clevermanka | Productive morning

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Productive morning

I booted up my office computer this morning and got the message "Your profile is not available. This could be caused by insufficient administrator rights or a corrupted profile."

Three and a half hours later, I'm back up and running, with nearly everything on the hard drive still intact (whew). I was advised to disconnect and uninstall my ancient old SCSI scanner (it's been a source of trouble since day one), and my computer is running so much faster now.

I'm looking at purchasing a Creative Labs Zen MP3 player on the advice of the guy who fixed my computer. I told him I wanted to stay away from players that were too proprietary (just on principle). Anyone heard about this brand?

Now, to work. Or should I go to lunch first?

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I ended up buying some mp3 players (one for me, one for amy) this year and we went with SanDisk's Sansa models. They're alot smaller capacity - but it had tons for my uses. It's non-proprietary, and it has an FM radio, which I consider a must given my work out situation.

Overall, I love the sansa models. Great stuff without being overkill. But it's alot smaller than the Creative Zen.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16855125020

I think they go up to about 6gig in storage, plus the ability to add in a second flash card beyond that.

I have nearly 18 gigs of music right now, so 6 isn't gonna cut it for me. The Zen does have radio capacity, which yes, I must have, too.

The tech suggested that the 16.5 gigs of music on my hard drive probably wasn't helping my computer run faster.

All mp3 players are proprietary to some extent or another. The proprietary part is the mechanism to load the songs and videos. Some will let you use someone else's jukebox player to load stuff onto your player, but that's rare.

Some support Microsoft's proprietary format, some support Apple's. You can rip and play your own CDs on all of them. My iPod library is 90% my own CDs that I've ripped myself. Yahoo! and Apple both have deals to sell some unencrypted mp3 files. Audible.com books will play on most mp3 players.

Most players with video capability will play MP4 videos, and that's an open standard. My DVR rips TV shows I record to iPod format (which isn't proprietary - just h.264 mp4 format). I've only purchased one TV show from iTunes, and that was a pilot that never aired and wasn't available on DVD. I think Amazon and a couple other companies might sell movies you can download and install with Windows proprietary players, but I don't know for sure, since it's a service I don't use.

iPods won't play WMV videos, and Zens will. I think Zens also support things like Xvid and Divx, which means you have more content options that way, and there's a lot of ripping software that exports to that format. I don't know how easy it is to download podcasts on a Zen or if that's even something you're interested in doing. It's very easy to do it on iPods.

If you want accessories, iPods are the best bet. Ditto if you already use iTunes for anything.
If you want to run Windows Vista, double check everything. Last I heard, iTunes didn't run properly, and I wouldn't be suprised if other mp3 players had problems with it as well.

iPods do not have any sort of music rental service, AFAIK. Other players do. You can pay X amount per month for as many proprietary downloads as you want. This is good for folks that want to download X type of music one week and then delete it for something else the next.

From what I've heard, the Zen is a very good player, and a lot of people who own one are very satisfied. I haven't had a chance to see one in person, but that also looks like a good price with the rebate, so I bet you wouldn't be sorry if you went with it.

I just want something 1) I can bring to work with me to listen to my own music, 2) use on the plane flight to Italy, 3) play in a car when the CRX (and its accompanying stereo) finally die.

All that other stuff I really don't care about. Heck, I only use my cell phone to make phone calls.

The rental service sounds fabulous! That would be great for checking out albums that I'm not sure I want to purchase. I didn't even know that was an option, and knowing that's out there but not available for iPod certainly does put another mark against iPods for me.

Thank you!

No problem. I believe in weighing the pros and cons for everything, and the Zen sounds like it would meet your needs.

Yahoo unlimited and a couple of other sites do the music rental thing. Your music won't play once you stop paying for it, but it does let you check out new music. Check to make sure they'll support your player, though, because I've heard stories about Plays-For-Sure support being very spotty from player to player.

You should be able to get an FM broadcaster to listen to your music in the car, although you probably won't find one that charges at the same time. Double check to make sure you can find a compatible charger for your Zen, so you don't end up in Italy with a dead battery.

My first one was a creative nomad II, and that thing lasted through all kinds of abuse: bouncing down concrete steps multiple times, crashing into a tree, sliding across a sidewalk, and Roe. I still have it (somewhere). Although, the Nomad is harddriveless. I don't think my iPod could survive such abuse.

My co-worker has a Zen Jukebox, and he says that he really likes it.

I know you don't want proprietary, but those iPod nanos and shuffles are really cute and tiny, but you wouldn't be able to play Windows only media. I change all my stuff to mp3s anyhow, so it hasn't been an issue for me.

I wish iPods played OGG. Just because I like saying OGG Vorbis as much as possible.

I don't want too tiny. That's actually one of the selling points of the Zen for me. It's not ridiculously small.

That's two votes for the Zen, though, so that's cool. Thanks.

I'll add another vote for the Zen. Some of the earlier models had battery issues, but those have, for the most part been resolved with the latest ones. The Zens have been very popular in Japan, which is where I first ran into them.

And on the subject of proprietory software, one of the major advantages of the Creative and SanDisk lines is that they *do* support multiple program inputs - Media Player, WinAmp, and their own stuff. iPods may be the greatest thing in the world and do, indeed, have a lot of accessories readily available, but iTunes on a Windows XP machine is crap software (as anyone who has had the misfortune of trying to use QuickTime loaded directly from Apple's site will tell you - it automatically loads iTunes, too). It eats cycles and doesn't play nice with Media Player (which is a problem for me since that's what my phone/player uses). I've been told that the latest version of iTunes is better, but I had so many problems with it the first time I loaded it that I am leary of trying again.

