Apropos of nothing, I could really use a vacation

[clevermanka]

Someone I know was complaining that a man in her life wasn't at all interested in yoga, even though she thought it would really help his joint problems. Was that anyone on LJ? If so: Yoga For Regular Guys. It's written by a World Wresting Champion!guy, with a foreward by Rob Zombie, and has four and a half star reviews overall. Hell, if I had money to blow, I'd buy this for myself just for the fun of it. Found on Just What I Wanted.

For all you personal-music types on my flist: I'd like some input on downloadable music-players that aren't iPods. My mom is thinking about getting something like this for Daddy, but I don't think he'd want to be limited to the proprietary nature of Apple/iPod. Are there services that let you purchase and download single songs that aren't for iPods? I'm completely in the dark on this issue. Thanks in advance for any information and advice!

Hm. It appears Douglas County is under a tornado watch until 6pm. UPDATE: Crap. And they're expecting hail.

Comments

[stuology.livejournal.com]

Napster has teamed up with, um...some portable music player--Samsung maybe? I can't go look because Napster is blocked at work. Anyhow, they are trying to do the same thing that Apple is doing with the iPod. I haven't been on Napster for quite awhile, but if the purpose of his player is for purchasing music through a service such as Napster, I would check the ease for burning purchased music through that service and what players that it supports. Most people that I know like the ones that Creative makes.

[stuology.livejournal.com]

If I also remember correctly about Napster, is that you can either do like you do with iTunes, and buy a single song which you can burn or transfer to your player (they use digital rights manages mp3s the last time I checked), or you can pay for a subscription in which you can download all the songs you want to listen on your PC, but if you want to burn it or put in on a portable player, you still have to purchase the song.

I think that they try to trick people into paying for a subscription by making them think they need to for song purchasing, but it isn't necessary to pay a monthly fee. Without the subscription, you can listen to a little clip of a song before deciding to purchase it.

[sdemory.livejournal.com]

I'm partial to the Rio line. I've got a 256 Rio Chiba, which is portable, rubberized (and, thus, resistant to my clumsiness) and, most importantly, upgradable. I'm looking to toss a 1gb card in the thing at some point, which'll give me hours upon hours of music.

It's also compatible with iTunes, Windows Media Player and Roxio, in addition to having its own media transfer program. Pretty slick for a $45 machine.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

My mom doesn't have a lot of $$$, and Rio has been around for a while, so that option is sounding pretty nice. D'you know the cost of a 1g card, offhand?

[sdemory.livejournal.com]

They're available at Target for about $80. That being said, you can find much cheaper (http://www.pricegrabber.com/search.php?form_keyword=1g%20memory%20card&mode=g_us_e_s&skd=1).

[rowangolightly.livejournal.com]

hmmm...It wasn't me complaining but I know Yoga would be SO good for Bruce with his back challenges and wanting to remain flexible (*grin* ...which I want for him too!)

Thanks, I will SO go and check that out...

[next-bold-move.livejournal.com]

Greg and I both have Zen Micros made by Creative Labs. I've been really pleased with them, even when Greg's had to be serviced in January.

They're priced a little under the iPod in every size, too.

[rowangolightly.livejournal.com]

*guffaw* Okay, I found several things on there that I want badly!

1) The eye candy sweatshirt
2) The torture device coloring book
3) The ex knife holder

wantwantwantwant

...and I really didn't read that far down on the list!

[adammaker.livejournal.com]

and Rob Zombie sings,
"Dead, I am the Downward Dog, hound of hell, you cry."

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Okay, that is fucking hysterical.

