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veronica, now here's your problem ;\)

 

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If you are one of the 700,000 people who received an iPod for Christmas - 125,000 were sold in the UK alone - you may still be experiencing an anxiety unique to this little gadget. You have realised that it holds up to 10,000 songs - approximately 21 days of 24-hour listening - but that you don't own 10,000 songs, or even 5,000. The music library you have spent a lifetime assembling will barely dent its massive memory.

 

That is the least of your worries. The bigger problem is how long it will take you to load even a relatively modest collection of CDs onto an iPod. How many hours of your free time will you waste transferring music you already own from one medium to another? If it helps, you can reckon with this rough calculation: for every 150 CDs you can write off 40 hours of your life. Could any chore be designed more specifically to make you feel the sharp chill of mortality, especially if you're prone to that sort of thing anyway?

 

The solution says as much about the world we live in as the problem does. A new company called wePod can now be called upon to come round and collect your iPod and your CD collection, download one on to the other and drop them back within five days.

 

The wePod service is the brainchild of Charlie Skinner, a tool-hire company chairman, who got the idea after he was given an iPod for Christmas and discovered just how many hours of purgatorial tedium lay ahead of him. "Eventually I got fed up with him going on about it," says his wife Carol, a producer of commercials, "so I rang this guy Hector, who runs a film and video post-production house; they had all the skills and equipment."

 

She believes there is a definite market for the service, and hopes people will catch onto the idea of giving pre-loaded iPods as gifts. "It's incredibly time-consuming to do it yourself, " she says. "There's a massive amount of domestic strife going on as the men sit there loading their computers while their children are harassing their wives." At this point her voice takes on the sandpapery edge that comes when speaking from experience.

 

Problem solved. There is still, however, one more calculation to perform: wePod charges £1 per CD, with a minimum of 100 CDs, plus pick-up and delivery costs. They also offer an optional, but highly recommended, portable back up drive for £65. At this price, your so-called free time costs about £5.63 an hour. Are you worth it?

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I've only spent a couple of hours with this but I can't believe how GOOD it is. So simple, great sound, couldn't be either. I'm using the iTunes that you get with it.

 

I can't imagine I used to spend time choosing my favorite 10 cds whenever I went anywhere \:\)

 

clap.gif clap.gif

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Welcome to the joy that is iPod ownership veronica. Even with the latest problems I have been having I'll still say that the iPod is the best gadget I have ever brought. Can't wait to get home to Oz with it so I can use an iTrip in my car, program a great long playlist and just drive some great roads listening to some great tunes and looking for good waves......paradise! \:D

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I have a question and cant easily find the answer.

 

OK, I brought a cds worth of music into itunes.

Then connected to the ipod.

The tunes were uploaded to the ipod.

No probs.

 

But then, I wanted to clear up space on my PC, and so deleted the files.

 

Next time I connected the ipod, my music had also disappeared from my ipod.

 

Surely I don't need to keep all my music on my PC as well???

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OK OK dedicated an external drive for my music so no problems on that front.

 

But I tell everyone who has not got one of these little things, and likes their music - GET ONE! You will be wondering why you didn't sooner.

 

I've already stuffed 20 CDs into the thing and the sound quality is really good. (AAC or something, whatever that is)

 

I can hardly contain my excitement at this new fine.

 

clap.gif \:D

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V-roni:

 

I also bought a 20gb recently, it is fantastic. I scoffed for so long but have filled 60% of it. It brings a party into your head so easily.

 

I was recently on holiday and bought the iTrip plug-on FM transmitter. This really little thing allowed me to play my entire music collection in the rental car and every hotel I stayed in (that had a radio). The only issue was speaker quality, but that issue applies regardless of how you are playing your music in a hotel/rental car.

 

The issue you mentioned above is due to a setting where you told iTunes/iPod to synch themselves. You can turn this option off. The auto-synch is a bit of a pain as I have tunes on my computer that are crap and I don't want on my iPod. I am yet to play with the synch feature & don't understand it so well.

 

And you are right, these things are one of the best looking bits of industrial design I have seen.

 

Of course, mine is actually a dbPod.

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I feel that way too!

 

I am honestly shocked at how good this little thing is and am kicking myself for not getting one before. I think they should advertise a bit better though - I am shocked at how easy it is for me to put all my CDs onto the thing. I was thinking "mp3s", "downloads", etc etc - the message wasn't clear. (Perhaps I wasn't really listening!)

 

I think I am going to be re-discovering a lot of my old CDs in the next few weeks.

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500 songs or so on there now.

 

I am loving this - I am completely re-discovering music I had but hadn't listened to for ages and realising how good it all was.

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just thought Id come in here and spoil the iPod fun...

 

I have a 20gb rio karma...I think it is the better player if you are really into audio specs/options...

 

it plays more formats (mp3,wma,flac(lossless!!),ogg)

it has a much longer battery life (15hrs)

has gapless playback (try playing a live album on your ipod...or a classic like dark side of the moon where tracks flow into each other...dont think ipod can do it. unless you like silence gaps between your tracks)

 

anyway...daps are awesome! truly amazing gadgets whatever brand you end up with...

 

danz

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But danz, does yours have a shiny metal back that can double as a mirror???

 

The battery thing on the dbPod is a little funny at times. When I turn mine on it takes up to 60 seconds to tell me how much power is left. No matter what the charge, the default battery graphic on start up is about 90% emplty. Also, my pod was plugged into my computer and charging last night when I was asleep. The computer went to sleep so the charging stopped. For some reason the Pod turned on and in the morning the battery was flat from running all night…. Even though it was paused. I have found my pod does turn on when it is not supposed to. I would like a more physical on/off switch, something more tactile.

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Phew. I've spent the best part of 3 days doing all that. Now nearly 2400 songs on my vPod, representing the majority of my cds (well the ones I might consider still listening to anyway!).

 

I'll actually be able to sit down and listen to it now!

 

TIRED!!

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Pretty cool hey? vPod. lol.gif

 

Some of my compilations had tons of different artist names which is causing havoc on my Artist menu list - so I'm having to go in there and change them all so that I get a more considered list up there.

 

It's all a lot of fun - I just can't believe that 95% of my music is on that little thing. Amazing.

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I don't know why someone would moan about spending a few days stuffing 2000 songs into the machine. (Not you veronica, that article...)

 

Once they're there, they're there, right? So it seems a small price to pay for what you get.

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Compilations are a pain. I often put the album name in the place of the artist name (from within iTunes) as for all compilation albums I have I dont actually care who the artist is... for the most they are just modern day one-hitters from France. For other compilations I put a small "x" in front of the artist name, that way all compilation arists are at the end of my artist list, which saves me from having to scroll thru them to find U2, for example.

 

Note that bloody Zero 7 sill sits at the end of my artist listing.

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