I hate being sick...

[johnpalmer]

Thankfully, the work week is over. I've only lost 12 hours of pay, and unless things go really badly, I should be well by Monday.

On the plus side, I've received my new toy in the mail, an 80 gig iPod.

Wow... small... dense... shiny. I can't bear to take the plastic off of it, knowing that 30 seconds after I do so, the bright, shiny blackness will become dulled and scratched.

It's also confusing, killing my expectations of How MP3 Player Work. My old, trusty Creative Zen worked nicely; you could sync in *either* direction. Put all music on your computer to you MP3 player, and then move your MP3 player to another computer, and move it all back.

iPods don't do that.

When I tried doing it the slow way, I ended up screwing up the database, causing iTunes to lock up until I finally got the idea of wiping my iTunes directory, and starting fresh.

I've also finally cleaned up my music files. By "cleaned up", I mean they all have consistent naming and storage schemes (Artist\album\(album) - track# - (track name)), and proper tags. Oh, and all those CDs that had duplicate directories or names have finally been cleaned up leaving me with a mere 13.5 gigs of music.

To fit on an 80 gig iPod. I never really expected to fill my old 30 gig Creative MP3 player. I'm going to have to figure out how to get some video files on this thing.

I just wish I had the energy to work up some enthusiasm for this. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Comments

[kightp.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you're still feeling lousy, darlin', but glad you've had a new toy to play with. Renaming all your music files sounds like just about the right sort of quasi-mindless task to occupy you when you're sick.

I wish I could be there to play nurse. Doggoned non-functional teleporters anyway.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Alas, re-naming and re-tagging all my files is how I spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Which kind of annoys me, you know, because I could have spent them doing something else, if my illness had the decency to consult my schedule, you know?

So I spent my time mostly sleeping. If your body will let you sleep 16 hours a day, it probably needs to.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I hope you feel better soon.

Why did you choose to buy an iPod instead of another Creative player?

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Well, I never really liked the Creative player's user interface, and I'd read the instructions on an iPod and I liked the sound of them (and I've since decided that my experience matches what I thought it would be), so that was one issue. It's a one-handed interface, and everything gets done with one set of buttons, all on the same wheel. It's not so intuitive as they think; the only way I got the volume to change was remembering having read it. Still, it is very easy to get used to.

But the biggest thing is, I haven't found a music store that lets me buy songs the way iTunes does... being able to have them on a lot of players, on enough computers, and owning them forever. There were some decent subscription services, but I didn't want a subscription service... I wanted to own whatever I bought.

Plus, while the cost of the 80 gig iPod might have put me off, I had a $200 Amazon gift certificate, which made it seem a lot cheaper.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I have a Creative Zen Micro, and I use it one-handed.

It's interesting that you would prefer everything on the same wheel. When I've used interfaces like that before, they made me insane.

I do remember that getting used to the Creative interface was relatively difficult--I tried to show it to someone at some point, and it seemed impossibly clunky, but I'm so used to it now that I can't tell.

[caltastic]

I use a program called PQ DVD to convert existing files to ipod format and rip DVDs. Ripping TV shows is a little bit of a pain because I'm just anal enough to want to rip each episode individually.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I got PQ DVD and I reckon I might need to re-purchase any movies I want to see *absolutely perfectly* on my iPod, but Dogma translated acceptable. Oh, there's the occasional stutter, a couple places where video/sound didn't quite sync properly, but honestly, watching a crappy VHS tape was just as bad (and all VHS tapes eventually become crappy; it's the nature of the medium).

(Yes, this really is a reply to something 3.5 months old :-).)

Have you ever tried ripping the DVDs to another format and then converting them? Does that work any better?

(An interesting thing about this: running this was the first time that I've ever looked at "My Computer|Properties" and saw the processor running at top speed.)

[barbarakitten-t.livejournal.com]

be well, john...

the creative zen vs. ipod thing is driving me insane. i ripped tons of cd's using i-tunes, but tc and i both got creative zen things for christmas (i got a nano and got him a zen V) i like the nano better, i think...but the documentation for zen creative sucks...

take care of yourself...

love,

kitten

[kyra-ojosverdes.livejournal.com]

I hope you feel better soon! *hug*