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Mozilla 0.9.8 is out.
I know my part. Don't expect any big surprises. With that said, I'll continue:
The iPod rocks. (Dude.) If one of your goals is to pick up weird geeky guys in public places then you definitely have to get one of these things. Girls, unfortunately, seem a little less enamored. Still, if you can get them to spin the silky smooth navigation wheel there is an occasionaly small rise in pulse.
So far I have 217 songs (that's 15 hours 8 minutes 5 seconds of music taking up 1.02 GB of disk space) loaded into iTunes. That's the program on my Mac that holds all my MP3s. I just put an audio CD into my computer and iTunes opens up automatically showing me all the tracks. One click and iTunes goes to the internet and fetches all the CD and track information (or I could type it in manually.) One more click and iTunes converts the whole thing into the much smaller MP3 format and adds it to my growing library.
I can search through the library in a bewildering variety of ways. And I can create "play lists" which are the digital equivalent of mixed tapes. I just make a new list (like making a folder) and drag whatever tracks I want out of the library and into the new play list.
So far this is all in my computer. Now when I plug in the iPod it also opens up iTunes and automatically syncs, adding any songs from iTunes that weren't already on the iPod and deleteing any that have disapperaed from the mothership. Play lists are treated similarly. Of course there are manual controls to override this behavior, but so far the fully autopilot mode seems to work just fine. Seperate volume adjustments (crucial for making mixes) as well as track length editing (cut out that talking at the beginning of the track, or trim the 45 seconds of applause at the end) are all preserved between iTunes and iPod. (Equalizer settings are lost, but to me that is much less important that track length and volume.)
The firewire connection transfers all the songs quite fast. And it charges the iPod which, by the way, came fully charged right out of the box. I walked around with it all last night and it didn't go below half on the power meter.
I'm ripping Love - Forever Changes in the background right now. Up to 221 songs. But I need your help. If you had to make the music for a restaurant what would your top album be? Top five? And don't say Getz and Gilberto because as great as that album is, we hear it everywhere. Ditto for Buena Vista Social Club. But that maybe gives you an idea where I'm at. So, like those (or not,) but songs people aren't already sick of. I know this crowd has some ideas. Come on, give it up. Free meals for a lifetime* to anyone who contributes. Thanks.
* offer dependent on validation from someone actually in charge
By default, perhaps, but I am in charge of the music system for the new restaurant. Of course I bought an iPod. It just came in the mail (I ordered it Friday with 2 day shipping - pretty good.) So far it's as slick as I expected. Apple is so good at this.
So now I get a week or so with it to make a lot of playlists. And then it will live at the restaurant. If this works J. said she'll buy them for all the places. Still, I'm trying to convince her to just get iMacs so that we can put all the numbers on the web and she can work from anywhere. But this is a good first step. And if we do end up following my ultimate plan then maybe the iPod will fall back into my hands.
I'll report more this week as I play with it.