liz_marcs | The joy of 1G flash drives...and the agony of MP3 file-loss

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The joy of 1G flash drives...and the agony of MP3 file-loss

What on earth did I do before I got my hands on a 1G Memorex Travel Drive? I bought it yesterday at Staples for $25 and already I'm wondering how I could possibly go so long without my little friend.

I can now transfer MP3 files between all the various computers I use without sweating it out. Yayness! Honestly, I'd need a much bigger travel drive than 1G to move every MP3 file I've got (at least 20G to 30G), but 1G is good enough for now.

*snort* I said "for now." I can't believe that.

I remember the days when computers had no hard drives and all media was stored on floppy disks that could contain 360K maximum.

I've turned into such a greedhead for media storage.

I blame the MP3s.

Speaking of which, my 256MB Rio Forge Sport kicked it after 2 years. (No, I have no idea why it died). I was a little pissed since I paid $159.00 for it at the time. For that amount of money, I expected it to last longer. *grrrrr*

Imagine my pleasure/pain when I found out that I could get a 1G Creative Zen Nano for $69.00, and that's before the $10 rebate.

Fuck iPod. Seriously. That shit's just waaaaaay overpriced. A 1G iPod Nano is $149.00, comes with special product-specific batteries, and does not get FM radio. Nor can you record directly from a CD right into the player.

Yeeeaaaahhhhh. I think I'll pass on paying for the brand name, thanks, and go with the MP3 player with the good rep and will have me out-of-pocket for one-third the cost. Plus, I get FM radio and the ability to record directly from CD into the player itself (hell-ooooo Ramones and They Might Be Giants). There is no bad here.

So....much goodness for me to be had on the MP3 front.

Except, as some of you know who've tried to download files from the Multifandom Character Mini-Soundtrack Project, the entire project crashed and burned this week when SaveFile went completely down. All files were lost.

Since many of MP3 tags and file names were a mess anyway, and since I've been fixing up the tags and file names on my own harddrive, I'll refresh the whole thing over the next week or two. The file names should be a little bit cleaner for future downloads.

I'll announce the refreshed characters as I go along re-uploading files.

Thanks for your patience on the MP3 file loss. (Thanks for

data_warrior for the heads-up about the SaveFile crash.)

Also, finally started re-watching Homicide: Life on the Street S5. Still at the beginning before the Mahoney arc and still in the Pembleton's recovery arc.

Oh, Timmy, Timmy, Timmy. Frank's right. Why the hell should he treat you any better after the stroke than he did before?

Is it me? Or does Meldrick's character just keep getting more and more awesome on repeated viewings of Homicide? He's almost even with Bayliss and Pembleton at this point for sheer woobieness for me.

*kicks Homicide/post-'Chosen' BtVS crossover idea back in the dark corner of my hard drive where it belongs never to see the light of day*

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Just so you know -- I have not heard of a single mp3 player, regardles of type or manufacturer, that lasts more than two years. There are individual exceptions, but that seems to be more to do with frequency of use than style/brand. Otherwise, it's pretty much two years across the board.

Well, at $59, I'm much less likely to start swearing like a lunatic when the new MP3 stops working after 2 years.

At $159, however, my f*ck erruption the other night was impressive as all hell.

Oh, no question -- it's why I won't buy one for over a hundred anymore, since I think that *is* a fair use of my money. Just thought I should make it clear that none of them are built to last. which sucks.

Just Say No To Ipod! :D

Yay Creative! I have a Creative player and I <3 it so much. It's great. :)

Creative is a good brandname. I knew it even before I bought the Rio. This particular model had a pretty good write-up on Cnet, so for $59, I figured it was worth the plunge.

kicks Homicide/post-'Chosen' BtVS crossover idea back in the dark corner of my hard drive where it belongs never to see the light of day

Write it, write it!

I'm sure it'll be small, just something like 400 or something pages... :)

BTW, my own MP3 player is 20GB, it also works as a portable disk. Dunno how long it'll last though, these things don't strike me as being very resilient.

I'd need something bigger, much, much, much bigger for all my MP3s and CDs. I'm just not willing to pay all that much cash for it. I'm a cheap l'il Yankee, that's my problem. ;-)

So, 1G flash player it is. The price is right.

