State of the dragonfly

[celticdragonfly]

So it's a boring lonely evening tonight. selenite is sick, and is feeling like a lump, and went to bed a couple of hours ago with nyquil. The kids are sick too. Maggie and Jamie aren't doing too bad, but they do have a lot of coughing. They don't seem to be running fevers anymore, though. They went to school Friday, and I may send them again tomorrow, still debating. Alanna came down sick last night, and that's been distressing - terrible barky coughs and wheezing. She was doing better this morning, but then not so great again this evening. I'm not able to get much done, because pretty much she wants to be in my arms constantly, and nursing a lot. That's good for her, though, so I'll just get through it.

Got my hair trimmed today. Kinda good for the ego. The stylist was exclaiming about how THICK my hair is, which is amazing, considering I've been in that postpartum hair-shedding phase, where I'm losing handfuls every day, and I've been feeling like it's terribly thinned out. We were discussing keeping long hair with kids, and she commented about it getting harder with age, but oh, she's a lot older than I am - I said really? I'm 38. She was 37, and shocked to hear that I'm 38. So yeah, overall good for the ego.

Also got properly sized for new nursing bras, and got one outfit for Alanna. I ordered a bunch more online. Tricky to find what I want, given the weird combo of her age and size.

selenite and I were talking about possibly getting me an mp3 player in encouragement of getting me and Alanna out on long walks, now that we're moving into fall weather here. He was offering to get me my Christmas present early. I talked about it some to fordprfct, as my gadget-go-to-guy. Sounds like I probably want to go with an iPod.

So I'm dithering, do I go for the less expensive iPod shuffle, which is easy to use, yeah, and certainly holds enough for any walk I'd take, and hey, comes in PURPLE? Or do I figure I want this to be more of a total media storage thing, picturing it plugging into a future car audio set up, using it to take TV shows with me (not that I go out that much... but it could change...), and want to be able to take everything, and see if selenite is willing to spring for an iPod classic? Shuffle would just clip to something... classic means hey, make a cozy (oh no, make me knit).

For that matter, I wonder what the software interface is like? I use iTunes on the computer, but I've never interfaced it with any actual player.

Okay, people - advise me, please? What's your two cents on the matter?

Comments

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

I've been an iPodder for some years now and find the controls intuitive. I've also discovered my Inner DJ and make playlists for all occasions. Yes, you will use it in the car for any trips over 10 minutes. A sure way to shorten the road for everybody!

The problem with the Shuffle is that there is no screen nor controls to make your own selection. It is always on random shuffle of all the contents. If you're going to go cheap, get the Nano, at least that has a screen. I went whole hog and got the 80G, so I have audiobooks for the long car trips. Happily, my co-driver to Estrella was a Bujold fan, so THE VOR GAME got us there and some of the way back. Yay!

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

Yes, you will use it in the car for any trips over 10 minutes.

I figure any future car will get a stereo system that I can hopefully plug mp3s into. The current van, Katherine the Grape, is almost 10 years old and has over 150K miles. The audio on it is basically radio only - even the tape player doesn't work anymore. A source of great stress to me - but on a car this old, I don't think it's a good use of money to replace the stereo system. Grrr. So I couldn't plug it into the car *now*. And I don't think I should be driving with headphones on, especially since I generally have several kids in the car.

[kd5mdk.livejournal.com]

They make transceivers that plug into the iPod and put out a very low power radio signal. Just tune your radio to the appropriate frequency and it will play over the car stereo.

[archangelbeth]

Yes. My spouse has one of these for his iPod, and plays it back and forth to work every day. (Which is a 1-hour-15-minute commute at the best of times. Each way.)

[joyeuse13.livejournal.com]

This is iffy; Aaron had one for a while, and it would fuzz in and out, even in the city.

Driving w/ headphones on is illegal, I believe. Might differ state to state.

