VisorCentral.com - Is it really over--??

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VisorCentral.com (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/index.php)
- Visor General Chat (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/forumdisplay.php?forumid=31)
-- Is it really over--?? (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/showthread.php?threadid=29594)

Posted by Madkins007 on 11-26-2002 03:21 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Yorick

Just remember you don't *have* carry all your gear with you at all times.

Egads! Behind me Satan!

Well...

OK, you're right. My solution is a mini backpack like bag with travel charger, cleaning stuff, personal stuff, bandana, etc. that usually stays in the car. This is where my camera usually rides.

And I agree about the dilemma of integration/seperation. We have all suffered when an integrated device had one component go down (TV/VCR, cordless phone/answering machine/caller ID, printer/fax/scanner, Coleco Adam 'all in the printer' computer system, microwave/toothbrush).

On the other hand, I feel like Batman at work sometimes- beeper, cell phone (when it is my turn to carry one), PDA, multi-tool, flashlight, pen(s), ID badge, keys, etc. (and yes, I DO need to carry this stuff as part of my job as a field service tech).

Heck, I recently got a new Swiss Army knife (Manager II) so I could have a pen, knife, scissors, and small tools on me without having to carry the bigger versions all the time. I almost got the 'Midnight Manager II' so I could have a penlight as well.

Maybe what I REALLY want, if I knew more about it, was some sort of 'personal network', maybe involving Bluetooth?

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Do what you can, with what you have, where you are at!

Posted by eric2002 on 11-26-2002 06:09 PM:

i agree with one of the previous entries... ..about not being able to get/find MP3's on the internet! I have never owned an MP3 player for the one reason that I can not find MP3's on the internet. Everytime I do a search and go to what I think will be a promising site I get a bizillion pop-ups or porn!!!! Also what is the point of copying music I already own on CD to an MP3 player, when I already can take those CD's to my car CD player or play them at work on my computer? MP3 players only make sense to me if you could download them from somewhere!! -or beam songs between devices?? this way I could trade what I have for something new. I am willing to pay about a buck or two for a song, but even these sites have proven useless to me (it's sooo hard to find the music). (By the way I am on a Mac and it is difficult to find mac friendly MP3 download sites since the demise of "macster").

Posted by Alslayer on 11-26-2002 11:57 PM:

wow people don't like mp3s what is this world coming to.

Download Kazaa from download.com and then you can get mp3s.

Being that I am a geek, my influence rubs off on my girlfriend. She has a Rio Volt mp3 cd player. So she ripped about 12 of her Metallica cds and put them into 1 mp3-cd. She has over 400 cds and she has ripped most of them. Making about 30 mp3 cds and I made sure to tell her to make backups which have helped her tremendously. She liked it so much that she bought a car stereo with mp3 cd support. She has all of her songs on two her 2 visors. Her father got a kick out of it because it felt like he had a Metallica radio station.

Posted by Keefer Lucas on 11-27-2002 12:46 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by Alslayer
Download Kazaa from download.com and then you can get mp3s.

Visorcentral has a long, proud history of denying the existance of file sharing networks. Atleast you didn't mention the illicit trade in Palm software and passwords on Kazaa.

Posted by Digisane on 11-27-2002 03:20 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by Madkins007
Ah, 'communicators' rather than cell phones- the wonderful world of digital convergance.

Remember when cell phones just made or answered calls? Now, they have integrated cameras, play games, run simple PIMs, handle paging duties, and so on- all without integrated PDAs built-in.

Yeah..... wait. what do you mean "remember"? I still own a cellphone that does nothing else other than call up or receive calls and talk. And I'm happy with its default ringing tone (the "drrrrrrtt"sound) because it makes my phone unique now in this day and age.

My phone has exactly all the features that i want. Manner mode to switch to vibrating rings quickly (when im in conference), a step up volume option so it's quite on the first ring, but as you don't answer it immediatly it gets louder and louder. Ever notice some guy next to you whose phone rings some annoying music tone at full volume attracting attention? I'm not one of them.

