Sally's Kitchen & Stuff

Searching for that elusive (non ipod) perfect mp3 player

Well, I found it. Sort of. I had this obssession with the Iriver-H120 a while back. It wasn't an ipod, it was black, it had the look of a good old JVC all metal cassette walkman (my first portable music device) and it was just...my thing. It was also discontinued.

My hunt for another Iriver led me to the H-10. The next version from the old H-120. It's the same storage capacity, an updated firmware system, and it no longer plays OGG. Poo. But it retained the look, so I thought, what the heck. The price tag, at every local retailer I've searched, has been around $370. Tigerdirect had it for $279 for months, but I was waiting for a lower price to pounce.

So I checked this morning, and the price was $224 + $20 rebate. $204 + tax + shipping. About $250 when all's said and done. Compared to $370+tax = $425 at TheSourceCC. That means...I save a whopping $175. So if anybody wants to nab one before they're gone (the rebate will be honored until the end of the month), here's a link. By the way, that's Canadian dollars. It's even cheaper on the US site.

Warning: this is a geek mp3 player. It's probably one of the least user-friendly players out there. You can learn to use it, then hand it to your friends, who will promptly hand it back. Since that's exactly how I've set up my computer (Aston shell, anyone? No desktop icons? All shortcut menus binded to F-keys? Confused yet?) I LOVE it.

Firmware upgrade link (There's MAJOR problems with the built in 1.01 firmware. latest as of this posting: 2.51.)
Fixya page

Do everything with freeware. (or at least pay a little less)

Part of the benefit of my job is that I get to update the system however I want. This time I want to get myself as far away from Microsoft as possible. The only thing I'm not allowed to change is my OS - networking would be too much of an issue - but all else can go. I'm the Jane-of-all-trades person at work, so I also have to think of doing EVERYTHING with the computer.

Since we're a non-profit-charitable organization, the more money we can save on software, the better. But doesn't that apply to ANY organization?

• Microsoft Office can be entirely replaced by StarOffice, or OpenOffice. Both support native word formats, and StarOffice base supports 11 different formats including MySQL as well as Access. Oh, the possibilities... StarOffice will only put you back $100, and OpenOffice, a whooping $0. MS Office? $500. Ouch.
• Windows Media Player - Use Winamp, and free codecs instead. There's also VLC if you like to stream.
• Are you a graphic designer? Used to photoshop? You can always use theGIMP with GimpShop. GimpShop basically move menus and effect names around and rename them so that it feels like photoshop. It even has a plugins registry.
• It's hard to find an alternative to Adobe Illustrator, but there are some. Try Inkscape. It's not hard to learn at all, and it saves to the W3C SVG format. Skencil's been around for a while, and can open native illustrator files. It's about as easy (har har) to use as illustrator. The development version IS available for XP.
• Desktop publishing tools? Use QuarkXPress? I wish Scribus works in windows, and with any luck, it might soon have a windows port. For now, there is always PagePlus.
• Do you need vector based clipart? Check the Open Clipart Library. You can even submit requests!
• For stock photos, take a look at the Webmaster's Eldorado. The downisde? It hasn't been updated since 2000, but it does have some good stuff. There are over 19,000 photos.
• It's a good idea to check Wikipedia's list of Public Domain Image Resources.
• For other content, take a look at Wikipedia's List of Open Content Projects.
• Making some screenshots? Hello can capture part of a screen, but if you want a dedicated screenshot capture program, there's nothing quite like the Clipper. It used to be free, now it costs 7.50 EU. Still really cheap. If you'd rather use freeware, give X-Shot a try.
• Ripping CDs? Use CDEX. It does the job just as well, if not better, than other commercial software.
• Doing some *cough* video capture? Virtual VCR will do it.
• Need to clean up the captured videos? Get VirtualDub.
• Now you want to edit them? Get Jahshaka. Save yourself $1000.
• For basic image storage and manipulation, there's Picasa. To share, there's Hello and Flickr. I just wish the two would work together. If only you can get Picasa plugins!
• Use an online calendar to keep track of your schedule. Yahoo has a great calendar - I've been using it since...since...I don't remember. If you don't like to use yahoo (down with commercialism!) then you can try the webCalendar. Yahoo Calendar supports syncing - to my pocketPC, specifically, which is why I use it. Ditch outlook altogther; you won't miss it.
• Use GMAIL for email. Forget about using a client altogether. If you must use a client, use Thunderbird.
• Get Firefox. For me, it's my newsreader, webpage tester, gmail client, weatherstation and web browser rolled up together. Add Adblock and you're good to go.
• Store your bookmarks online either using del.icio.us (if you like to share your findings) or yahoo bookmarks. Yahoo just bought del.icio.us, so the service should stablilize over the next little while. You can also SYNC your bookmarks between del.icio.us and firefox using foxylicious.
• Doing some CD burning? CDBurnerXP Pro kicks nero to the curb. If you have this, by the way, you can ditch CDEX. CDBurnerXP Pro will also rip CDs, write isos, convert bin/cue files, and print CD covers.
• Setting up an online gallery? Try JAlbum. It's free, it supports skins so you can make a gallery that matches your page's look. It's more configurable than the built in "export to web" in Picasa.
• Got roped into authoring your company's website? Use NVU. It costs nothing. Need to implement an editor so the boss can update those calendar pages? Try TinyMCE.
• They want a drop down menu too? Fear not. Here's a few.
• Want to create PDF files without getting Acrobat? There's always FreePDF.
• Offline Browsing? Use HttTrack.
• For personal accounting, get Grisbi. For small business, often TinyBA is enough. You can use TurboCash for point-of-sale.
• Lastly, for goodness sake, if you're going to use Windows XP, get yourself some PowerToys.

The adjustment period is much shorter than you think. Most of these are quite intuitive and easy to learn - aside from accounting software. It seems there are simply no intuitive way to do accounting. :)

Targus Active Noise Cancellation Headphones

Targus Link

Oldie but a goodie. Yup. I do have those BOSE headphones in my wish list, but who has the money to shell out $399 for a pair of headphones? (Canadian dollars...For Americans I believe it is $299) The targus ones are great value, considering that they're relatively cheap at $35-50, depending on where you get it, and that they are active noise cancellation headphones.

The only drawback is that they take AA batteries...but you already have a set of these, right?

And what I really, really want for Christmas!

An iRiver H120. It's discontinued. You can't find it at bestbuy, or the SourceCC. You can't find it on Craigslist either. I've looked. The only place where you can really get one nowadays is Ebay.ca. It is, by far, the only iPod killer I care to ever own.

Sure, it's not as cute as an ipod. It doesn't look as "simple" and as "clean" as an iPod.  The controls are not as "intuitive" or "user-friendly." Well, I've always been a PC girl, so this is FINE for me. In electronics, one should always put function over form. If it's really ugly and it must stand in your living room? Well, that's what an opague door on an entertainment system is for.

Specs:

20GB of internal storage - drool.

Up to 16 hours of battery life - drool.

Supports MP3, WMA, ASF, OGG and WAV music files - somebody said OGG. I'm in.

Ultra-fast USB 2.0 transfers (up to 40 times faster than USB 1.0) - oh my. That just goes to show how old this player is, and how it is STILL cool.

Integrated FM tuner - You can record from it. Good call for trying to find out what song that is later.
Intuitive music navigation - not really. :) It's sort of geekish instead of podish.

Real-time MP3 encoding (no PC required) - meow.

Store or transfer files of any type - 20gb portable harddrive, anyone?

Line-in and Line-out jacks - line-in. Why would I get an mp3 player with no line-in? Reason why I don't want an ipod.

Optical input and output - stereo out to an amp ... who needs special "docks"?
Built in Voice Recorder - one button operation.