[archangelbeth]

You plug in your iPod to your computer, and, if it's like it works on the Mac, it pops up iTunes and probably just interfaces. It may ask you if you want to wipe what's already on it (if it had anything), syncing up with your iTunes. If you don't want that, you tell it no, and you manually select what to load onto it. (And if you get the right program... What you want to load off it. I rescued most or all of my iTunes purchases that way, when my laptop drive decided running 24/7 for SETI was not what it wanted to do.)

I have it as a "only load what I tell you" -- so it shows up as, essentially, a library of its own with collapsable sub-folders in the sidebar of iTunes, just like the regular Music, Playlists, etc.

Disclaimer: I have only ever had the older, thicker, non-shuffle kinds. Shuffles hold so little, comparatively, that you may automatically get a "so, tell me what to load" option.

I don't know how many shows the bigger ones can hold -- you may wind up swapping those out a fair amount.

Please excuse the incoherencies. Early is not my time, no matter how much sleep I've had. *sigh*

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

You definately want an ipod, and not a 3rd party one. Until I recently bought an iPod, I thought "eh, they're all the same". They aren't. Apple completely wins on user interface.

I wouldn't want the shuffle myself, but that's in large part because I'm very nitpicky about controls, and not being able to control what comes up next would make me mental.

No matter how big an iPod you get, you will quickly want more. So get the biggest one you can budget. I'd at *least* go with the 8gb nano, if not the 80gb/160gb classic.

Once you discover how easy it is to load podcasts onto the thing, you may become a podcast junkie. Be warned.

The FM transceivers are pretty good, as long as you don't live in an FM saturated market. (They're very hard to find a good signal to tune in on in Atlanta.)

Oh, and final thought, from unfortunate recent personal experience: two great things that *don't* go great together? The Apple iPod Nano 4gb and my LG washing machine. :(

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

"Oh, and final thought, from unfortunate recent personal experience: two great things that *don't* go great together? The Apple iPod Nano 4gb and my LG washing machine. :( "

Nor lashings of iced mocha. I wound up giving my old model to Padraig, who has the knowhow to open it up and clean it out.

[patgund.livejournal.com]

It didn't need much internal cleaning either. Some q-tips and alcohol to clean the mocha up.

My suggestion for Laura? Go with either a Nano or a Classic. I found for driving, podcasts and music have been wonderful for both myself AND Little Bit when she's in the car. There's dock/transmitter combos that broadcast though the car radio and charges them too. And either would be small enough for walks and the like.

That's not to say Shuffles are bad either

[mostuff.livejournal.com]

If you're looking for a deal, today Woot.com has a 30GB Zune for $99.

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the heads up, but I don't want to get a Zune. fordprfct has one of those, a previous birthday present he got, and he warned me he's been unhappy with it - he reports a 10-15 second lag whenever he hits "skip". That would drive me nuts.

[mostuff.livejournal.com]

Well that's no good! It would drive me nuts too!

[joyeuse13.livejournal.com]

Aaron recently upgraded to an iPod Fancy-Schmancy, which means I inherited his iPod Almost-as-Fancy, which means my old iPod Shuffle has no home. If you're interested, I'll be happy to pass it on to you.

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Yes please, that's very kind.

[joyeuse13.livejournal.com]

Along w/ all the other stuff I've been meaning to mail to you for the last, oh,year? *sigh* Sorry, I'm only good at pixels. :P

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

I've had one of the larger iPods for 4-5 years and I found that I used it one a month or so. I even took it on week-long trips with me and returned realizing that I hadn't used it at all (and it adds a lot of weight to my laptop bag, so that always annoyed me).

Then a few months ago I won an iPod Shuffle as a door-prize. Because it clips onto clothes and is light as a button, I use it nearly every day. It's amazing. If the price drops any further, clothing manufactures will use them as actual buttons and every shirt we own will just have a plug for our headphones.

If you want something that encourages you to do more walking, I highly recommend the shuffle.

But I really don't recommend this product: