Best advice of the day

[heidi]

Do not eat iPod shuffle.


Now, does anyone know if there's a way to make it *not* shuffle? Because I know someone who would love to use this for audiobooks, but if it shuffles... well, it makes for badfic-level plotlines.

Comments

[wendywoowho.livejournal.com]

YES, you can either have "play in order" or "shuffle"

There's a switch on the backside.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

Ok, then. Sold. :D

Assuming I can ever get into the MAC store again, that is.

So, you still planning on sticking with the CD-verse on drives?

[wendywoowho.livejournal.com]

I am incredibly tempted to get an iPod or an iRiver or somesuch, w/ an FM transmitter, for the drives.

I've been incredibly tempted, for months and months.

I *might* be able to borrow one this wknd to see if it makes a real difference.

It's just hard to suck it up and spend that kind of money on something that is so vastly... frivolous, and yet quasi-permanent.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

If you think of it as a backup portable hard drive, and remember what such things cost even five years ago, it's more justifiable. Sort of.

[wendywoowho.livejournal.com]

Of course, my hard drive at home is a wee 4 gigs (currently).

Hell, at WORK, I only have 10 gigs. The idea of 40 drool-worthy gigs? Baffling! That's multiplying one of my drives by the other!

Re:

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

My laptop has five - my old desktop which is now my office computer, like yours, has ten gigs. My iPod has 20 and I have an external hard drive which holds 40. But I remember getting a 256 *card* two years ago and spending 100$ on it - it was for my first digital camera - and so the idea of getting 512 mb PLUS it plays music - all for the same price? It's mind boggling.

Can't eat it, though.

Re:

[wendywoowho.livejournal.com]

Can't fly on it to see Meg, either. For the 40 gig and an FM transmitter, I could do that.

Twice.

It's a hard one.

Re:

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

But there's a world of difference in cost between a 40 and this new Shuffle d'Cute. It makes it within the zone of Impulse Buy if they sell it at a store where you have a few random gift cards & there's nothing else particularly interesting. And two years ago, airfare was more, too. A friend is coming from NY to see me next month for $120 round trip - last May, it cost me & Aaron 180 each to come up for POAIMAX - and even that was something we thought was unpricey.

Re:

[wendywoowho.livejournal.com]

Eh, the shuffle is tooooooo small to actually make a difference in the current roadtripping music allotment. (Problem being: How many tunes does it take to get me from to there and back, without killing the CDs from less than ideal handling, and without numerous repeating of songs?)

(Don't distract me with facts. I fondled the 40 Gig last night at an Apple store...)

Re:

[owlman.livejournal.com]

The smaller of the Shuffles is around the same price (UK £69) that I paid for the same amount of memory as a USB memory stick (£60) back in June. Though I did note that a 1gb equivalent memory stick is now less than £40 (memory prices are still dropping quite rapidly - that is what is allowing Apple to enter this market and put a device under the mini).

[misako.livejournal.com]

That's what I thought when I first read the description - it's like a portable hard-drive (much like the small versions you can buy at any computer store for virtually the same price for the same HD size, except it plays music.)

[owlman.livejournal.com]

From said page: With Play in Order mode, you manage the music. If things take a turn for the predictable, never fear. Turn iPod shuffle over, flip the slider to Shuffle and mix on the go.

I think you should be using it on shuffle mode to listen to the books :D

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

Well, it would help overcome the Sirius Going Through The Veil And Perhaps Being Dead thing.

[owlman.livejournal.com]

Well yeah. You can have him die in the first chapter then :P

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

And wouldn't that change the whole plot of all five (to date) books? Why don't you write it? :D C'mon - it's a good AU - what would happen if Sirius died en route to finding Peter?

[marie-j-granger.livejournal.com]

I'm interested in this news, but I commented just because I love this icon so much.

*/math geek*

[casirafics.livejournal.com]

I saw that disclaimer and just about died.

I have no need to buy the iPod Shuffle, but then there's the... well, I have no need to buy the Mac Mini either, but ohiwantone. *covets* ;) Just think how shiny it would be to use that in the living room with the TV. La la la.....

