Highgate

Tuesday

Portable Media Device, the next Generation.

Well, for me anyway. About two days ago my (not so) trusty Creative Zen Micro shit the bed; and just cause i spilled a little coffee into it's guts. Whatever, that's what the extended waranty is for; i took it down to Best Buy, slapped it's lifeless carcass onto the help desk and said "Give me an Ipod... one with the video thingy." Five hours later, and only about 100 bucks more, i've got my first few albums uploaded (Annie, Zuma, Sleep.) some porn converted to MP4, Itunes is NOT totally fucking up my file system, and i've only locked the damn thing up twice so far. Not too bad... I was definatly freaking out the first time it locked up during the firmware update; Ipods don't have on/off switches, so if the software freezes holding down play isn't going to do anything, i didn't panic though, one of the things about owning an Ipod i realized quickly is that for every problem you have there is probably one million other people out there that have already experienced it... ah, the sweet benefits of conformity. I found the right website, held down Menu + enter for 15 seconds, and Pop, off it went, and back on it came... and everything was fine.

Having owned a creative Zen for about 5 months, i feel like i'm in a pretty good position to compare the two, and though i was really rooting for Creative, in the end the Ipod most definatly wins out; sure the zen may fit better in my hand, and have a little glowing blue light; maybe i don't have to use Itunes exclusivly (though you don't anymore thans to a new winamp plugin) and perhaps it has a marginally better signal to noise ratio; In the end, the only thing that matters is one thing. The Click Wheel! sweet jesus the click wheel; what a dream this little gadget is; it's the worlds most perfectly designed interface. No joke... if last Century had say, the automobile as it's representation of mechanical brilliance, than the Ipod is this centuries... though, i guess we've got a ways to go before this century is out... it's still a safe bet, reguardless.

Another added bonus is that instead of saying either "My Zen Micro" and having people say "... Your what now?" or saying "My Ipod." and having people say... "But you don't have an Ipod... you have one of those other thingies..." (then i say, "Zen Micro, and they say "A what now?") Now i can say "Ipod", and mean it. Not to mention that now i get to read all those wonderfull Podcast articles and "the future of Ipods" things without feeling like i wasn't invited to the party, so bring it on, i wanna be playing a Linux port of Half-life on this bitch by August!

8 comments:

gd said...

welcome to the club tanner.
they will probably announce a new ipod today thatll make your ipod feel obsolete. (thatd be cool).

ive been thinking of getting a second ipod. an ipod shuffle just for walking around town and whatnot. i only use my 40gb ipod in the car or when im travelling, would be nice to have something in my coat pocket so i can rock it! word....

http://ipodlinux.org/Main_Page
if you fuck up your ipod with this stuff, dont blame me. i installed it once on mine, it was pretty cool.

peace,
gd

jds said...

I've been rocking a flashless based MyMusix for the last 5 months. I picked it up at some sketchy website for $3.99. It's super cumbersome to use (have to restart each time I want to switch albums), but it serves the purpose. One day an ipod will be in my future, but for now I'm staying true to the musix.

Anonymous said...

Really? A new iPod announce?

Yeah, Tanner — this is the way to go.

Hey, I wanna review some Nest material records. Get 'em to me.

Anonymous said...

thanks god, cause it coulda been a new video with a touch screen according to some people. thank god.
tanner come over soon so i can get you Phallus Dei, Talk Talk and Counting Crows videos on there.

as soon as you left last night i realized i should have told you about reset, its crucial..as is hold switch toggling. as id being very careful with it around the toilet. just ask jeff
ben

Tanner M. said...

Yeah nothing interesting in the new announcment... 350 Itunes boombox? wtf. The Intel mac's are cool though; i remember when i worked for IBM doing microchip inspection we did alot of the powerpc chips for mac and chips for nintendo; they were a big customer; i wouldn't doubt it if we see the upstate new york and or essex plants lay off a bunch of people because of this.

The Shuffle... seems cool for that reason, of just putting on the very cream of the crop, but i'm not a random person, i like my playlists; i'll spend a few hours a night making playlists for imagined events... that is the shit; the itunes/ipod interaction is sweet... though it pains me to say it.

Tanner M. said...

greg, i was totally making shit up when i said "linux port of half life" and i was browsing around and wammo. linux half life on an ipod (nano!) i love this thing.
Ben, definatly need to do some swap action... i want amon duul videos. but i have to save room so i still put on all my "Dude gets stick stuck in spokes of bike, goes flying into gaggle of nuns." videos.

Anonymous said...

and now we can just ipod dj at pearls on march 21.

going to the 1/2 tonight?

ben

gd said...

get off your ego trips man.
surrender to the random shuffle.
its the way.....

i finally got my itunes library organized on my computer (with my multiple ext. firewire drives).

564GB of music on shuffle is totally wicked and fun.
283 days of music. im pushing for 365.