August 3, 2008
How do I copy music from my iPod onto my computer?
Although Apple’s iTunes program is very good at keeping a computer-based library synchronized to an iPod automatically, or for manually transferring tracks from your computer’s iTunes library onto your iPod, it provides extremely limited functionality for transferring information in the opposite direction—from your iPod back to your computer.
One of the likely reasons for Apple to have taken such a restrictive approach to this is to combat piracy and thereby maintain good relations with the music labels that are currently selling their content via Apple’s iTunes Store. In reality, however, there are any number of legitimate reasons why a user may want to copy music from their iPod back to their computer, such as recovering from a catastrophic system failure, or easily transferring a large iTunes library over to a new computer.
Unfortunately, with the exception of tracks purchased from the iTunes Store, which we’ll discuss further later in this article, iTunes provides no method for transferring your music and other media content from your iPod back to your computer. It has therefore fallen to third-party developers to pick up where iTunes left off in this regard, and there are today a number of very robust and full-featured utilities that will do everything from basic copying of media content back to your hard drive all the way through to rebuilding your entire iTunes library using the information on your iPod, complete with playlists, ratings, and play count information.
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Posted by pajaro at 4:01 PM
Sansa Clip mp3 player
Come September all new Clips will also support Flac and come with FM radios as standard.
Currently you can get a Clip either with or without the radio. 34 x 54 x 10mm in size and weighs about as much as a half empty box of matches or 25g. Build wise its a little on the plastic side, but it doesn't creak, flex or groan no matter how you abuse it.
For an entry level micro-player Sansa have bundled a decent amount of functionality into the Clip so as well as support for the usual MP3, WMA, WAV and Audible formats you also get a voice recorder, an FM radio and a handy “sleep” function that powers the device down after anything from 10 to 120 minutes of play.
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Posted by pajaro at 2:01 PM
Journey-Themed MP3 Player
The Zvue Journey player is for sale exclusively at Wal-Mart for around $40.
The Zvue Journey player will come wrapped body wise in Journey artwork. It will also be pre-loaded with 11 new songs as well as 11 "re-recorded classics." All of these tracks are off of the new Journey CD "Revelation." The player will be on store shelves in special Journey-themed packaging, making it hard to miss as you are cruising the MP3 player aisle.
Technical features of the Journey player include 1GB of storage so you can load other music besides the Journey soundtrack, MP3/WMA audio file support, an on-board equalizer to enhance audio quality, a built-in microphone for voice recordings, a built-in speaker and a rechargeable battery. It is available now.
Posted by pajaro at 12:01 PM
August 3, 2008
Creative Zen Mozaic mp3 player
Mozaic's rubberised styling certainly won't win over many angst ridden teenage boys, neither will its odd decision to fit off-centre controls and leave three large blank spaces. Still, a large-ish 1.8in LCD, FM tuner, mic for voice recording and integrated speakers does mean it has a decent backbone.
On the other hand the limited codec support (MP3, WMA, WAV, Audible, Jpeg, transcoded AVI) won't win over fans still critical of Creative's decision to shun Ogg and the lossless Flac format but with 32 hours continuous music playback and a range of 2GB to 16GB capacities it does bring compensations.
Other features include an alarm, clock, calendar, PIM (Personal Information Management) tasks and contacts display and given its silent appearance on the Creative UK site expect it to launch soon.
Pricing is through and as expected you're in for a good deal: £49.99 for 2GB, £59.99 for 4GB, £79.99 for 8Gb and £119.99 for 16GB.
Posted by pajaro at 10:00 AM
Are Phones to replace dedicated mp3 players?
are these devices slowly fading away as the same functions are becoming standard in mobile phones? Let's take a look at the new Zen, for example:
* 2- or 4-GB of flash storage ($99 and $129, respectively), with 8- and 16-GB models coming later. That's plenty of room to carry tunes, but most new phones have some internal storage and many are including microSD expansion options.
* 32 hours of audio playback, which is very good. Most phones can't approach that, but some can play audio for well over 20 hours.
* A built in speaker for the Mosaic. Nice, but probably of limited use.
* 1.8-inch display on the Zen to display photos and videos. This doesn't exactly trump most modern phones.
* A built-in FM radio. That's definitely attractive to some and I've seen very few phones with this capability.
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Posted by pajaro at 7:57 AM
August 2, 2008
Creative Zen Stone Plus
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Posted by pajaro at 8:49 PM