Autofill from iPod
| The big thing that the iPod Shuffle is missing is the ability to Autofill from a mounted regular iPod. Since I only have about 2 GB of music on my computer, and around 32GBs of music on my iPod, the selection is limited. Being able to Autofill from my iPod would be a great way of adding value to the iPod Shuffle, marketing it as a smaller sidekick for your regular iPod. I don't see the downside to this option for Apple, as you'd still have all the regular DRM in effect and the inability to pull the songs back to a computer for unlawful tinkering and spreading of music. You could even "pair" a particular iPod Shuffle to a particular iPod.
Dear Apple / Steve Jobs.
Please enable Autofill from iPod as an option in iTunes for the iPod Shuffle.
Yours,
C.K. Sample, III
*x-posted to Sample the Web |
Portable Audio-listening Heaven, Part 2: The Simpl A1 Headphone Amplifier for iPod
| My article, Portable Audio-listening Heaven, Part 2: The Simpl A1 Headphone Amplifier for iPod, is up and ready for reading on AppleMatters. An excerpt:
The Shure E3c will ensure that your iPod's sound is clear at low and normal volume levels, but due to the iPod's limitations the sound may not remain clear at higher volumes. The audiophiles among you will notice that the iPod's internal amplifier can sometimes muddy things up when the music is cranked. How can you un-muddy it? With an external amplifier. Enter the Simpl A1.
Check it out. |
iPod Shuffle Tip Caveat
| Okay, so this comment is eight months after the OP ("iPod Shuffle Tip" by Jason). If you follow the recommendation to downsample your files on-the-fly while tranferring them to your iPod Shuffle, expect to chew up a lot of processor time. If you happen to have a 350MHz G3, don't even bother--it'll take hours and freeze up your Mac. |
iPod Shuffle Tip
| This one is straight from Apple's eNews March 10, 2005 newsletter:If you’re after the highest quality tunes and regularly import songs at bit rates higher than 128 Kbps, iTunes offers you the best of both worlds, letting you keep your high-quality songs in iTunes while exporting leaner versions of the songs, sized just right for iPod shuffle. Here’s how: Connect iPod shuffle, open the iPod Preferences dialog, and click the iPod tab. Click the check box next to “Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps AAC for this iPod.” Then click OK. The next time you Autofill iPod shuffle, iTunes will automatically convert songs to 128 Kbps as it exports them to iPod shuffle. The original versions in your iTunes collection, meanwhile, will remain in your library at their higher encoding rate.Cross-posted at TechBytes |
how-to record on your ipod (for free)
| Check it out: how-to record on your ipod (for free) - ipod hacks - ipod.hackaday.com.
This would be really cool if it worked with my 4G iPod. |
Entertaining List of Uses for Your iPod
| iPod youPod wePod is a nice-looking clearinghouse of entertaining and frivolous uses for your iPod, such as a toilet dock or an antique stereoscopic viewer retrofitted to hold two color iPods.Crossposted to HipSmart. |
iPod shuffle Proves Elusive
| I've made a habit of calling the four Apple stores in Illinois daily, to discover if they have received an inventory of iPod shuffles. I've had no luck yet, but at least three of them have gotten some in, only to have sold out even before I called. The earliest shipment was last Friday at the Skokie store, but they only received the 512MB model. It seems the locations are realizing the demand, and attempting to stem the probably large volume of callers like me daily--I just called the North Michigan Avenue store, and was invited to put my name and phone number on a list, so that they can call me as soon as the 1GB model arrives.What with the 3-4 week wait at the online store, I'm hoping I can get my hands on one before my trip next week. |
A Look Inside the iPod Shuffle
| This week's AppleMatters article, A Look Inside the iPod Shuffle, is up and ready for reading over at AppleMatters:
I realize that we've already shown a dissection of the iPod Shuffle here at AppleMatters, but what I haven't seen is a look inside the iPod Shuffle's file structure. Let's do it.
