Well, if you use iTunes, reloading every single song and recreating playlists just requires plugging it in and letting it sit for 10 minutes. Not exactly a great hardship.
Direct from bands’ Web sites, eMusic.com, and AllOfMP3.com. I also get MP3s from iRate.com, which is where I discover a lot of new bands. I still buy a fair amount of my music on CDs–since I own a bookstore that sells music–and I rip those in MP3 format.
I recommend checking out iRate.com, by the way. Bands looking for exposure donate a few songs, and they’ve accumulated something like 20,000 songs. When you first sign up with them, their player downloads some random music to your computer. You rate each one, their server compares your ratings to other people’s ratings, and then downloads a new batch. The more songs you rate, the better it tunes in to your tastes. All of the music is free, and when I find an artist I like, I go and buy a CD. I’m happy, and the bands get paid.
Yes, but that’s only if you can have/want to have all your music on your comp at once. Otherwise, it’s a bit of a PITA to transfer all your CDs.
Sounds interesting, thanks!
True, but the iPod doesn’t have the ignoring CHACKUNK! right smack in the middle of the song. It’s a fair trade-off, IMO.
:o “The long and winding road…CHACHUNK!..that leads to your door.”
I’ve bitched about the ipod on these boards before, but here I go again.
I got a 3rd gen 20GB ipod for my birthday (the wife and parents went in on it together, it was an extremely generous gift). Within 13 months the battery was completely shot, it lasted about six minutes before dying. No problem, I have a car adapter and a home adapter, I’ll bravely soldier on. Four months later, it was completely dead. It lost all twelve GB of my music. I reloaded around two GB and in an hour, they were lost as well.
I took it to one of the most wretched, despicable hives of scum and villainy on the planet, the Apple Store. After waiting an hour for the “Resident Genius” (their wording, not mine) to look at my ipod, he held it up to his ear as it started and said, “hard drive failure.” When I asked what I could do about it, his answer, “buy another ipod.”
You see, since the people who bought it for me did not buy the $60 extended warranty, I was shit out of luck. Fucking hard drive failure on an eighteen month old $300 dollar item and they suggest you simply drop another three bills to pick up another ipod.
I’m not going to tell you that the ipod is not a great invention, or that it didn’t change the way I listened to music. I will tell you, cover your ass with some kind of warranty. Don’t buy the “we’re different, we’re a company that cares” vibe they’re selling. Once you leave the store, Apple does not give a fuck about you.
I guess I’m still a little bitter.
Mmmmkay… I’ve also been looking at an iPod, but my problem is that, right when I had decided on a 6gb mini, they come out with the nano, which is only available in 2gb and 4gb. I like the formatting of the iPod, and am definitely looking forward to being able to listen to all of the songs that I downloaded with the Pepsi/iTunes deal last year, as well as a few CDs that I’ve purchased through iTunes.
Can anyone recommend a competing product that has at least 6gb of memory, and can play iTunes files?
Thanks!
TygerDralion, the mini is not entirely lost yet: you can still find them for sale on numerous websites, including Amazon. So if you truly had your heart set on it, go for it! I think they’re really cool-looking myself… 
Can’t help you with recs for a good competing product, but I can tell you that they almost assuredly won’t “play iTunes files.” You can remedy this, though: simply burn the files to a CD and then rip the CD back onto your computer (using some program other than iTunes). It’s a good idea to back up your music, in any event.
I use an Apple 8-tRack. It goes
" The long and winding road, that leads, to your … CHACHUNK !.. door"
Notice the artistic difference there??
Well, anyone who loads all their music on * any * portable mp3 player and doesn’t have their playlist backed up somewhere is inevitably going to face the day when the machine breaks, gets lost, stolen, or goes through the wash cycle.
[HIJACK] What’s the most efficient way to back up my songs? I’ve heard I can save them as data files and zip them for compression, but how do I do this? [/HIJACK]
iTunes (IIRC) can rip CD’s into audio files. Then get a compressing utility, like winzip, winrar, or what have you, and use it to compress them.
Most audio file formats (mps, ogg) are already compressed, and using winzip or winrar on them gains little or nothing.
Here’s a linky about the announcement on the 12th – so chill out for a month and let the prices come down. Then we can re-open this debate.
Note that previously TS said no new PowerBooks for a long time. But now they changed thier minds. An 89GB iPod is certainly possible.
But I agree it makes sense to wait and se what is announced.
In general, playing the waiting game is a losing proposition - there will always be cheaper / better products. But there are certian times of the year when it pays to wait. (For Apple products: just before MWSF and WWDC at least)
Brian
What are “MWSF” and “WWDC”?
MacWorld San Francisco (January)
World Wide Developer Conference (June)
Brian
I gotta say, a $300 portable electronic device lasting a year and a half seems like a fair amount of use for the dollar. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be pissed, but $300 isn’t going to buy a lifetime of use on something like that.
