Joho the Blog
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iPod, and it was elegant and supercool, but also...

If there's one rule, it's you get what you pay for. The cheaper (and now available) mini has the USB cable included with all models.

But David, you like using fiddly software that gives you minor adrenaline rushes when you get it to do anything at all.
Or did I misunderstand the last post?

Or a firewire card. But yeah that is another $25-$35. As has been pointed out already, the mini iPods also do USB2 now and I expect all future ones to do the same.

I can't help but wonder if your decision was partially due to the fact that you don't care for Apples "FairPlay" DRM. I myself think it's quite tolerable. Are other online stores selling big name artists with less restrictive DRM? Or do you not intend to use such stores at all? The answer to such questions might likely drive the purchase of the player.

Another less super sleek option is the Archos 20g Jukebox Recorder, which has an open-source operating system available (called RockBox). Tech support stinks, but the bang for the buck is unbeatable.

It's probably above your price range (it's a high end model), but I've been enjoying the iriver ihp-140. 40 gigs, 450 bucks. That's an option if you are not interested in DRM-protected material, though it supports OGG. Other note: I use it for recording. I recorded the entire SXSW 2004 conference on it, and it took up barely more than a gig or two. On another note, here's the world's longest playlist http://webjay.org/by/salishsea/chriscorrigansrollinglist
and a happy delightful xylophone song from the 1920's http://www.swinglife.de/mp3-1/17.MP3

I can definately relate to your frustration.
After enjoying Napster for just a short time in its earlier incarnation, I switched to I-Tunes because i wanted some leagal downloads and thought it might be nice to experience some of the world-class design Apple is (supposed to be)famous for.

Well, it was NO Napster but after many hours I managed to get it downloaded and installed. What I saw was a weak imitation of Windows Media Player, a music store with precious few songs I wanted to own and prices that offered no real savings over buying the CD.

Despite those sucky qualities I bought a dozen songs from them, only to be told this week that if I wanted to buy any more, I would have to get the new version. I don't say "upgrade' because that wasn't an option. I had to redo the entire 19MB download (over dial-up) and of course they lost loads of my personal info in the process!

itunes is the way to go. i think napster has a personal resentment against apple. but they have no boast to even compare. what a sorry program.

yeah, i heared this many days ago, but i just like Mp3 to CD Burner Pro

thanks to it!

http://www.yaodownload.com/audio-mp3/cdburners/mp3-to-cd-burner-pro_cdburner.htm

i bought myself the samsung napster and found that you dont actually need to install any napster software at all. you just copy the mp3s to device using windows media player. i found out everything i needed to know at http://www.soundout.co.uk/samsung/help this site i find is very useful. it has all the downloads you need.