At the end of the article, I note:
This is also the same type of procedure you would use for fishing songs off of your regular iPod / iPod mini. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to figure out how to write a script that will use these commands to auto-fill my iPod Shuffle from my regular iPod...
I'm serious about this. My scripting skills are at the level where I know how to run basic copy commands to automate the transfer of songs from my iPod to my iPod Shuffle. What I don't know how to do is to run a random search that also determines how many songs can be taken from point a and shoved into point b. If anybody has any ideas, please let me know. Also, if you are a most industrious coder than me, please feel free to take this idea and make it yourself. Just send me a copy when it is done. Thanks!
*x-posted on Sample the Web. |
iPod Shuffle RAID
| Check this out:
Wright This Way: iPod Shuffle RAID—So, what do you do when you and some friends are all getting iPod Shuffles? You make a RAID array out of them, of course! Follow along as we explore new depths of geekery...
This reminds me of that floppy RAID that was bouncing around the net last year.
*x-posted on Sample The Web |
iPod information over at Obsessable
| Obsessable has a good list of pages about the different iPod models and the iPhone:ObsessableApple iPod touchApple iPodApple iPod classicApple iPod nanoApple iPod shuffleApple iPhone 3GApple iPhone |
thoughts on the convenience of the new iPod shuffle
| The super-small footprint, integrated clip, and anodized aluminum casing make the new iPod shuffle hott (that's with two 't's). However, the new suffle dock leaves something to be desired.It's included, which is nice, but it's required, which is not. I'd like to get a MacBook in the near future, so my computing will become mobile. That means if I want to sync a new shuffle, I'll have to connect the USB dock before dropping the shuffle in the dock--with the older shuffle, you could just slap that sucker into a USB port. Of course, if you have a desktop, like I currently do, it's no big thing; a dock might even be nice; indeed, I spent $30 to buy the old shuffle dock so I could stop having to reach around the back of my Mac and find a USB port.A more glaring flaw is with the shuffle's ability to store files. If you want to use the new suffle as a USB drive, you'll now have to cart around the dock, too, to connect to other systems. That's a serious drop in usefullness. Of course, I don't use my current old shuffle as a USB drive because doing so causes a major loss of stability (I'd have to do a system restore almost weekly when it started locking up).One of the major selling points of iPods is their ease of use. Other mp3 players I've owned have been a real hassle to use. These little issues are only slightly nagging, but still, that's a step backwards for Apple.xposted on HipSmart |
iPod Shuffles a little further away
| The estimated shipping date of the 1GB iPod Shuffle at Apple's web store rose from 1-2 weeks to 3-4 weeks sometime this evening (and the 512MB model also receded further into the future). Urk! And, in case you were wondering, no, the physical Apple Store on North Michigan Avenue in Chicago doesn't have any. Now it's a guessing game--should I order it off the web and hope it ships in 3-4 weeeks plus 5 days shipping, or hope that the guy at the store was right when he said they might have them in 10 days?
UPDATE via C.K.: After reading your post, I checked the order I placed on the 11th for the 1GB iPod Shuffle. It said 5-7 business days when I placed the order, but now the ship date says "On or before the 24th." I don't like Apple's math. Grrr... |
Nonviolent iPod Shuffle disassembly
| Check out this post over at hack a day:we mentioned earlier that someone posted photos of an ipod shuffle disassembly. the previous disassembly left a few key questions unanswered, namely:do you need to butcher the buttons to take your shuffle apart?will the average joe be able to replace the battery?what else is under the hood?can it be cleanly reassembled?this howto will attempt to answer these questions while disassembling the shuffle in a non-destructive manner.Pretty cool and with pictures.*x-posted on Sample the Web |
Weekend with the 1GB iPod Shuffle
| So, Friday afternoon, my 1GB iPod Shuffle arrived. It's nice and I like the interface. I just wanted to note a few things that I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere. Everybody has been talking about how insanely light the iPod Shuffle is, so much so that I was afraid it would feel too light. I was worried it would not feel substantial, but rather flimsy because of its light weight. This is not the case. The 'Pod Shuffle has a nice feel to it.
