So, I'm getting ready to buy an iPod...
 

I'm going with the 60 gig iPod Photo, which should hold almost all my CDs and mp3s. I'll mostly be listening to it in the car (via FM) or at work/in transit to work. It comes with headphones, an AC adaptor and a USB cable. What other accessories should I be purchasing? Also, is the Protection plan worth $60?

The earphones that come with it are crap. (At least if they're the same ones that came w/ earlier models.)

How many CDs are you talking about? I'm only just approaching the halfway mark on my 40GB ipod and I have umm... a lot... of CDs. (I haven't counted but I think about 250. A number of operas, which are 2-3 discs each.)

I have the equivalent of at least 600 CDs...maybe more.

docking station and belt clip.

also, if you got the scratch, the bose speaker thingy with the dock is on my short list.

I have the speakers with the docking station... I have found them to be invaluable, especially when you travel alot and need to charge up the pod after awhile.

I really want an arm band case for mine... but the one at the apple store was $40 - definitely not worth it.

I haven't invested in the FM transmitter thingy - I listen to mine in the car with my headphones in. Yes, it is illegal, but I know enough lawyers to get me off.

My iPod broke a couple of weeks ago -- I bought it last August, so it was still under warranty. The apple rep convinced me to get the extended service plan, and informed me that as long as *someone* in my family was a student, I was good to go. I told her my dad in AZ still has his student id from the local community college... That was good enough! The student price is $50, I think. I got my new replacement iPod a week ago, and all is dandy.
Lesson: no one gives a sh*t if you're really a student.

I got the Monster cable for my truck. I think it's quite good, and handles my iPod Photo (I have the 40GB) just fine.

It's $60, but worth it. And, it charges your iPod on the way to work.

Mitch

Are you sure you can't find other ways to rape the audio quality further?

If they had a way to transmit iPod through an AM transistor radio, I'd try it.

I checked my iTunes folder and found that each CD in MP3 takes about 80MB. For 600, it would take 46.9 GB.

The AAC format is tempting because it saves about 20-25% space at the same quality. But, I found it was a lock-in, and harder to deal with outside the iPod/iTunes boundaries. So, I re-ripped my CDs into MP3 format.

You're going to be ripping CDs for ages! I wouldn't have that kind of patience.

Most of them are already ripped...I might have 25-50 left. At 192 Kbps, they currently take up about 38 gigs.

Time for a new hard drive, solely for mp3s.

My computer is getting very buggy, a huge loss of music coming soon... :worried:

Office Depot has a 300GB UltraATA HD that runs $269 regularly, you can get it for $140 occasionally.

Grab two, I did. I'm sporting two 300GB UATAs and a 120GB SATA for my system files. At this point it may take me another six months to fill that up.

you'd be better off running them in mirrored RAID TS.

It's wholly inappropriate to construe a relationship between MP3 and quality -- unless you refer to the lack thereof.

Have ya heard about FLAC?

As in the FLAC that the iPod can not play? Can you really tell the difference with earbuds? I can't wear my Sennheisers on the BART.

iPod can play MP3, WAV, AAC/M4A, Protected AAC, AIFF, Audible audiobook, and Apple Lossless file formats. It cannot play Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, Windows Media Audio (WMA), or RealAudio files.

:band:

iPod can however play Apple Lossless which is for all purposes, the same. Why use FLAC? Horses for courses, for a portable player with limited space a compressed format makes more sense. I challange anyone to tell the difference between a 320kps AAC and the CD audio. I use the apple in-ear buds, excellent bass. Gwennie - AAC is an open and commonly supported format.

AAC is an open and commonly supported format - Protected AAC ("fairplay") will allow Apple to prevent you from accessing your entire library of music if you mistakenly install your itunes on a friends computer and then have two systems in for service.

And other bizarre far-stretched scenarios, what UT is obfuscating as far as possible is that fairplay allows 4 machines to be authenticated at once. Of course fairplay also allows you to burn those tracks onto normal audio cds so as soon as you do that, this becomes irrelevant. Apple also tell you how to back up your music. Apple also have a customer service system to deal with the problem UT is talking about, free of charge.

Fairplay is however just a layer sitting on top of iTunes tracks purchased from the iTunes store and has absolutely nothing to do with ripping CDs.

UT - I don't like DRM either but the iTunes store is far better than any other scheme I've seen and has done more for digital music than anything else. You should also declare that you own part of a competitor to iTunes.

Declare? That's a weird take on the entire community.

possibly a bit too far but you see my point. I have to admit I admire the fact you don't make any commerical use of the cellar but that was a very, very biased example on iTunes, I felt it was relevant you do have a financial interest in its failing.

Actually, that's not the case! itsaboutmusic.com puts its artists on 100 different downloads sites, including iTunes and all the major ones, and I get a commission on those downloads too.

It's the *artist* who really makes more if the product is bought at itsaboutmusic.com/net.

point taken. so why the bias on iTunes? You should know better than most that what you said isn't correct.

ok, before everyone starts measuring their pecker size, can someone explain something to me?

i love my cd's. i have a lot of them. if i buy an Ipod:

-how do i get my music from cd to ipod?
-if i have 250 cd's worth of music on my ipod, how can do i find the music i am looking for at a given time? is there some sort of index?
-my hearing loss is at the point where i am a little afraid of earbuds and the like. other options?
-if i buy an ipod, how long before it is obsolete and i have to buy another one, and reload all of my music?

yes, i'm that far out of date.

Itunes or another program 'rips' the music, it copys it to your computer and converts it to a format like AAC or MP3 which are of comparable quality but much smaller.
iPod can index by playlists you make on your computer as well as that you can browse by artist, album, song name, composer.....It's not hard.
Big chunky headphones? Plug it into a pair of battery powered speakers? Anything with a mini stearo jack really.
Only need to buy a new one when it dies or you run out of space. Got mine in 2002, going strong.

It's not commonly supported. I haven't seen a non-apple portable player that supports AAC.

Part of what I meant by AAC-lock-in was that it's easier to share MP3 with friends because they can't always use AAC files, not that I do that or anything.

We have three iPod minis and a shuffle. At one point we got a Creative Zen Micro, but the PC software for it really sucked. So, we returned it for our third mini. It's easier if everyone in our family has the same setup.

portables I don't know but software-wise it's common.

Apparently Sony is pissed at Apple for forcing the use of Itunes for Ipods.

Apparently Sony's DRM installs a rootkit (i.e. very sophisticated "trojan horse" software that can completely take over your PC and do anything with it) if you play one of their CDs in your computer!!!

This is the worst I've ever seen. The end times are upon us.

Undertoad: a lot of protected CDs are like this. Before you put the CD in, simply hold down the CTRL key to disable autorun (or you can disable it permanently). This will keep the DRM-software/driver from loading.

(shift key)