IPOD.... - TravelPUNK Backpacker College Student Budget Travel Message Boards!

**LaurieL622** · 06-20-2005, 11:48 AM

I was wondering who has an ipod (or any other brand mp3 player), what are your opinions of them, how do you like yours, problems, and which model do you have?

My friend received one for her bday and now she can't function without a soundtrack for her daily activities.

I didn't bring a music source on my last trip (besides my bad singing) because I read that it keeps you from "truly experiencing a city"...sounds and all...and because well, I don't own anything better than a walkman from the 80's.

So back to my question...what does everyone think of their ipod, ipod mini....etc?? I’ve been saving for something…so I thought I’d buy myself one for my bday this week.

Thanks for the help!

GrahamP · 06-20-2005, 12:01 PM

ive got a 6gig mini and it is the shit. it pretty much lives in my car on my tunebase, but i take it snowboarding and stuff too. its going with me to europe next week, i just cant decide how to charge it.

**space virgin** · 06-20-2005, 12:07 PM

I have a 512mb Shuffle and I love it.

But I don't wear it while wandering around while traveling because I *do* feel like it detracts from the experience. It's great for trains and planes, and also the gym.

foofiter · 06-20-2005, 12:53 PM

I have a 40 gig ipod. I took it to Europe for my 2 weeks and loved it. It was a savior on trains and planes. I bought the $30 AA Battery pack from Belkin that lasts 15 hours on 4 "AA" Batteries. I believe there is one out for the mini as well but I haven't looked because I don't own one. Definately take a player of some sort!

foofiter

**omisan** · 06-20-2005, 01:03 PM

I've got an OG 5gb iPod and a 512mb Shuffle and one or the other is with me at all times. The old brick I mostly use in the car and for traveling (yup, for planes, trains and automobiles) whereas the Shuffle is mostly for the gym or snowboarding or walking around the city. Like the others, I usually won't sport the 'Pod walking around a city I'm traveling in, so I can take in the sights and sounds, although I've rocked it on some occasions where a soundtrack was appropriate (i.e. viewing a sunrise over the Caribbean or chilling at the top of a mountain)

**pinion** · 06-20-2005, 01:56 PM

I've got the old 10gb and I love it. I brought it to Europe but actually didn't listen to it as much as I thought I would.

I'm on the train for about an hour every day to and from work, I'd probably go crazy if I didn't have anything to listen to.

**LaurieL622** · 06-20-2005, 01:59 PM

thanks for the responses everyone.

i can't decide whether to get the 6g mini or the regular 20g. I'd much rather have a mini but I'm afraid of running out of space. i've heard from some ppl say that the mini holds a lot...but others say it is very limited. Do you feel like you could fit put ur entire music collection in a mini? Or is it just a weekend trip thing.

I'm looking for something i could transfer every song I've heard into...lol. I'm not a dj by any means...but i have a fairly wide taste in music...would a 6g be enough?

**omisan** · 06-20-2005, 02:02 PM

Man, you couldn't fit my music collection onto HAL from 2001 if you tried

But I would say unless you have to listen to a new song every time you flip on your iPod, then the 6GB mini is enough. You're looking at around 1200 or so songs, depending on the length and encoding. The advantage to getting a 20gb, though, is that you can get a USB transfer cable and plug in your camera and transfer all your pics over. That right there is reaaaaaally handy.

**Joker** · 06-20-2005, 02:02 PM

I picked up one of these... http://www.gadgetaccessories.com/default.asp and i like it.

$30 and it takes 4 AA batteries...

**LiveFreeorDie** · 06-20-2005, 04:48 PM

I've got the 20gb and need to start cleaning shit off it because I am running out of room. I also have the Belkin battery pack which works well (but is bulky).

While the mini is cooler looking, I prefer more space as I do not have to juggle music around, taking it on and off all the time.

Either way, though, I am sure you will be quite happy.

GrahamP · 06-20-2005, 06:08 PM

well the mini limits you if you have a huge library, but 1400 songs keeps me happy most of the time, if i get tired of it, i just plug it and delete/add

**Joker** · 06-20-2005, 08:01 PM

That thing I picked up is small, think of two AA batteries laid end on end with a hair more on the ends for the battery contacts, and two AA's wide...

Not as bulky as the Belkin, and since AA's are readily available, it makes far more sense for the backpacker on the go...