I like the controls. They are rather intuitive like the regular iPod, but easier to navigate without a screen. For example, the Pause/Play button is big in the center, so if you are outside shoveling snow with your iPod Shuffle zipped up underneath your coat and your neighbor shouts something at you, you can just sort of push in the middle of your chest, and pause the music, so you can shout back, "WHAT?!" and listen to the answer.
Also worth note, I never would've taken my regular iPod out in the snow with me. It is simply too big of an investment and I would be too worried it would be damaged. In comparison—and this is where the iPod Shuffle really shines for me—the iPod Shuffle is constructed in such a small wear-around-the-neck sort of way that it is perfect for this sort of thing. No worries and less chance of damaging it, and even if something bad were to happen, it's priced low enough where it could be replaced with relatively little pain. It's the disposable iPod (not really).
It has a hold function, surprisingly. You have to hold down the Pause/Play button for three seconds to initiate Hold. A little orange light blinks three times to let you know that Hold is turning on, and then holding the button for 5 more seconds turns it off and this is indicated by a blinking green light.
Apple packages it with a little credit-card-sized information / instruction card with all the different control functions. Very nice. They should have this little card for all the iPod models.
Go with the 1GB. I can see this was the right move. If I'd bought the 512MB, I would've had a difficult time choosing how much space to give to songs and how much to files. As is, the 1GB is like 2 in one: it's a 512MB MP3 player and a separate 512MB USB flash drive.
Plugging the iPod Shuffle into my USB port blocks a port on either side of the iPod Shuffle on my Powerbook. Some people are going to be very annoyed by this. Just invest in a USB extension cord.
The sound quality is really good and it has a good internal amp. I actually like that there is no iPod-software-brain playing interference between the raw track and the output from the headphones as there is with the built-in equalizer and sound check functions on the iPod. I hate the regular iPod's equalizer. It's there, so I think I should use it, but if I use it, I feel like I have to continually change it for different songs. Really annoying. The iPod Shuffle eliminates this dilemma for me.
And finally (at least until I get a chance to read things over later and update this post), there is a very slight noise between tracks. I'm not sure if it is the internal workings of the device, or if it is the sound cutting out for a millisecond, but I notice it.
UPDATE: Two other thoughts occurred to me. 1. Unlike the 4G iPods, the iPod Shuffle does not auto-pause when the headphones are accidentally unplugged. This is a mistake, I think, and a feature that I would say is more needed in the iPod Shuffle, considering its design, than in any other iPod. 2. There is a little plastic slider on the headphones so you can choke the slack up to your chin. Is this a feature of non-iPod Shuffle headphones that I just happen to have missed?
*x-posted on Sample the Web |
iPodFolderOpener
| NOTE: There are other products out there for easily copying your songs off of your iPod to your computer. If you're looking for a sophisticated program start looking here. iPodFolderOpener is a dumber version of these programs that I am busy coding for my own use. If you hate it and think it's stupid, don't use it. These scripts should work fine on any OS X computer, but I am not offering support for them. Feel free to hack away at them. This post will serve as the permanent page where I will update information regarding this software.
Click here to download iPodFolderOpener 1.0 (38KB, zipped DMG file).
Donationware: If you like these scripts and use them, visit my site (http://www.sampletheweb.com) and click on the PayPal button (underneath my picture in the sidebar) to make a donation of your choosing.
History:
Version 1.0—Initial release: messily opens as Finder windows all the invisible folders inside the Music folder of a user's iPod / iPod mini / iPod Shuffle; February 7th, 2005.
What it is:
iPodFolderOpener is an AppleScript standalone app that can be placed anywhere (I recommend your Applications folder) or script (which should be placed in either /Library/Scripts/ or ~/Library/Scripts/).
What it does:
iPodFolderOpener opens Finder windows of some or all (per your choosing) of the invisible folders containing music on your iPod, iPod mini, or iPod Shuffle. Once they are open, you can easily drag and drop the files to other locations on your computer and / or add them to your iTunes Library.
How to use it:
First, make sure that your iPod is plugged into your Mac and mounted as a hard drive in the Finder. Then, simply click on iPodFolderOpener to launch it (or if you have placed the script in the Scripts folder, simply use your script menu in the menu bar to access iPodFolderOpener). A dialog box will open asking you for the name of the iPod / iPod Shuffle / iPod mini from which you want to remove songs. If your iPod's name contains any special characters, like ' or " you should probably change it first. Spaces are okay, but if your iPod's name is "My iPod" you will need to enter a backslash before the space: "My iPod". After you enter your iPod's name, click "Okay" and another dialog box will open with three buttons: Cancel, ALL, and PICK. If you click ALL then all of the invisible folders inside your Music folder will open. If you have an almost full 40GB iPod, this will be a lot of folders, so considered yourself warned (and remember, you can always go to Finder-->File and hold down the Option key to change the Close Window function to Close All Windows). If you click on PICK another dialog will open where you must enter the name of the folder you want to open. You can do this to browse through your iPod's music a folder at a time. The folders begin with folder F00, then continue on to F01, F02, F03, etc. If you put in a folder name that doesn't exist, the script will end in an error.
Why did you write this script?:
For fame and fortune, of course. ;-) Actually, I wanted an easy way to Autofill my new iPod Shuffle from my 40GB iPod (as I tend to keep my music on my iPod, but not on my laptop's internal harddrive). iPodFolderOpener simply automates some work that you can do via the Terminal, which is the first step in accomplishing this. I am currently working on a variant of the script which will actually automate the entire process.
THE SOURCE CODE:
--iPod Opener
--Open this script in a new Script Editor window.
property your_iPod_name : missing value
property userchoice : "All"
--set the iPod name once:
set your_iPod_name to text returned of (display dialog "Enter your iPod's name:" & return & "(If your iPod's name has any spaces in it, enter a backslash before the space)" default answer "" buttons {"Cancel", "OK"} default button 2 with icon 1)
--open some or all folders inside Music:
set userchoice to button returned of (display dialog "What do you want to do?" buttons {"Cancel", "ALL", "PICK"} default button userchoice with icon 1)
if userchoice = "ALL" then
set theNumber to "F**"
else
set theNumber to text returned of (display dialog "Enter a random folder name:" & return & "(i.e., F00, F01, F02, etc.)" & return & "If nothing happens, then there is no such folder." default answer "" buttons {"Cancel", "OK"} default button 2 with icon 1)
end if
do shell script "open /Volumes/" & your_iPod_name & "/iPod_Control/Music/" & theNumber & "/"
display dialog "Done!" buttons {"Okay! Thanks!"}
Listed on Versiontracker. |
MacDevCenter on iPod Shuffle
| Check it out:iPod shuffle Tips and Tricks by Scott Knaster -- The iPod shuffle is the easiest-to-use iPod to date. But that doesn't mean you can't customize how you listen and upload music. Scott Knaster shows you some very handy tips and tricks for the shuffle and iTunes 4.7.1.This article is a good introduction to the features of the iPod Shuffle for all you Shuffle n00bs out there... |
Machined Aluminum Hard Case For iPod Shuffle
| Check this out: iPodlounge Forums - Machined Aluminum Hard Case For My Shuffle. That's a pretty cool looking case. |
Plantronics headset connects iPod and Cell
| Coolness:
Playlist: Plantronics headset connects iPod, cell phone—Plantronics on Wednesday announced availability of the MX100-s, a stereo headset that simultaneously connects music players like Apple's iPod and a mobile phone, enabling you to listen to music while answering phone calls.
I've been wanting something like this for a while.
