really have no idea with technical stuff and like most men I hate shopping so I'm likely to pick up the first one I see unless someone can help me out

logical choice would be an iPod.

iPoc now connects to window's machines. Seems to still have the largest memory on market. Can take the beatings of heavy duty snowboarding. Uses firewire (now legally usable instead of that boing IE1395 name). Is simply cool. And to my satisfaction an Apple product which means you get ease of use included.

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

A 5GB IPod is £300, that's a little over my budget :(

Do they do smaller ones?

http://store.apple.com/...pleStore?family=iPod

That sucks....$299 .....at jungle.co.uk they are £300 ($400)

Ooo that's cool, you can have your IPod engraved :)

http://store.apple.com/....21.1.0.3.1.1.0?51,9

Aha, Apple UK:

http://www.apple.com/uk/ipod/

I don't know what I need as additions, like the firewire cable and card for my pc...what if I don't buy them?

I guess I should email apple.

I've been looking for my credit card for months and I've just found it as I want to order an IPod...is that fate or what.

It was in my wallet of all the stupid places!....I also found £20 while I was in there that I didn't know I had...hallelujah!

I've had a look at the IPod and it looks so cool, I especially like the no moving parts thing and the fact it was designed to be treated a little rough...perfect for swinging a golf club.

Apparently it comes with a firewire cable and I'd like to think they'd bundle the PC card with the pc version (if they have any sense).

My finger is on the payment button. Screw the engraving, that is $75.

I'd definitely recommend it. My dad got ones, and it's so much nicer then my intel one I bought a while back that only had 128 megs of memory (that is now discontinued). The ipod is really nice..

Cheers,

Alex
--
Gossamer Threads Inc.

Talk about an impulse buy, I just bought a 5GB IPod with the carry case.

Cost me £337 in total (ARRRRGH) .....thats about $500 ......I think I shall just log off for a moment to cry over my wallet.

hehe, smart move.

Now one problem.

My buddy-teacher at school spends all his time organizing his music instead of doing lesson plans now.

It should handle golf no problem, as long as you don't keep it in your back pocket. I have a tendancy at times to over swing and hit myself in the rump every once in a while.

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

lol, some of us have oodles of talent and don't hit ourselves in the ass with our golf clubs

I bought a carry case for it to give extra protection.

My problem though is that I send a 9 iron 130+ yards and I'm relatively a newbie. You gotta admit that when you drive a shoot far and straight with a full swing nothing feels better.

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

Paul, let me know if you like it...

I tried listening to music while biking and kayaking, but did not like it as much as I thought I would. I found that the silence was much less boring than I though it was.

I hope you don't mean I've just spent $500 on something crap or were you just saying you prefer silence to music?

Is the sound quality good?

Sound quality is good. Also, you should have a look at:

http://www.audible.com/

You can download books onto it. Makes working out or walking the dog a lot less boring. =)

Cheers,

Alex
--
Gossamer Threads Inc.

B....b......b......b....books?

I've not read a book in my whole life :)

Do you have a dog?

You won't need to read! Just listen.. =)



Uncle to my parents one and dogsit for them while they are away:

http://www.krohn.org/...es/Detailed/919.html
http://www.krohn.org/...es/Detailed/918.html

=) (I know I'll regret posting those links).

Cheers,

Alex
--
Gossamer Threads Inc.

I was looking for the photo of all the Krohn's a while back but it seems to have disappeared from krohn.org.....I guess you hid it when everyone started snooping for pictures of the staff

Nice dog...I bet it loves the snow too...my cats would hate it

http://gossamer-threads.com/...hment;postatt_id=42;


I've bookmarked audible.com - thanks.

@ dog

cute

@ pics

eh? Santa's picture is gone?

@ ipod

You should be able to move files and what not onto it too. Hey, it's a harddrvie after all. Just wait until more people make hacks for it.

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

Cool pics Alex...

Since where are sharing "dog in snow" pics, here is my beastie earlier this year:


http://www.iuni.com/...tware/web/index.html
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Careful now, with all these snow pics, people are going to think we live in igloos..

Cheers,

Alex
--
Gossamer Threads Inc.