And it doesn't have games to waste battery and cause system hangups and so on. It does exactly its duty as a phone. Oh and it's really lightweight and doesn't weight me down.

quote:
Now- a lot of people are in a similar place- PDA, cell phone, pager. Many of us are carrying a MP3 and digital camera as well. It sometimes feels like I am back at square one!

To me, it seemed quite dumb to have cameras play MP3s.

"Cheese!"

*click*

(Latest pop song plays)

"Ooops sorry wrong button"

quote:
Personally, I like the idea of an integrated communicator. It seems to be a continuation of the promise Handspring first made those many years ago to us. I would LOVE to be able to dump my work beeper by having it routed somehow to my PDA, and be able to return calls, etc. without another piece of hardware.

(I also am not really sure that the Treo series is exactly the 'communicator' I am looking for. For one thing, I can't seem to use it locally yet!)

A totally integrated PDA (YES PDA COMES FIRST) communicator is a good idea but we're just not there yet. Even with the XDAs and Treos. I'd say give another 3 or 4 years for something that fully integrates bluetooth, lightweight, large screens and durability with all the functions reliably.

Those other phones that try to become PDAs also fail miserably, since these companies don't know how to make screens any bigger, either that or they weigh a brick so it's better to get separate devices altogether.

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I'm just a dreamer..

Posted by Yorick on 11-27-2002 07:26 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by Madkins007
Side note on MP3-

I have played with this stuff, but... am I the only one that is disappointed with it?

<snip>

So, I'm wondering- am I missing something, or is this an immature technology at this point?

it is and it isn't. Even if there is an improvement on the compression rate of the file format, existing players ought to continue to be able to playback the files. Though, honestly, the same should be able to be said for DVD's too but the manufacturers appear to have found ways around that -- I've heard tales of first and second generation players not being able to play newer DVD's.

The appeal of having MP3's on a CD for playback, as opposed to having a dedicated player device like an iPod or Rio, is like Alslayer's comments -- you can have several albums all at once, and therefore never have to mess with the player for the duration of a long trip.

quote:
Originally posted by Madkins007
I can't seem to locate music on-line I am especially interested in, and transfering my cassettes to digital is a major pain in the neck. (CD to digital is quick and simple, but most of the stuff I most want to carry is in tape format).

as far as finding works in the format that you're interested in, one of my favorite groups, They Might Be Giants, had a special section at emusic.com for most of 2001. To get their stuff I had to have a subscription for a year; in that time I could download anything I wanted, unlimited, of the other material eMusic had available. (eMusic made deals with individual minor labels to have albums available in MP3 format. the biggest boons were having California punk label Lookout! Records' complete catalogue, the Creedence box set, and a wide selection of Laugh.com's reissues.) eMusic had at that time the widest selection of popular music available on the Internet; I don't know what it's like now. Because you pay for it ($10-15 a month depending on plan), it's 100% legal. There's also MP3.com, which is typically artists looking to get signed, and peer-to-peer networks like Kazaa or Hotline where anything you might download is illegal if you don't already own the album. You could also utilize the format to get lots of MP3's from friends and/or relatives of stuff on their CD's, or borrow what you want from your local library (copying for personal use falls under "fair use" copyright rules).

I agree, moving stuff from tape is a pain. I had a large tape collection at one time, both pre-recorded and homemade, and since I rarely use my tape deck at home and the one in the car is broken I eliminated 99% of the pre-recorded ones to the local used record shop. The ones I kept either are no longer in print on CD or the CD version isn't the same, since CD's have length restrictions and tape doesn't, beyond thinning, and there is so much hard-to-find material scattered thru my homemade tapes ...

I guess it really becomes a question of, how much effort do you want to put into customizing your listening experience?

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Posted by Yorick on 11-27-2002 07:35 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by Madkins007
OK, you're right. My solution is a mini backpack like bag with travel charger, cleaning stuff, personal stuff, bandana, etc. that usually stays in the car. This is where my camera usually rides.

got your towel?

quote:
Originally posted by Madkins007

And I agree about the dilemma of integration/seperation. We have all suffered when an integrated device had one component go down (TV/VCR, cordless phone/answering machine/caller ID, printer/fax/scanner, Coleco Adam 'all in the printer' computer system, microwave/toothbrush).