**LaurieL622** · 06-29-2005, 02:24 PM

thanks everyone for ur input...i finally went to the apple store and bought my first ipod yesterday! even though my birthday was last week...but what luck...yesterday was the first day apple released the 20gb with a color photo screen...for the same price as the old one (299). I was told the 20gb black and white screen was being discontinued..and sold at 30 dollars less in-stores.

so anyone looking for a good ipod deal...you can get the black and white 20gb for 240 dollars at the mac store...after their 30 dollar discount, and another 30 dollar discount for college students.

anyway...i can't wait to get home and put some songs on that biatch.

**omisan** · 06-29-2005, 06:30 PM

Welcome to the cult.. er.. Club.

**LaurieL622** · 06-30-2005, 10:03 AM

thanks omi!

I'm already having problems with this thing. lol.
I belong in the 1950's. i don't know how to label the songs because they all come up as "track 1...2...etc". and i can't get my songs to load correctly for the life of me! i thought i had an album going...and found out this morning that all the songs are cut off half way. then i have the same artist listed like 3 times...i dont know how to combine them. or put the album art into the ipod.

eeeeeeeek! someone save me.

**space virgin** · 06-30-2005, 10:11 AM

Hmm. Omi is *definitely* the person to help you out with this but I'll try. Do you have the latest version of iTunes? There might be a compatibility problem there, and I don't know if you're on a PC or Mac, but Apple puts out new iPod software updates every once in a while so make sure you have them too. That totally screwed up my Shuffle for a minute when I didn't have them. *shrug*
I would assume that all the proper software came with the iPod though... ?? Screw it, don't listen to me, wait for Mr. Macintosh to get on and straighten this out.

**omisan** · 06-30-2005, 11:06 AM

First things first - iTunes software. iTunes 4.9 came out yesterday, which means it probably wasn't in the boxes of all the shiny new color iPods that were probably packaged up over 2 weeks ago. You can get it at:

http://www.apple.com/itunes

Next - in order to rip your CDs to your computer with track names, you need to be connected to the internet. If you're online and you insert a CD, iTunes accesses CDDB and pulls down the album info and track names, etc. THEN, when you rip the CDs, it'll generate all the info with each song. Unfortunately, CDs don't have that info built into them.

What do you mean by "don't know how to combine them" ? Do you mean creating playlists?

Album art - you automatically get album art when you download songs/albums off of iTunes (in other words, purchase them). You can manually add album art by dragging a picture of the album cover (say, from a web site like Amazon) on to the "drag album art here" square in the lower left pane in iTunes while you have all the songs of that album highlighted. It'll then tag all those songs with the selected album art. Otherwise, I believe there are some plug-ins out there that automatically suck the artwork from Amazon, but I don't know any names off the top of my head.

**LaurieL622** · 06-30-2005, 12:28 PM

thanks sv and omi,

sv..i have a piece of crap dell laptop.

i will try all ur suggestions when i get home tonite. about half my songs being cut-off halfway...is this b/c i dont have the updated software? one of my green day albums only plays like 1 min 30 secs for everysong. grrrr.

i'm not sure what a playlist is (i sound like my mother..who can't work her cell phone), but i have michael jackson listed 3 times...a few songs under each listing. how do I combine this so I don't get multiple artist listings?

ok one last thing..is the artist AND album list organized by alpha or can i change the order around?

thanks, mr.mac!

**space virgin** · 06-30-2005, 12:40 PM

In iTunes you can sort your music however you want-- at the top of your "library" (the list of all of your music) there are tabs for song title, artist, album, genre, etc.... you can click on whichever tab you want and it will sort your songs alphabetically either ascending or descending. I like to keep my library sorted by Artist name alphabetically.

A play list is just that-- it's kinda like creating your own cd *within* the program. What I do is hit "new playlist", then open the playlist as a separate window and click/drag whichever songs I want into it. It's just like creating a new file folder and dragging files into it.

You can sort the playlist however you want, whether it's the order you dragged them into it or you can do the aforementioned sorting via song title / artist name, etc.

Does this help?

Also-- it sounds like your music didn't get ripped properly from the cd onto your computer. Are you trying to upload songs from cd's you have or are you, ah, finding stuff that fell off the back of a truck? Because there are many songs out there that are totally f'ed up.

**LaurieL622** · 07-06-2005, 10:11 AM

so far all the songs on my itunes came from bought cd's. i have not transfered any of my bear share songs (i dont even know how). anyone figure out the "multiple artist listing" question yet? now i have michael jackson listed like 5 times, with a few songs under each listing. then i have eminem listed 2 times, once solo and once with D12...but both artist listings has the same album...same music in it. i'm so anal about organization so this is really peeving me off.

btw...how do you like my music choices.lol.