Date Archive > December 2004
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December 31, 2004
iTunes Lists
In a thinly veiled attempt to get you, dear reader, to click on my iTunes links (A whole nickel per song commission! Wow!) and a really easy way to create a post without having to actually think, I've compiled all of the top iTunes albums of 2004 for each iTunes genre that I thought was worthwhile.
Seriously, I love lists and I love looking at lists. What's more, I thought this was only fitting to do on this, the last day of 2004:
No more posts for today. Happy new year.
David
Category: iTunes | Comments (2)
December 30, 2004
SendStation Does The Right Thing
SendStation, makers of the brilliantly useful little PocketDock adapters, is running a special right now. They'll donate five dollars for every PocketDock sold through January to UNICEF and to Aktion Deutschland Hilft (Mission Germany Helps) to aid the tsunami victims. To make the deal even sweeter, they'll throw in free shipping. If you've even been thinking about getting one these, run, don't walk, over to sendstation.com.
Category: News | Comments (0)
Hack A Day Illuminates iPod Recording Functionality
Those rebels who like to break things over at hack a day posted a simple how-to for using linux to unlock the recording functionality of the iPod. We always knew that high quality recording without having to purchase a special iPod microphone was hiding in there somewhere but the function was crippled by Apple's firmware.
There are also a bunch of other iPod hacks at their iPod archive.
Continue reading "Hack A Day Illuminates iPod Recording Functionality"
Category: Resources | Comments (0)
Roll Your Own iPod People
In an article entitled, "I See iPod People — The Photoshop Silhouette" conveniently named Photoshop master Jennifer Apple gives a nice tutorial for making your own iPod silhouette graphics. I love this kind of thing and I could spend all day making everyone I know look cool, including my cats and dogs (and believe me, my dogs are so dorky they need all the help they can get).
Category: Culture | Comments (0)
December 29, 2004
Excerpts From Hacking iPod and iTunes Available
O'Reilly Digital Media have posted five of the iPod "hacks" from the new book Hacking iPod and iTunes by Hadley Stern. These alternative uses of the iPod range from the silly to the crazy, with useful falling somewhere in between. It's worth a look anyhow. Check it out here.
The Install Your iPod in Your Car, Permanently one is completely gonzo. It's beautiful, and it takes talent and patience to do that kind of work, but it's totally over the top.
Category: Resources | Comments (0)
iPod eBook Creator Concatenates Copious Compendiums
On Monday I told you about Book2Pod, a handy Mac application that chops up text files so they can be loaded into your iPod notes. The iPod eBooks Creator does the same thing, is cross-platform, and there is no need to install software. Visit the web site and upload your text file. It will process it and provide a link to a zipped archive containing your minced text file. Download the archive, unzip it and copy to your iPod. Nice.
Now, if only I had remembered to get the English translation of Dante's La Divina Commedia, I'd be all set.
Category: Software | Comments (1)
Apple Brand iPod Speakers Coming?
AppleInsider is reporting that Apple may debut their own iPod speakers at the MacWorld expo. There is not much information yet, but I'll take a wild guess and say that they'll be white.
From the flurry of rumors about lots of new products, it really seems that Apple will not only maintain their momentum as a company, but actually accelerate it.
Category: News | Comments (0)
iPod vs Cassette, Round One
In the annals of time man has faced numerous challenges. One question, however, stands out amongst the rest - which is better, the iPod or the cassette tape? One pioneering soul has delved where few
brave to go with the iPod vs. The Cassette web page.
The cassette wins?!?! What about sound quality? Play time alone pushes it over the top. Don't get me wrong, I love cassettes as much as the next guy, but by my tallying the iPod wins hands down. You can call his study flawed, but there is no denying that the graphics are really good.
Category: Culture | Comments (2)
Fashionable AND Warm?! What Else Can You Ask For?
No, that's not the latest fall fashion for a newborn, it's the iPod hoodie by Charlotte Ronson. I personally wouldn't be caught dead with one of these, but as absurd as they are, I have to admit that they look like they would do a good job. They'd be soft so as to not scratch the iPod. They'd be thick as to provide some protection against bumps. And the front pocket looks big enough to stuff most of the earbuds into. Maybe if it came in navy...no, must stop thinking about these.