I love Homice so very much. I was (and am still not) fannish about it, but it seemed real to me, in a way other cop shows never have.

In related news, Andre Brauger lives in my sister's town. In fact one of his kids was in class with my niece one year.

Why Andre Braugher is not a huuuuuuge star, I'll never know. He is just a simply awesome actor.

So...I guess this makes you, what? Three degrees of Andre Braugher?

Why Andre Braugher is not a huuuuuuge star, I'll never know. He is just a simply awesome actor.

He also just won an Emmy for his role in Thief. (Mediocre series IMO, but he was quite good in it).

Hee. Never thought about the three degrees thing.

I suspect one reason he's not a huge star is he's living in a small suburb in NJ instead of El Lay.

Do you know about

homicide_reruns? It's a discussion community for the show, one episode per week. We're just starting season 3, and having just watched "Crosetti," I can say I definitely agree with you about Lewis.

Bayliss just broke my heart when Pembleton had the stroke, because I don't think it's ever more clear that Tim loves Frank (and I don't mean in a slashy way, though I can see how some might see it that way). And Frank can be frustrating sometimes, because we want him to love Tim back, but his instinct is still to keep people at arm's length.

Great show. One of my favorites.

Whoops, that should be

homicidereruns. Mornings, I swear....

Whhheeeee! Thank you for pointing me to this!

I just signed on.

i luff luff luff my 2gb mimobot (www.mimobot.com) in his little protohodie & graffiti colors. who's my sweet lil corrupted_data? you are! yes it was way too expensive for a 2gb but hes soooo cute! & i have no idea how i existed without him.
i have a creative 40gb nomad & its going strong in it 2nd year even though i have heartily abused it. my only complaint on creative is that mine isn't supported with accessories etc. makes me sad.
my sis bought me an ipod to force me into the ipiddypod nation. its beautiful but soo delicate.
i lost a bajillion files on savefile too. i would be angry with them if i didnt heart them so much & the fact that they are awesome & free keeps me quiet too.

I have to tell you...I'm almost sorry I didn't get the 2G right now, but honestly? A 1G stick on sale for half-price? Mine, mine, mine...

Too bad the only thing I can stick it in right now are computers. I know the new boom boxes come with USB ports so you can use the sticks, but everything I have in my house is on the oldersite and doesn't have the USB port.

*is sad*

As for iPod, I don't want to give Apple that much control over my MP3 collection (I have some problems with how iTunes operates), and their product is far overpriced. I want something functional and meets my needs, and iTunes does not nearly come close enough to doing what I want it to do for the price.

I remember getting my first computer and being so excited by the 10 meg hard-drive, because with all that space I would never need to mess with floppies again. Seems so quaint, now.

We're old, you know that right?

Anyway, hopefully you got your files before the big SaveFile crash. Since they were still getting downloaded like crazy (I think the Xander soundtrack alone topped 1,000 downloads...don't ask me how), I plan to refresh the mini-soundtracks.

The Sunnydale Soundrack had been live for four months at this point. I have no particular desire to re-upload that one at all.

I don't have an ipod or an mp3 player. I live in the tecnical dark ages of music...I listen to the radio! Mostly CBC. I notice your currently playing list...is that from an on-line radio station, or do you have all those on your hard drive? I'm in awe of your diverse musical taste.

The files now being played are on my 1G Memorex Travel Drive (and it's not even 1/20th of the files I have just electronically). I'm trying to weed out some of the files and determine keep/get rid of, as well as eliminating doubles.

The actual list is a feed from my LastFM stats page. A small program that I've downloaded sends information to my stats page whenever I play a CD or MP3 file using iTunes, WindowsMedia Player, or just about any other player you can imagine. It then offers me a little link that I can post anywhere (Web page, LJ, etc) where it'll "show" people what I'm listening to at that very moment (or when I last played music using my computer, whichever).

What's nice about it is that Last.FM also has a "radio service" and, based on your music stats, you can listen to "recommended radio" and discover new artists and tunes. You also can listen to several other Internet radio stations based on your tastes, your Friends' tastes, or even on people with similar taste in mustic to you.

It's a cool little site that I find is worth linking to. :-)

Oh, how cool. I'm so leery about downloading anything onto my computer, I need recs like this! I'm going to check it out for sure. I love how much new music I've been exposed to since I came online. I would otherwise be stuck in my own little timewarp of "golden oldies".
Thank you!

