Microsoft's new "iPod Killer"

[ScottB]

I found this online:
Makes me laugh, partly because it's probably going to happen

HOW MICROSOFT CAN WIN AGAINST APPLE'S IPOD

"Hello, I'm Clippy, would you like to buy a song on Zune?"

no

"Hello, I'm Clippy, would you like to buy a song on Zune?"

no

"Hello, I'm Clippy, would you like to buy a song on Zune?"

ok

"Hello, I'm Clippy, would you like to buy Zune Player to play that Zune song?"

no

"Hello, I'm Clippy, would you like to buy Zune Player?"

no

"Hello, I'm Clippy, would you like to buy Zune Player?"

no

"Hello, I'm Clippy, would you like to buy a song on Zune?"

no

 

[Zee1]

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Apple built a better mousetrap, painted it white, and made it the object of pretentious fashion-slaves everywhere. They sell by the millions,

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bwahahaha

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Facts?

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right there, I presented them and what was your response when faced with the facts?

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You're high.

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is that a hip thing, or?

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Because some starlettes in HollyWood use something to be fashionable doesn't mean that the other 99.99% of us real people do.

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it's the USA, people HAVE to know what time tom cruise has a bowel movement, the REAL weight loss plan of anna nicole smith, and how britney spears' relationship is going - the culture is wrapped up in what hip people do and have and the ipod is just one of those things, don't blame me i didn't make it a mandatory part of every diva's wardrobe.

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You are one of these kids that takes everything on blogs and internet pages and holds them as facts, aren't you?

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what is a blog? is that some hip thing too?

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Use your brain.

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gladly, maybe you should turn yours on and quit running on emotion.

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Fact is, MOST people do not buy it as a fashion statement.

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and you have facts? Still haven't seen them.

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Don't they have rehab in Dresden?

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I don't know, ask someone who lives in Dresden... oh, you looked at the "from" part and saw dresden so you assumed I lived there, taking things on the surface again.... you silly goose.

I don't wear birkenstocks, beads and tye-dye so I don't know anything about all that drug stuff - sounds like a steve jobs & woz thing to me.

 

[brianl703]

I was wondering if anyone could make a plain old MP3 player which you can install either a 1.8" or 2.5" hard drive into.

It shouldn't cost more than about $50. Maybe they could include the hard drive and give you a 40GB mp3 player for $100.

I have seen some car stereos with USB ports on them. They play mp3s off of a USB flash drive. I wondered if a USB hard drive enclosure (some 2.5" hard drive enclosures are USB-powered) would work with those so you could, for example, connect a 40GB hard drive to them and be able to access 40GB of mp3s. I don't see why it wouldn't work unless they have some sort of device size limit. USB flash drives and USB hard drives are virtually identical as far as the USB protocol is concerned.

 

[XS650]

Like the foreman said to the miner, "Take your pick"
http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.asp?cat=582

I have no experiance with them but had been thinking about it because I have a couple of unused old 2.5 inch drives sitting around.

Edit: I just noticed most of those use 1.8 inch drives. I can't find the place that had the el cheapo unit that used a 2.5 inch drive.

 

[brianl703]

Compgeeks still has the el-cheapo unit that takes a 2.5" drive. The only issue is that it's mp3 player functionality is a bit limited. It plays all of the mp3s in a directory in whatever order they're in on the disk. You can skip to the next mp3 or back to the previous mp3. That's it. No shuffle, no playlists (though I guess you could "rig" one by placing all of the files you want to play in one directory), no fast-forwarding through mp3s.

It seems like new firmware could fix this, but I haven't found any yet.

The good news is that a radar detector power cord from Radio Shack is the correct size and polarity to power it from a cigarette lighter.

 

[Carbonics]

MS has a flat rate to download songs instead of $1 each, thats huge.

 

[brianl703]

The el-cheapo unit has the power and headphone grounds connected directly together with no DC blocking capacitor (I'm not sure if using a DC blocking capacitor is commonly done in these types of units).

When I was using it with the aux input in my Saab 93 I disconnected the power cord which was connected to the cigarette lighter power outlet..and it used the headphone output as it's power ground connection for a split second while the power connector was only making contact with the + side.

As a result of this, the ground connection to the headphone output is gone. I don't know if a trace burned up inside of it or what, but the result is that the audio sounds about like what you'd expect to hear with the ground missing (vocals are very low in volume, basically you are only hearing the difference between the left and right channels).

If a trace indeed burned up, it must have been a very skinny one since the power cord is fused at only 3 amps.

I get normal audio when I jumper the headphone ground to the power jack ground externally.

I am debating whether to install a DC blocking capacitor between the headphone jack and ground or just make a bridge between the grounds on the two jacks with a thick enough wire that this won't happen again.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

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MS has a flat rate to download songs instead of $1 each, thats huge.

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I agree. How much were 45RPM singles? Seems like a $1 a songe is WAYYYYY too much. Used CD stores are still the best bet...$6 or $7 for an entire CD, legally.

 

[simple_gifts]

http://www.theregister.com/2006/11/16/zune_vista_incompatible/

Another "coordinated product development" blunder.

"Buried in the Zune website, Microsoft admits that the player is not compatible with Vista and gives no information as to when it will introduce a patch or update enabling the player to do so."