Plus, if you already have a large music library set up in WinAmp or Media Player, it's a pain to move it all into iTunes just to transfer things into your iPod player.

my 2p worth...

Thank you for the info, and the vote! I appreciate it.

It's interesting to hear, because we've been using it on campus as part of our iTunes U pilot, and I haven't heard that sort of complaint. Maybe it did improve, or maybe we just don't have faculty relying too much on Windows Media Player. I'll have to set up some Media Player stuff on my PC and see if it crashes iTunes.

I have heard that iTunes doesn't play well with Vista, and that the patch doesn't help.

As a rule, I try to avoid giving money to Bill Gates, if I can. That said, there are some great features of the Zune, not the least of which is the music membership. I have an ipod shuffle that I love dearly, but I don't use itunes. Instead I use Anapod (http://www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod/) which works great with windows and the ipod and lets you load whatever you like (pretty much).
Of course, I might also like the Zen, given a chance to test-drive on, and I'm a fan of Creative Labs, so there's that.

I loved my Zen. It doesn't talk to my Apple computers very well, is my one complaint. But it was a little tank. 30GB, sitting in a storage box in PA right bow due to my own stupid oversight.

Someone on my flist had a post asking very much the same thing, and I do remember that Creative Labs got lots of thumbs ups. (thumb ups? thumps up? whatever)

My laptop moves stuff around easily except iTunes, and the auto-updates on the included Quicktime are a royal pain. I have XP on it, so the comment from above explains why to me now.

.. oh and I hear eMusic is a great music download service for folks like us.

Yep, same problem. I was seriously considering an iPod a couple of years back and downloaded iTunes to play with and learn about.

I learned that when it was active on my XP system, I couldn't play a decent solitaire game, let alone Age of Empires. I also learned that it was damned near impossible to turn off.

I uninstalled it. Then I made the mistake of trying to pick up the latest version of QuickTime directly from Apple's site - and found out that iTunes comes with it. And that you can't turn it off.

Format C: took care of the problem. ::grim smile::

Just a heads-up, QuickTime has always been available separately from iTunes. For a little while it was on a sub-page I think, but right now it is just selecting a radio-button "Quicktime" or "Quicktime with iTunes"

I have the Zen Vision M (thank you, tattooedartgirl, you are the BEST!!!) and it is one of my most valued possessions. It is the most open, best designed portable player out there. It kicks the butt of any iPod, as far as I'm concerned. I have the 30GB flavor, and Barbe and I are talking about giving it to her so I can upgrade to the 60GB version. Great UI, excellent software, very good battery life. Built in FM radio so I can listen to NPR to and from work. I just can't say enough about how good it is, and how much it's changed my listening *and* viewing habits. I have it loaded with videos as well from Amazon, bittorrent and ripped from my own DVDs. I thought I'd never use the video feature, but it's great to have when I'm on business trips (like this week! I've got the whole first season of "Ghost in the Shell" loaded up as Xvids!).

Yeah. It's good. Seriously so.

Wow, if nothing else sold me, your review certainly did. I know you're uber picky about your tech, so if you're happy with the Zen, I'll be thrilled. Thanks!!!!

I love my iPod, and it "just works" provided you don't mind living in Apple's world for your video choices. Seriously, iTunes is robust and easy and basically does 99% of what most of the market wants it to.

I also enjoy purchasing videos and music from the iTunes Music Store, and that sheeit is DRM'd and only plays on Apple soft- and hardware.

However if I were going to buy any other player, it'd be a Creative Zen dealy, just because it supports all the mainstream formats, and most of the pirate-y ones as well.

Buy.com has it on sale, with a rebate, I'm sold too.
Now to just figure out how I can sell $100 more worth of vids and costumes to get the new toy.

Actually, the pink version is cheaper on the newegg.com site, and the shipping is a buck less, too.

How does it do with podcasts? I usually just download my favorite NPR shows as podcasts, so I don't get stuck with the 9pm sleepy music programming on my drive home.

Rob LOVES his Zen..oh wait, I see he posted his response LOL

He is gonna upgrade to the 60G one and I'll take is 30g one.. the one I have is only 4G and ok, but I'll be happy to get the larger one.

He downloads stuff off of Bittorrent, puts it on the Zen then hooks that up to the tv and we watch it=EXCELLENT quality.

Get the biggest one you can afford-you will be VERY happy with it!

Awesome. Thanks, babe! I can't afford this one, but I think I'm gonna see if I can swing it next month.

*crosses fingers*

I used to own a Creative Zen MP3 player. When I followed Creative's instructions to update the firmware, Creative's own software crashed. It fried my MP3 player completely, and Creative would do *nothing* to support it.

I have refused since then to ever buy another Creative device, and I, on principle, urge you to do the same.

That's too bad that you had such a shitty experience. =(

Creative Labs used to have really good customer service. I wonder what happened?

Sorry that this has little to do with your post, but I had to snag a few of your Sinfest icons. It was a time-sensitive situation, and only "I am so happy!" would do. =) Man, I love that moment - it's so classic! I apologize for the breach of protocol and give you my warmest regards.

Please don't feel any obligation to apologize for snagging something I blatantly ripped off the Sinfest website. =D Use it in good health.

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Productive morning

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Brain dump about mp3 players...

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I'm with you on the MAC proprietary crap!!!

Re: I'm with you on the MAC proprietary crap!!!

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