If only my landlord allowed me to keep a dog ...

- wil

True,

A girl in a bar in southern Illinois asked me if Canadians had "normal" housing as well, once. I said "sure, we have electricity in our igloos these days".

How much snow do you get?

Here on the island (Vancouver Island) very little. In the town I live in perhaps a couple days a year, though this year we had quite a bit, even some in March.

Victoria can go without snow for winter, but there are not too many places in Canada which could say that, I am sure.

Do you get snow in Manchester?


http://www.iuni.com/...tware/web/index.html
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Can't wait. I've booked my trip to Whistler in February! :-)

- wil

Great!

Are you going to threaten GT with your presence while you are here?



Whistler is great, lots of aussies there though. (not a bad thing)


http://www.iuni.com/...tware/web/index.html
Links Plugins

I was originally hoping to stop off at Vancouver for a few days, yes, but I really want to go all the way over to SF Bay if I can, so we'll see how much time I have. I'll need to plan things a little better.

- wil

We get snow in Manchester once every decade

The most beautiful thing I've seen here is actual snow on the beach. That was a few years back and quite amazing.

- wil

Bite your tongue! That's blasphemy!

Well... I guess it's better than the tar and seaweed that washes up on our beaches.

(from mp3 players to snowy beaches ???)

PS: Paul, the silence was better... Maybe I'll like the music better when doing laps at the veloway. --Getting fatter by the day, not looking forward to winter at all.

It seems MusicMatch and ITunes are the only software apps compatible with IPod's or does anyone know of any others?

@ ipod

I tunes is pretty sweet, the programmer came from soundjam.

@ dogs

don't go where the huskies go
don't eat yellow snow

@ german shephard
I bet he/she eats you out of house and home.
I had a German/English Shephard when I was young. I really miss her.

(I wish I lived in a house instead of an apartment.)

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

IPod Tricks:

http://www.business2.com/...0,1640,39560,FF.html

http://www.ipoding.com/...articles&secid=4

http://www.shift.com/content/web/37/1.html

http://www.ipodhacks.com/...=News&file=index

@ Frank Zappa

Where I stole the margarine

Hehehehe.....

Today (Fri. 10/11) on Amazon.com:

Apple iPod Portable 10 GB MP3 Player/Hard Drive = $340 shipped
http://www.amazon.com/.../002-6027855-9641641

Apple iPod Portable 5 GB MP3 Player/Hard Drive = $279 shipped
http://www.amazon.com/.../002-6027855-9641641


Not bad...

Sean

I finally went and fiddled with at a store near me.
Least I have to say is that it was quite nifty.
A RCA cable and an input plug to your stereo deck and you're set.

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

Good prices

Thanks for the links.

I think buying from the UK will always be more expensive :(

Tell me about it!

Benefits of living on an island.
With Exchange rates and all.
What can you do?

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

I just found a cool song to add to my IPod.

Santana feat. Michelle Branch - Game of love.

What a great song.

Do you have a 1000 songs yet?



http://www.iuni.com/...tware/web/index.html
Links Plugins

Nooo, I'm on my way to being an octa-musician

:)

Any eta on iPod?


http://www.iuni.com/...tware/web/index.html
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Nope I get an "invalid referer" message trying to check the shipping status and no-one at apple nor the courier company have replied regarding the error.

Hmmm, what a bummer.

Hopefully they will fix that!

They can leave it broken if they want as long as they deliver :)

I just called Apple, they said they are still waiting for my IPod to arrive from Luxemburg

Maybe you could help them help you.

Ask them to to ask Luxembourg to send it direct to your house

The waiting must be killing you. I recall waiting for my Mac, it is not pleasant.


http://www.iuni.com/...tware/web/index.html
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Waiting is bad and then there's the extra wait whilst it charges for the first time...I hate that.

I remember when I got my last mobile phone...

http://www.mobiles.co.uk/sonyj5e.html

....and it said to charge it for 16 hours.....mmm I was already playing on it after like 10 minutes

ewwww monochrome green screens

Gee, my phone is like already out of date but it supports 256 colors and plays games and what not. Hmmm, sony is holding out on you folks.

