itunes, you think I would be able to figure it out
 

ok, got my wife an ipod shuffle. Nightmare getting itunes installed on W2k SP 4 (she has one application that refuses to run on XP, so, can't upgrade that). After figuring out the cryptic error message, I did end up getting it installed. Second snafu is that it doesn't like my ogg encoded CD library, ok, no real problem there, just have to rerip about 100 CDs.

However, I have synced a bunch of songs to her ipod and they do play, but, how do you know what is on it? I did a sync, there's no playlist that corresponds to what is on the ipod, and, every time I open the ipod device, it shows a picture of 4 ipods, but, no playlist. If I try to open the ipod, it opens a new window and shows a picture of the 4 ipods.

I can do it through the filesystem, but, I'm sure that's not 'The Apple Way' :) And I'd really like my wife to be able to manage her playlist rather than me having to manage it. I don't mind wiping the config and starting over if I did it the wrong way. All I did was import my library, type in part of the name of the song, right click, add to playlist "Bonnie's IPOD", I could see the status up top copying it to the IPOD.

I tried using their web site, but, everything they show is like it automatically works the way I assumed it would work, yet....

I guess I'm just not technical enough to get along with these newfangled devices.

There goes that one
I was going to buy the wife an ipod for Christmas
If it's got Sparky puzzled I'ld be screwed |huh

well, somehow, mysteriously, they downloaded an update, and I guess since I don't have a 1600x1200 screen, the little 'continue' button in the waaaaay lower right hand corner wasn't visible to me.

Their interface sure is wacky though.

Now it is cycling through the first 5 seconds of each song and running through the playlist.

nah, now its repeating the same song over and over... which is quite humorous since wifey stumbled across a clip from 'The Big Lebowski' where John Goodman is quite verbal about anal intercourse.

Sparky, as far as I know, there's no way to "know what is on it" with the Shuffle. The other models have lots of feedback on their built-in screens, but the Shuffle is just for fill and play. You can also browse the contents of the other iPods from your computer, but you can't do that with a Shuffle.

I don't know if it'll help at all, but there's an illustration here that shows the Shuffle Switch that's used to choose playlists instead of random play.

Shuffle support here

Shuffle FAQ - it says it's for the original Shuffle but most applies to the 2nd Generation too (and there's a link to a page with the few differences)

actually, if you hit that little continue button, it opens it as a device and you can see the playlist and delete items.

That screen wants you to register for the itunes store, but, if you hit the 'later' or 'continue' button, it will show you. See what happens when I see a picture and the 'text' is to the right off the edge of the screen? Apple spends all its time making very pretty devices, but forgets that PC users don't all run at 1600x1200. At 1024x768, there is nothing but a picture and scrollbars.

Its a pretty slick little device. Works well, very tiny. I think they had to make it thicker just so the headphone jack would fit. :)

But, she's got about 100 songs on it already and is going through my playlist less the .ogg encoded songs, and putting more on it. I wanted to just copy the flash disk from her existing one over, but, Itunes didn't want anything to do with that. It refused to let me register a 'mass storage device', but, happily scanned my linux samba music server.

I don't know what amazes me more. The technology that they jammed into that little package, or the fedex tracking path that had it leaving China on the 30th and arriving here on the 2nd.

Robert Redford rescued Brad Pitt from Suzhou. :)

Sparky, I am disappointed in you. Even my technology challenged mother figured out her ipod :D

It must be a mac thing |couch|

Sounds like something is screwy with your computer setup.

Maybe it is time to get that Mac laptop that you have been wanting. With Parallels installed Windows becomes just another application. Ironically Windows seems to run faster this way then on a true Windows box. Plus since your "Windows Machine" is just a file on the hard drive you can duplicate this file once you have Windows setup and then later on if it develops any kind of problem or a virus you can just toss that copy and use the backup file so you are good to go in just a few minutes.

Angel ordered the new 17" Macbook Pro and I'll probably get the same one within the next month. Hers was suppose to be here this week but now it has been delayed until the middle of this moth due to supply issues.

Both Angel and I want the very latest from Apple but if you are looking to save a few bucks you may want to check out Apple's deals page.

Also the mail order places have some very good deals and you can even order it with Parallels and Windows pre-installed.
http://www.macmall.com/macmall/famil...wt.mc_id=13092

We built a computer for our neighbor a couple of years ago that is running Win2K with a pair of SATA hard drives configured as a RAID 1 array.

Quite some time later he received an iPod Nano for Fathers Day. He installed the software and plugged the cradle into a USB port.

The Nano works fine.

BUT... now everytime he powers down the PC, when he powers back up it alters the boot device order settings in CMOS to include the Nano as a bootable device, and drops the RAID array off the list. He has to edit the CMOS settings back to what they're supposed to be in order to boot up.

Sparky, this ipod episode doesn't give me a warm, fuzzy feeling :)

iPods work perfect every time and all the time on Macs.

Plug the iPod in and it syncs your iTunes without having to mess with anything. If your iPod is too small to hold everything then you just checkoff which playlists to sync.

There are also options to sync all your contacts from Address Book and appointments from iCal that then can be viewed on the iPod. You can also put txt files on your iPod that you can be viewed on the iPod. I keep all my notes and cheat sheets on my iPod this way.

There is also an option to be able to use the iPod as a removable storage device using the space not taken up by your music and stuff.

I have a real old iPod that stays plugged into my car's music system. It has all my music, contacts, appointments, and a bunch of text files with my notes and stuff. Since it still has just under 10 gigs free I often us it as a hard drive for content like movies and pics when I have to get or retrieve stuff from friend's computers.

after messing with it for a while last night, wifey is pretty comfortable with it. She paged through 9800 songs less my ogg encoded CDs and put a bunch of songs on it. I might have to work with multiple playlists so she can have a 'workout' mix and a whatever mix so she can change the groups of songs, however, 240 songs is a lot.

I would guess that most of the issues were that her screen is set to 1024x768 and apple assumes a huge screen and the issues with W2k SP4 which they do list as their 'minimum' configuration. Under XP, I didn't have as many issues, although, the expectation that you're running higher than 1024x768 is still there.

If it were on a mac, it would work flawlessly I'm sure. It is a conversion I've really been considering for wifey. And my next laptop will probably be a mac. But, not this fiscal year... :)

There's the problem (Apple). |potleaf|

Noooooooooooooo! Don't go to the DARK SIDE |deadhorse

my current (and previous) laptops have run linux for the last five+ years, and OS/X is just a version of BSD Unix, so, there's not really much of a switch. I still get the same command line interface I use 99% of the time anyhow.

and, the machine is still a development platform that pretty close matches the end environment, so, I'm not writing code in apache/php/whatever on windows then having to make changes to make it run on a linux/freebsd webserver.

Just have to get used to that wacky one button touchpad... ick. :)

I also wish Macs had a real right mouse click on their laptops but the new ones do have something called two-finger right clicking.
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2006/6/2/4195

Haven't tried it out myself since I haven't gotten one yet but will before the end of the year I expect.

The 20th Century called ... they want that comment back.

:D