$24, sold out at fredflare.com.
Category: Cases | Comments (0)
December 28, 2004
Signature iPods Even Worse Than The First
New Apple Signature iPods is a page full of suggested musician-endorsed iPods, some of which are even funny, "The Ramones [iPod] Comes pre-loaded with all 320 Ramones songs, almost a full hour of music!"
Category: Culture | Comments (0)
Quick Bits
Press event hints at Australia-based Apple announcements - AppleInsider: A scheduled press event in Sydney for January 12th (but only a few hours after Steve Jobs' January 11th MacWorld Expo speech) hints that Apple may announce the Australian iTMS and maybe even the first Australian Apple store.
Apple Likely To Fatten IPod Mini, Launch Flash IPod - Forbes: No surprised here, but a Piper-Jaffrey analyst predicts that we'll see a 5GB mini, iPod flash, and Apple/Motorola/iTMS phone announced at MacWorld.
Taiwan's Asustek wins order for Apple Computer's iPod mini player - report (Forbes) and Report: Taiwan's Asustek secures order for flash-based Apple iPod music player (MacDailyNews): I'm confused by this one. Asustek claims to have secured a contract with Apple to produce something. The article mentions the mini but MDN reports that it's the iPod flash. Just a case of confusing semantics?
And in case you were worried, I redeemed my iTMS gift cards. I haven't bought anything yet though.
Category: News | Comments (0)
December 27, 2004
It Slices, It Dices, It’s Book2Pod.
Well, I thought that if we're going to make this the unofficial iPod notes day, we might as well do it right, so I dug up one of my favorite iPod utilities Book2Pod. Book2Pod is a handy little utility that takes a large plain text file and chops it up into little pieces so it can be loaded into the notes section of your iPod. This is great if you want to read books or short stories on your iPod. You have to copy it to the iPod manually, but Book2Pod takes care of the directory structure. Book2Pod is FREE and it even supports Mac OS Services but it only runs on the Mac, sorry no Windows version.
Category: Software | Comments (2)
Eat, Drink, and Be Merry.
In keeping with our iPod notes theme for the day, Enrique Quintero Design was considerate enough to publicize their version 2 redesign of Podtender. Podtender is a mixed drink reference containing 900 mixed drink recipes. I'm not responsible for what you might say if you try them all in one night. Anyway, version 2 sports reformatted recipes and restructured navigation which should make using it much easier, even to the blurry-eyed. Podtender promises to ensure that the iPod is the ultimate party machine. $9 shareware with a free demo available here.
And just in case you haven't reached the 1,000 note limit on your iPod, Enrique Quintero Design also publishes two recipe databases; PodGourmet for iPod and for those health-conscience ethical-eaters (myself included) PodGourmet Vegan Edition.
Category: Software | Comments (0)
wiPod: Use Your iPod as a Wi-Fi Locator
I love the iPod notes feature so I get pretty excited when I find another use for it, especially one that works as well as this. Metro FreeFi is a web site that tracks free wi-fi zones and it offers an interface for you to build your own localized"wiPod" reference database. Start by selecting your area/state and then they'll build a zip file for you that is filled with text notes referencing each free wi-fi area. Unzip the file and copy it to your iPod and you've got a note for each wi-fi spot in your area. Installation instructions are included in case you haven't used the notes feature of the iPod yet. The interface is well done and it takes only a minute to do.
Of course, wi-fi spots may change periodically, and hopefully will be growing in number rapidly, so you might want to retrieve a new version from them every now and then. Also, Metro FreeFi does not have directories for all states.
Category: Resources | Comments (0)
December 25, 2004
Hellllooooo? …. iTMS???
December 25th, 5:09PM: The iTunes music store is bowing under the weight of a trillion gift card recipients trying to redeem their Xmas presents. I've tried three times today to redeem my two $15 gift cards (thanks Aunt Rita!) and this is as far as I've got (see error message). First place I'm heading - the iTunes Exclusives page
.
Category: iTunes | Comments (0)