*glances sideways at telephone answering system where the answerer died right when the warranty expired, but the phone still works*

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Posted by Madkins007 on 11-27-2002 03:15 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Yorick

... eMusic ... MP3.com

Been to both of them, even joined eMusic for a while and found some nice things (my faves were the Native American music, Japanese drumming, etc.), but that was about it. I've let eMusic lapse, and don't swing by MP3 too often.

The point about MP3 format on CD was interesting- I did not know that. Now, of course, I need to look for a player that handles the MP3 format. Someone here mentioned the iRiver- I think I'll look at that. I also have the problem of LOTS of CDs and tapes that I would like to rip.

So- IS there an easy way to do tape to digital that I don't know about?

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Posted by EricG on 11-27-2002 08:05 PM:

I also have an "mp3" type cd player, I love it.. I also had a minijam and don't use it anylonger..

I can highly recommend the cd type mp3 players.. blank cd-r media is cheap..

ok, so you can't cram as many songs onto a cdr as you can an Ipod, but, my $80 cd mp3 player and a 100 blank cd-r's are a heck of alot cheaper.. and I can deal with carrying a few cdrs loaded with mp3s around with me.

I am sure you can even get the players cheaper now.. but since i have a 1st gen type, which lacks a screen, I would recommend one that has a screen for viewing mp3 filenames/id tags.. unless, like me you just always put it into random shuffle mode anyway and in this case, a screen is less important..
Also as a bonus, alot of the newer DVD players (standalone) support mp3 type cdrs, so you can use the discs in there too.

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Posted by cml on 11-28-2002 12:53 AM:

Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart sells an Emerson HD7088 CD/MP3 player for $48. It has a two line LCD that reads the ID3 tags, and you can search for songs by name. It also supports CD-RW.

I picked one up a couple weeks ago and I love it. Couldn't believe the price! Only disadvantages are it will go through a set of AA's in about 8-10 hours, so definitely get rechargables, and (what's new) they give you cheap-o headphones.

I went on a kick over the summer and converted all of my CD's to MP3. It's not that painful if you have a fast CD-ROM and are connected to the Net so your ripper can get song titles from CDDB.

- cml

Posted by Yorick on 11-28-2002 04:32 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by Madkins007
So- IS there an easy way to do tape to digital that I don't know about?

the only way I know of is to hook your tape deck's output to your computer's sound input and record the signal to a file (using whatever audio recorder software you have). If you have the disk space, record a whole tape side and break it apart into "tracks" later.
you can do the same thing with a radio show, audio from a video, etc

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Posted by Yorick on 11-29-2002 05:15 AM:

Re: Wal-Mart

quote:
Originally posted by cml
Only disadvantages are it will go through a set of AA's in about 8-10 hours, so definitely get rechargables, and (what's new) they give you cheap-o headphones.

I was in here again seeing how my newest avatar revision looked (INSTA PLUG!

) and noticed this which I didn't before ... I primarily use my portable CD player in the car, listening over the radio using a low-power boradcaster called a "SoundFeeder." it pulls power for itself and the player from the car battery and eliminates the need for headphones. Also it was cheaper than getting a new radio unit when the tape player broke.

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Posted by cml on 11-29-2002 01:45 PM:

I have a FM Stereo Transmitter from RadioShack that lets me listen to the player through the car's speakers, but I have never heard of one that's hardwired to your battery.

On the issue of the headphones, I splurged a couple years back and got an awesome pair of SONY Studio Monitor headphones. They make me look stupid but sound great. The cheapos usually get thrown in a box somewhere.

- cml

Posted by Yorick on 11-29-2002 07:29 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by cml
I have a FM Stereo Transmitter from RadioShack that lets me listen to the player through the car's speakers, but I have never heard of one that's hardwired to your battery.

plugs into lighter socket, actually. sorry about not being clear.

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