*x-posted on Sample the Web. |
iPod shuffle Arrives in Chicago
| I received a phone call from the Apple Store on North Michigan Avenue in Chicago yesterday, with the news I was hoping for: they had received a shipment of iPod shuffles (capitalization as per Apple), and one was on hold for me. Everything was hunky-dory as I charged it on my work PC and filled it with my smaller iTunes-at-work collection. At home, though, problems arose. I chose to disassociate the iPod shuffle from my work PC and associate it with my Mac, erasing the work PC tracks, but the song-filling process was agonizingly slow (whether I used my USB 2.0 or 1.1 port) compared to how quickly it had filled at work. Eventually, the filling process hung, and iTunes froze up. Repeated attempts to force quit iTunes eventually worked, but the shuffle was still mounted on the desktop and attempting to drag it to the Trash caused Finder to freeze. Hard re-boot, and the shuffle is fragged: an error message indicated that the shuffle mounted, but its file system was not recognized. Sooooo, downloaded the latest iPod Updater from Apple and restored the shuffle. A frustrating evening gave way to a happy commute this morning.
In answer to C.K.'s question a few posts back: "There is a little plastic slider on the headphones so you can choke the slack up to your chin. Is this a feature of non-iPod Shuffle headphones that I just happen to have missed?" I don't recall about the headphones originally packaged with my old iPod, but the Apple In-Ear Headphones I purchased also have the plastic slider. I'm using it to create a loop in the headphone cord (by placing the slider all the way towards the headphones) and wearing the loop around my neck when not in use--this way, I can keep the shuffle and the headphones hanging in easy reach all day, but out of the way and secure (under my sweater, today). Caution: may require a sufficiently svelte neck. |
How to Autofill your iPod Shuffle from your iPod Or iPod Mini
| My article, How to Autofill your iPod Shuffle from your iPod Or iPod Mini, is up and ready for reading over at AppleMatters. An excerpt:
In last week's article, I took a look inside the invisible folder on the iPod Shuffle and talked about methods for moving your music off of your iPod / iPod mini / iPod Shuffle and back to your Mac. This week, I'm going to walk you through how to set up iTunes so that you can choose to Autofill your iPod Shuffle directly from your iPod, without having to copy all those files back to your hard drive. This is very useful for someone like myself, who works off of a 12-inch Powerbook with only 2GBs of music on my internal 60GB hard drive, but with nearly 32GB of music on my 4G 40GB iPod. These directions will center on the Mac side of things, but everything I'm doing here should be doable on a Windows XP box, so everyone, please, read along.
For those of you without iPod Shuffles, thinking to yourselves, "Who cares?," think again:
Now—organized nicely in the playlist you created in step 3 and scattered all over your Library—you have aliases (Windoze users know them as shortcuts) to all of the music files on your iPod. Any time your iPod is connected to your computer, they act like any other file in your Music Library: you can play these songs, organize them into playlists, burn them to CD, or right click on a song and choose "Show song file" to open up the window that contains it again for easy drag and drop to another location.
Free your tunes!
*x-posted to Sample the Web. |
Attention NYC Muggers Looking to Lift an iPod
| Just thought the criminals among you might like to know that someone has made a convenient map for you:Invasion of the iPod listeners—tuaw: Khoi Winh, a resident of New York City, has noticed the same phenomenon in his fair city and unlike me he did something about it. He printed out a map of his walk from his home to work and marked the map with a red dot each time he saw an iPod listener. A little over 13 blocks later he saw 32 iPods. Not too shabby.32 opportunities to swipe an iPod conveniently on your way home! And two of the largest clusters are right around Union Square and Madison Square Park, so you can easily get bonus points for rolling one of the rummies passed out on the park benches!(For some reason, this was the first thing that popped in my head when I read this story. Thought I'd share...) |
My Podcasting Story: Getting Started as a Listener, Applications for Jaguar
