iPods/MP3 Players

[nacho]

Now, how crazy does iTunes get?  Currently, the NW's iTunes is on my home computer full of her insane death metal music that she listens to at top volume while whittling stakes at the back of the Metrobus.  Can you set up separate aliases or will we come to blows?

[Reginald McGraw]

Separate aliases are possible.  My wife and I have that setup.  Just login with your account.

[Cassander]

yeah, it's the synching thing that iTunes does that almost drove me to suicide.  it would lose things all the time.  then again, last time i used iTunes was in 2005.  they may have improved it somewhat, but i'm sure it's still not a lot of fun.  i know where all my things are in my music folder, and dragging and dropping them isn't a pain in the ass. 

really, nacho, for what you need it for, i.e. listening to music on a commute or on a walk, a small little player will do you just fine.  if you're really into a ton of podcasts, then i guess it makes sense to have an iPod automatically download them for you, but i'd bet dollars to donuts that someone has written a little freeware program for windows-based players to do exactly that.

[Tatertots]

2005 was 4 years ago! That's, like, back when you had to type C:\Programs\Netscape.exe to browse Yahoo's directory! God!

[Cassander]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/149297/11_things_we_hate_about_itunes.html

[Nubbins]

Oh man, I can't believe I didn't think of this:

3. Smart Playlists
A "smart" playlist is one built in iTunes on one or more selected criteria, like genre, rating, even bit rate and play count. For example: The 25 least-recently played punk songs released between 1982 and 1989, where the album rating is at least four stars. Think we'll call this playlist "New old punk."

This is, hands down, the biggest reason I love my iPod and I'll keep using iTunes.  My iPod has probably 10 smart playlists that I've been slowly populating over the last few years.  It's great to be able to just get in my car and shuffle a playlist on my ride to work.  I also listen to a lot of random, abrasive music, so it's also nice to have the ability to filter it out if I feel like listening to classic rock or whatever.

[Tatertots]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/149297/11_things_we_hate_about_itunes.html

Apple got rid of the DRM, thank god. But yeah, their PC updater is really weird. The Mac updater's great, though!

[monkey!]

I love my mac!

[monkey!]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10439525-54.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Apple eyes gadgets with built-in solar panels

Apple has its eye on the sun as a source of energy for iPods.
Company employees have applied for a patent relating to powering electronic devices using integrated solar cells, the Patently Apple site has uncovered. Called Power Management Circuitry and Solar Cells, the application dates back to August 2008 and was officially published Thursday.

It appears, though, that it's not the first Apple patent application relating to solar-powered gadgets. In October 2006, a more general patent under the title "Solar Cells on Portable Devices" was filed by at least one of the same people. When that application was published in 2008, it was traced back to Apple iPod engineers.

Rather than have a separate solar panel, the 2006 patent application envisions a small device, such as an iPod, with a transparent solar cell on its surfaces.