[athena-arena.livejournal.com]

*drools*

Hey, it is my birthday in two weeks...

... but then I just had this conversation with my mother:

Mum: You're not thinking of buying that, are you?
Me: I'm so tempted! Its so ickle!
Mum: But Rachel, with something that small you know you'll accidently sit on it.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

Don't drool! You're not supposed to eat it! It says so, right on the info page!

[empressov.livejournal.com]

You should also know, there is a way to speed up and slow down the audio play on the iPods. If you enable the "audio book" setting on, I think , ITunes, prior to syncing, you can have this feature. Meaning you can speed through a section or slow down and listen carefully or read along, etc.

Very sleek.

[aome.livejournal.com]

So, for the person who has never owned a pod-anything - how is the ickle shuffly thing different from a regular mini (or regular) iPod?

[owlman.livejournal.com]

Smaller and lighter. Also stores fewer songs.

On a more technical level it uses solid state memory rather than a hard drive (as the iPod and mini do) for storage. This has battery, life and non-skip advantages.

[aegeus.livejournal.com]

On the superficial level - the Shuffle does not have a screen, and therefore you cannot pick a specific song. What you can do is create playlists on your computer that are then played in order on the Shuffle, or set it to shuffle, and have it pick songs at random. The Mini and regular iPods have screens and therefore let you pick exactly what song you want at any one time.

Shuffle also holds either 512MB or 1GB of music, whereas Mini holds 4GB and regular holds 20, 40 or 60GB.

[airemay.livejournal.com]

It's so pretty!! And only $99!!! *drools*

[longtimegone]

I know omg. It's totally in, as Heidi said, "impulse buy range". *DIES* I really don't NEED this. I am seriously perfectly happy with my 20GB.

But this would be much fun. :>

[lightgetsin.livejournal.com]

I heard the announcement this morning and squealed madly. iPod without a screen=v. v. happy blind people. Not paying for lots of features we can't use! Not using the guess and pray method of navigation!

. . . now if they'd only release one with more storage . . .

Waaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Idon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedoneIdon'tneedone.......

WAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

*drools*

[dejaspirit.livejournal.com]

It looks like a pregnancy test.

[moondroplette.livejournal.com]

Aw, MAN. Just when I was starting to seriously consider buying a Mini...

*is torn*

Hmm...which would you recommend for basic music player uses (i.e. walking around, gym etc)? Or is having a ton of space (like the 20GB) a killer perk somehow?

[moondroplette.livejournal.com]

...and by that I mean iPod mini, not Mac mini

*is not made out of $$$* :)

[datta.livejournal.com]

I have an iPod mini, and I find it really great. I usually have all my music on it, which is only like two and a half gigs, then a couple audio books to listen to while I'm walking places.

I think it depends how much music you've got, honestly. Four gigs is more than enough for me!

[moondroplette.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm wondering about how much room cd-conversion would take up...like 50 cds, how much space would that take up? Or even just per album, approximately how much do the converted songs take up (AAC or whatever it's called)?

[abbylee]

I have over 250 cds stored on my harddrive. They were all converted to mp3 format at 160kbps. I was surprised to realize when I finished ripping them that I was under 20GB. I'm just under 17GB, as a matter of fact.

I just randomly selected 50 cds, totalling 685 songs and 3.15GB. iTunes also tells me it would take 1.9 days to play :D

AAC is supposed to give you even more room. Either way, you can fit more than 50 cds on a mini :D They're pretty quick to sync too, so it doesn't take a long time to shuffle in a different set of songs if you do have more.

ipods are a big advantage for those who have large music collections and are unable (or uninterested) in syncing them often, or for those who also want to use them as external harddrives. The minis are large enough to satisfy most music fanatics. These new shuffles are, best for those people who want something really tiny but still kind of powerful. The largest ipods are still sleek enough to fit into most pants pockets, although you'd never forget that it was there.

[moondroplette.livejournal.com]

Wow, this was incredibly helpful. Thank you! :)

*waits with dim hope for price to lower*

[abbylee]

You should also be able to take your audiobook files and combine them into one large file for each book. This means you can't easily skip between chapters, but you also wouldn't have to worry about them being shuffled around :D