A semi-rant on DRM

[cjfringe.livejournal.com]

Let me clear up a common misconception.
Just about EVERY music download service is going to have some form of DRM attached to it. This is because the record labels are paranoid about people sharing/stealing music. However, *ALL* players also support non-DRM formats like mp3. There are basically two major proprietary DRM formats - Apple's and Microsoft's. MS would *like* you to believe that it's about choice, that their format is more widely supported. It is, sorta, on the 15% of the portable music player market not dominated by Apple. See, instead of offering the service themselves, MS just licenses their tech (similar to windows). So while you can buy a song from Target.com, Wal-mart.com, coke.com, or JoeSmithsMusic.com, they'll all be priced the same w/in a few pennies, and they'll all be exactly the same file - a MS DRMed wma file. This isn't any different from an Apple aac/m4a file, except that the sound quality is lower (scientific comparisons have been done on this) and they have a smaller segment of the market.

I don't mean to sound like an Apple snob, but MS has been making this campaign that somehow if you buy an iPod you're "locked" into a proprietary format, which just isn't the case, nor is it different from MS's own DRM. Oh, and avoid Napster, unless you feel like haxxoring/rerecording all your songs. Napster works on a subscription system, which means that as soon as you stop paying, you can't hear your music from them. You're renting w/them, not buying.

HTH

Re: A semi-rant on DRM

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Oooo. This is *very* good information! Thank you!

Re: A semi-rant on DRM

[adammaker.livejournal.com]

This might be good to read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes

[curieuse.livejournal.com]

I have liked my Creative Nomad 30Gb player but am now thinking of selling it and switching to iPod.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

What's prompting that decision?

[curieuse.livejournal.com]

I switched to an Apple laptop and have been using iTunes and liking it.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Ah. So you're not dissatisfied with the other one...

[curieuse.livejournal.com]

Not at all -- it's been fantastic. If it weren't for a gift I'd say you should just buy mine.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

=D

Well I've been thinking about purchasing something similar fo myself, too.

Stop by sometime and we can talk about how much you're asking, etc.

[curieuse.livejournal.com]

Not a big deal. If you aren't opposed to used you can also check ebay -- a lot of people are switching to the shiny nano ones and microscopic little things so if you're willing for some dinosaur the size of a deck of cards, you can get some good deals. :)

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but I might as well buy something from a friend who can 1) show me how to use it, and 2) save me the shipping costs. =D

[curieuse.livejournal.com]

Also true. There's a learning curve on all of the damn things.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Yes. And my talent for figuring out problems bureaucratic does not transfer to problems electronic. I'm embarrassingly inept at figuring out new technology.

[purpledumbass.livejournal.com]

Just to point out FYI-- you don't need an Apple computer to run iTunes, which is a free download from Apple.com for Macs or PC's. Something that some people may or may not know.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Someone did point that out, which is good, b/c I didn't realize that. Like I said, I know zip about all this stuff. Thanks for the info, though! I'm taking all I can get.

[akaashben.livejournal.com]

The site AllofMP3.com (http://www.allofmp3.com) charges for MP3 downloads at two cents per megabyte.

You get to choose what bitrate the music is encoded at - basically, the higher the bitrate, the better the quality, the bigger the file. Guidelines are roughly:

• 4 kbit/s — minimum necessary for recognizable speech (using special-purpose speech codecs)
• 8 kbit/s — telephone quality
• 32 kbit/s — AM radio quality
• 96 kbit/s — FM radio quality
• 128 kbit/s — Typical "acceptable" music quality
• 192 kbit/s — "Near CD" quality
• 256 - 320 kbit/s — CD quality or better

What all that boils down to is that for your typical album, say Coldplay's X & Y, with 13 tracks, costs a mere $1.76 when encoded at 192 kbs (near cd quality - which is, in my opinion the best compromise between file size and sound quality).

You can also download individual songs instead of the entire album - again based on file size - but they seem to average around 15 cents per track (@ 192 kbs).

They are based in Russia and they have a pretty large selection of music of all genres and are perfectly legit from all the research I have done. You purchase credits from them and then can use those credits for downloading, so there is no automatic billing of your credit/debit card. You can also pay with some of the online money services like WebMoney and Yandex.Money.

As complicated as it may sound, they make it pretty easy, and I am planning on signing up as soon as I save up a few pennies.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

This is really interesting--and helpful! Thank you!!!