One drawback - this thing is 60(W) X 19(D) X 105(H)mm, so it's about the size of an old JVC compact walkman. Still, small enough to slip into a shirt pocket. And it comes in natural BLACK.

Why they ever discontinued this baby is beyond me. :(

How-to: add a flash music player to your friendster profile

All these steps are FREE.

1. Get some music. What format is it? We need some mp3s, onstant bitrate. Rip/Convert with CDEX. VBRs will NOT do.

2. Get some hosting. I use myfilehut.com. Upload your file.

3. Get the mp3 player . Unzip it to a temporary directory on your harddrive. Here's a link to the page of the file.

4. Open the mp3player.xml file in notepad/textpad.

5. So here's what SHOULD be in your xml file
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<player showDisplay="yes" showPlaylist="yes" autoStart="yes">
    <song path="ABSOLUTE PATH TO MP3 FILE" title="Title of song" />
    <song path="ABSOLUTE PATH TO MP3 FILE" title="Title of song" />
</player>

Change the purple text to links to YOUR file. Got another song? Copy and paste the line.

In myfilehut, you can go into "my files" and right click on any of your files then > copy link location, to get the absolute path.

Try not to put any surprising characters in the title. Stuff like %$*&^#~ could POTENTIALLY screw it up.

6. Upload all the "mp3player" files. Note: the mp3s and mp3 player files must reside on the SAME server.

7. Link it via your profile.

In friendster, use My Profile > edit profile > customize > embed media box. Copy the whole chunk in, and change the purple text to the links to your files.

<embed allowScriptAccess="never"
src="ABSOLUTE LINK TO YOUR mp3player.swf file"
align="middle" menu="false" quality="high" bgcolor="Transparent"
width="270" height="270" name="index" allowScriptAccess="never"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent"
pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"
flashvars="playlist=ABSOLUTE LINK TO YOUR mp3player.xml file" />

Notes.

• If you're using other servers, make sure it's FAST or tells you that it supports streaming. If it's too slow, it shows an N%N error.
• If the mp3 file sounds "chipmunky," re-encode it with CDEX so that it's Constant Bit Rate.
• Absolute links point to INTERNET addresses, not your computer. It starts with "http://" not "c:\" If you have backslashes "\" in the filename, we've got a problem.
• You can check all your absolute paths by using them as an url. Copy and paste it into the address bar, press enter. If it works, it's not broken.
• Don't leave out the "/" at the end of the tag, if you're an html wannabe monkey, you might be tempted to. It's xml, and we need to escape closing every tag by "/". If you leave it out, it won't work.

Darn. Wow.

Canada Computers just got a graphic update. To all of us geeks in TO, that's a household name. It's up there with Sonnam, Jnetronic, and PCUsed. Now the site has thumbnails to all their products. Oooooo. Drool.

There's a Sandisk Ultra II SD card on sale for $109 - 1 GB! Jeez. Two years ago I had to pay that much for a measly 256. Technology moves much too fast in this world. Not that it's a bad thing; I just wish the value on "vintage" products go up too. My Little IPAQ 1940, which I love, and adore for its little compact body, is no longer available new from any merchant anywhere. The retail listed price for it was $399 US back in its heyday - haha, two years back, not that I paid that much mind you - and now you can probably find one hocked on Craigslist for under $150 CDN.

First I was going gaga for the Tungster T3. Now I've seen the light - I'm more of a PPC person than a Palm person. As in, I'm more of a nerd than I care to admit. I'd rather have a machine I can hack than a machine that has more apps is touted to be much more user-friendly. Now I'm drooling over this little baby / monster of a PPC - the Asus MyPal A730W. That isn't a PPC! That's a mini laptop! It has a 1.3 mp cam, microphone & speaker (duplex record/playback), earphones jack, 520 mhz? That's more power than my computer back in 1997! 640 by 480 display? What will they think of next?

Now somebody give me one of those and that SD card on sale and I'll be one happy little girl.