| The latest issue of Wired, with a special section of the future of radio, finally piqued my interest in podcasting enough to give it a go (at least as a listener). One of my favorite sites, BoardGameGeek has been offering an almost-weekly podcast for the last six months, and I decided that my recent aquisition of an iPod shuffle deserved some indie talk radio to fill it.Unfortunately, in the past few weeks, I've discovered that all of the Mac applications listed at iPodder.org (the definitive starting place for podcasts) require Mac OS X 10.3 to run. Even if they don't list system requirements, all of the freeware and commercial software, including the natural choice of iPodder itself, either crash when you run them or simply fail to install.The solution? Well, what I've found to be the best RSS aggregator out there, NetNewsWire from Ranchero Software, has released a new beta of version 2.0, which includes support for downloading enclosures, and it runs great on my OS X 10.2.8 system. After subscribing to a few podcast feeds (I chose the above mentioned BoardGameGeek feed, Adam Curry's Daily Source Code, and The Laporte Report), I let NetNewsWire do its thing--it downloaded a few recent mp3s of shows, created playlists in iTunes for them, and transferred them into iTunes (in the NNW preferences, I had all the mp3s put into playlists named after their feeds, and set the genre field on all of them to "Podcast"). I created a Smart Playlist to dig out all files with the Podcast genre with a playcount of 0--that way, I have a list of the ones I haven't yet heard, ready to drag onto the shuffle, and NetNewsWire will happily chug along in the background looking for new episodes. I chose the playcount restriction because the iPod shuffle updates the playcount without updating the Last Played field.If I had a different iPod, I could choose to have my Smart Playlist automatically synced whenever I plug the sucker in, but not so with the shuffle. As is, I have to add them manually, and then use Autofill to fill up the rest of the space with random songs.The only problem at the moment is that my iPod shuffle doesn't seem to be updating the playcount field. I'm guessing this is because all I've tested so far are episodes of BoardGameGeek, which average over an hour long each--I can't listen to one in full in one sitting. Perhaps the shuffle isn't updating the playcount because I'm often shutting it off in mid-episode, and resuming later. Do I have to listen to an entire show without turning the shuffle off to get a playcount update? Stay tuned for further testing: the Adam Curry and Leo Laporte episodes are considerably shorter. |
iTunes Music Store Sale
| In case you didn't get the reminder email from Apple, all grammy winners are on sale at the iTunes Music Store. I decided to pick up both U2 and Green Day's new albums.I also noticed the Cure's entire discography is now available, along with the new (to the US) compilation "Join the Dots". I picked up Seventeen Seconds, since I never bought it originally. Listening to old Cure albums really brings out the fact that Disintegration was the last great album the Cure made.Every time I listen to The Killers, I can't help thinking "Ooohhh. THAT's what Robert Smith was trying to sound like on every album for the past 10 years..." Cross posted at Jason Ball's TechBytes |
iPod Shuffle
| iPod Shuffle: Integrated USB connector (thumb-drive) $99 for 512mb and $149 for 1GB.
Since yesterday was my birthday, I came into some birthday money. I'd been thinking about spending some money on a flash thumb-drive recently, so I went ahead and ordered the 1GB iPod Shuffle. I'll let you know when it comes in and how it compares to my 4G iPod.
In the meantime, here's the best bit of news I've heard so far about the iPod Shuffle:
iPod Shuffle: first impressions - The Unofficial Apple Weblog - apple.weblogsinc.com Breen takes the time to make one more point: the iPod Shuffle is formatted as an MS-DOS volume, which means you’ll be able to let this fresh new device be a swinger in the cross-platform set: no need to reformat to move it between operating systems.
Yeah! Now I don't have to setup the iPod Shuffle on a Windoze machine just to be able to use it as a thumb drive on whatever machine I'm closest to...
Also, for those of you still in school or associated with an educational institution, you'll be glad to hear that the 1GB iPod Shuffle will only cost you $139, but unfortunately, there is no educational discount on the half-gig model. |
Get 13 free songs from iTunes Music Store
| This is a cool tip for free music:
Get 13 free songs from iTunes Music Store | MacMegasite
Apple has a promotion in which new iPod owners receive an iTunes Music Sampler with 13 free songs from iTunes Music Store. If you already own an iPod, you can also get the same free music.
The question is: Is the hassle of backing up my entire iPod collection and then copying it back over after the transaction is complete worth 13 measly songs? I mean, that's a lot of wasted time and energy. |