I am at this point fairly heavily invested in Apple products. The Fem-Bot owns an iPod ( see previous posts for that little debacle of the week ). In the last 3 years I have purchased a Titanium Powerbook G4 portable, an eMac desktop and now a Macintosh Mini. The Titanium Powerbook is used heavily, and had I not had it flip off the car seat onto the floor ( in it’s bag, too ) while I was slamming on the brakes and fatally damaged the hard drive, I could have said I’ve not replaced a single thing on it yet. So, I moiderized the HD and had to buy a new one. That was on ME, not Apple.
They are simply another means to an end. I’ve had some hellacious problems along the way, but since I’ve also bought new Dell XP 2 Ghz machines for other members of the household, I’m by no means a Mac Snob. In fact, I’m fairly tired of the smug derisive presentation of most Mac Geniuses. ( yes, their phrasing ). Do they know their shit? Almost always. Do really top-notch PC wonks know their shit? Sure do. I’m an expert in my field. Do I know my shit? You betcha. Do I insist I be referred to by clients as " That Steadicam Genius" ? I do not. ( not an entirely unpleasant idea… 
)
I try hard to get past the glitz, which in the world of Apple is presented in clear lucite, white and gray plastic. The machines work. There are around 40 viruses total worldwide for Mac OS Tiger. The OS is stable as heck and I find more and more things are being written that are of great use for the Mac OS- whereas 3 years ago when I got my TiBook, with original Mac OS-X 10.0.0.0.0, nothing was available yet. -shrug- such is life.
sleeepy2, had the device said “Rio River” or “Sony MP3” on it, I doubt you’d be politely accepting of the answer- which would have been the same. Is it warrantied? If not, you have to buy a new one. Immediately followed by " Do you have all of your music stored on a hard drive or CD or DVD as backup? " That’s not a Mac snob issue, that’s a basic data protection issue. All storage media dies- do backups and as been pointed out in other threads, back up those backups every time an emerging storage technology appears that has legs. 5 1/4, then 3 1/2, then CD, then DVD, then small FireLite sized HD’s, and so on. Memory Stick and USB Flash Drives and whatnot- whatever the stable new technology is, if you value your stuff, you will pay to back it up.
Alternately of course, there are ways to back up your data at less expense by parking it as stored files on any number of free email sites. I know people who do a weekly back-up of all of their documentation and emails by sending them as large attachments in email to their HotMail, Yahoo or other free email service names. In this way, someone else’s servers are storing your media. Assuming it’s not super duper private secret shit, you could share around the duty and have your stuff backed up.
Me, I use a Smartdisk “FireLite” Firewire drive here on my desk. I back up stuff every few days to it. If the house burned to the ground, I’d be fucked. Otherwise, the stuff is off the computer’s hard drive and sitting there, waiting to be accessed. I have periodically backed up all emails and documents ( all of which are pitifully small, media-space-use-wise) and burned them as CD’s and sent them off to someone out of town. Just so there are sets off-site. Not a bad idea. Even if you do not own a DVD burner, you can burn a heck of a lot of data or photos or music ( as MP3 files, anyway ) on a single CD.
Oh , and once you walk out of Circuit City, Best Buy, CompUSA or a Gateway store, guess what? They don’t give a fuck about you either. You’ve either gotten a warranty or you haven’t. ( or, in the case of a gift, didn’t occur to you to go to an Apple Store and buy an extended warranty. Which does stink, I admit ).
I will disagree that a year’s heavy use is worth 300.00 For the 300.00, one should have a device that can handle all of the activities daily that are shown in advertisements. This includes people dancing or riding a bike or treadmilling while having an iPod strapped to their arms or waists. Since this kind of repetitive vibration and jarring is injurious in the extreme to any spinning platter storage media, I call minor Bullshit on their entire campaign.
OTOH, the Nano is a clever idea and in a year or so when storage per square mm of silicon gets tighter, I may well buy a 10 Gig Nano. I can see that coming. How? Because in my business, people are already buying Solid Hard Drive Storage video cameras for “prosumer” and professional use. You jack in the hard drive, you shoot, you pull it out. After a while, there will be fewer and fewer moving parts to hard storage media. Therefore, one can jog or dance or treadmill with impugnity.
Till then, I am not investing in any MP-3 players. And, I got my daughter a silicone rubber clear iSkin for her iPod today so it will be slightly protected from minor jarring and bumping. I don’t want to become iEnraged again for quite a few iMonths. 
iCartooniverse
You have all failed.
I am now the proud owner of a 20GB iPod. I love it! I have not had time for something to go wrong, but its great right now. I ordered a case along with it, so I can enjoy it looking unscratched as long as possible.
Thanks for your advice and suggestions.