Nokia? Is still in business? Can anybody say stone age?

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

Yeah yeah you're so great because you can get color screens

nah, it was more like you all should be screaming and demanding to get the same service. Oh well, I guess you must be happy with the green machine.

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

I rarely use it anyway....got no friends.

Infact speaking of which, I actually got it out of my golf bag this morning and charged it up....I had a text message from my dad when he was in Portugal in August lol

You're forgetting about a bunch of folks there Paul.

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

Guess what I'm doing right now

I jumped out of bed so fast when the doorbell rang and 9am that I nearly collapsed

OMG this is soooo cool.

The sound quality is great. It charged fully in just over three hours and I transferred 80+ songs to it in around 60 seconds.

the power of firwire.

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

Now if only I could get it to play continuously :(

It keeps stopping after finishing all the songs within an "Artist" menu under "Browse".

Can you only get it to carry on when using a Playlist?

Nevermind, I missed the "All" menu ;)

I wish you had a webcam! I want to see it.

NOW YOU KNOW HOW I FELT WHEN I TOSSED MY PC FOR A MAC


http://www.iuni.com/...tware/web/index.html
Links Plugins

Simplicity of a iPod can only match the simplictity of it's bigger brothers.

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

How have you found your iPod? Any good?

How big are these things? Are they truly portable for someone who wants to take it jogging?

- wil

I would put the ipod around the size of a pack of cigarettes or a deck of cards.
Well, slightly bigger.

Jogging? Why of course!

I know several folks that take their ipods snow boarding.

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

I was looking at this as a more portable solution for jogging?:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/...coliid=ITOIZRAO0GS4G

- wil

hmmm, holds 20 songs that is if you scrunch them down to 2 megs a piece.

iPod is not something to really put on your arm but if you remember the first walkmans which are about 3 times the size of the ipod I'm sure the bit of irration won't be that bad. hmm, fanny pack? hmmm, it's not that heavy.

Hey, what's 10-20 gigs of portable storage compared to 60megs.

You can even use it to store files and having firewire built in makes bringing home that "ahem" large mpeg file you downloaded at work a snap

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

Well, I'd have to buy a firewire card for my PC. For what I need it, just to go running or go to the gym; 20 song memory should be fine. I dont' last that long! :-)

- wil

All good points, but there is this one too: it looks the coolest IMO.

remember though that a mp3 averages up to 5 megs getting em down to 2 megs is going to be tough.

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

You can do it if you make them about 96-128kbps :)

I personally encode all mine to 320kbps.

Why? The human ear cannot define the difference between 192 or anything above that. So anything you have >192kbs is a waste of those megabytes. :-)

- wil

Perhaps, but psychologically I can sense a difference. Either that or I have the hearing of superman :)

Hmmm, but I wonder - can it play ogg's? Half my music collection is in Ogg Vorbis format right now And Paul - 320 is a bit of a waste. High quality variable will give you the same quality, but will waste considerably less space.

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Jason Rhinelander
Gossamer Threads
jason@gossamer-threads.com

I read an article yesterday saying that humans can hear bitrates over 192kbps but there isn't a hugely noticable difference between 256 and 320.

But hey when you have an IPod with 5GB's space and you never have more than 100 songs then you can afford the space to encode to 320 :)

hehe, even though I probably couldn't tell a difference between the higher rates the idea is probably something more like videos. If you have better quality the copy is better

ie, record a CD to mp3 at your friend's house. Go home and record it to CD. The higher rates would then probably come down to 192. lolo ... haha, psychologically speaking. Truth and technology is probably much different, but I remember way back that going from CD to MD you'd loose a few bits. oh well, I don't do mp3 that often besides finding songs that I had on cassette years ago. I just rent from the rental shop and copy (which is grey-line legal in Japan, they have MD/CD/cassettes at the register waiting from you when you check out )

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

I think it depnds on the type of song also.

I just put an Enya track on the iuexam thingy

http://www.iuni.com/...ds/iuexamt3c-mp4.mpg

at 132 and I can't tell the diff between it and the original.

I think I can better tell the difference with strings than say voice or guitar. Must be something to do with the 2 kHz.