The New iPod
My new 60 GB iPod photo arrived on Wednesday. As cruel fate would have it, the accessories that I ordered arrived on Monday and Tuesday–the Griffin iTalk (which everyone I know likes despite the mediocre reviews on Amazon) and the Macally FM Transmitter and Charger. And, of course, it was delivered while I was at work so I couldn't fondle it. All I could do was call the wife and have over the phone iPod sex: "What's the iPod wearing? Is it a baaaaad iPod?!?" I finally got my grubby little mits on it that evening.
Not much to report on it that most people haven't already heard / read about. I would say iTunes is a nice program for managing all of your MP3s, the setup and transfer of the iPod is painless, and transferring photos is equally easy. The screen is bright and crisp. The slideshow functionality is pretty handy as is the AV cable. I was quite happy to get the pre-March packaging as this means I got the AV cable, dock, and whatever else that is now not included since the March "price drop." I am anxiously awaiting the promised attachment from Apple that'll allow me to transfer pictures directly from my camera. I'm also mostly hoping it'll work with my current camera, otherwise I'll just have to go buy a new camera as well. The only other pain is that I don't have a USB 2.0 computer. The downside is that transfers are pretty slow. The upside is that now, of course, I must buy a new computer–there's no other solution.
Coté pointed me to iPodder to grab the podcasts I've been dreaming about (they're most of the reason for the iPod purchase) and to IT Conversations to feed my hungry content monster.
I also began long process of ripping every CD I own. After some research I finally decided on using Exact Audio Copy to rip WAV files directly to my harddrive and then batch encoding overnight using lameb at 192 average bit rate because this that's what I thought would fit me best after reading the Radified Guide to Ripping CD audio & MP3 encoding. If you're curious, my lameb batch file runs this option:
perl c:\lameb\lameb.pl -i rms -fs "~a/~c/~n ~t" -D -o "--abr 192 -h" -d c:\lameb\encoded c:\lameb\wav\*.wav.
Overall, I'd say it has been a very satisfying purchase. As is the norm with the wife and me, I should definitely get my money's worth out of it. And that, as they say, is that.
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