LastFM is perfectly safe. They've been around for years (initially called AudioScribbler) and I think it started as a University project that got out of control.

The initial plan was just to track how people used their computers for music and what kind of music they've listened to, and people basically volunteered for what was essentially a huge statistics project.

From there it's grown.

I've had LastFM's programs (I joined right after they changed their name from Audioscribbler) for more than a year and have never had a problem with it. At worst, sometimes the program doesn't send the information to the Website, but that's only because I sometimes forget to update the programs. :-)

It's a U.K. group, by the way.

You know, I have not yet become a PodPerson, but I just might go for that Creative dealie.

And HELL YEAH, write that crossover!

You know you want to...

*glares*

Stop making me go for the crack, you....

I haven't had a chance to play with it yet, but Creative does have a long track record (it put out one of the first MP3 players) and a solid reputation.

The real winnah on this particular model is that you can record directly off a CD to the MP3 player. You can't do that with too many flash players.

If you're just looking for something to store all your files on, not a player, get a cheap USB drive enclosure (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817146312), and a cheap hard drive to put in it. If you don't know somebody with a hard drive to spare, that is.

I've already got a 80G external hard drive that's USB-compatible which I use to backup everything. I do the massive back-up once a month...and yeah I know I should do it more often.

I'm only using the USB to carry around MP3 files, maybe a single word document, and that's about it. I would use it to store anything permanent or anything that where I only have a single copy. They strike me as easily lost and/or broken. I just like the portability of them. :-)

I bought my gf a Creative Zen Sleek Photo. It comes in a 20 GB format and has the fm radio/voice recorder thing too. It was half the price of a similar Ipod and a few weeks later, another shop had an online introductory offer of a third the price of a new Ipod. I got one for myself with a deskholder and high-quality headset. Best investment I've made for myself.

As for the accessories, Creative doesn't have too many suppliers, they all go for the Ipod -people. I do have an Ipod shuffle but only because it's a flashdrive so I can use it in the gym when I'm training.

And harmfulguy is right, get an enclosure and a regular hard drive. I've got two. When a disk is full, I just swap it out and put in another. It's a lot better than the USB drives; those aren't easy to open and you lose your warranty if you do. I had one and it died, lost everything on it.

Something else you might consider, since you've joined the throng of people with USB-keys, is turning it into a portable office. No need to carry a laptop around anymore, you've got your whole office on a tiny, little USB-key :-) Check out http://portableapps.com/ for some truly great apps and howto's.

I've played with the iPods at the local Apple stores and...honestly? The sound is a little bit cleaner than with some MP3 players, but not three-times-the-price-worth to my ears. I can see investing in an iPod if you're getting a high-end one to play videos, but I have zero desire to use a handheld for that.

But you are right, iPods have many, many, many accessories that are very, very cool. Creative has almost none, and yet that brand probably has more accessories than most other MP3 players that aren't iPods.

I jsut don't like tying my fate into iTunes so much, I guess. And I hate that Apple is basically charing mucho bucks for the name.

I already have an 80G external hard drive for storing documents and I try to backup everything on a regular basis to it. I probably should do it more often.

As for the USB mini-drive, all I'm using it for is to carry around MP3 files and maybe one word document (at best). I wouldn't put anything on it that I didn't have backed up to the hilt.

But thanks for the link to PortableApps. Hmmmm, it looks like a very cool site. :-)

*kicks Homicide/post-'Chosen' BtVS crossover idea back in the dark corner of my hard drive where it belongs never to see the light of day*

I have four words for you: Pembleton. Faith. The Box.

If that's not a plot bunny worth following, I don't know what is. :)

Imagine my pleasure/pain when I found out that I could get a 1G Creative Zen Nano for $69.00, and that's before the $10 rebate.

Damn. You planted the seed. Now I'll think about this until I break down and go get one!

Okay Go is on Letterman 8/30. Just thought you'd want to know.

I didn't even bother to check out other MP3 players before getting my 30GB iPod (Video). Being an Apple person since I bought my Mac Plus in 1987, I'm just used to paying more to get the Apple product, I guess. Plus, my justification for buying it was that I could use it as a Palm-substitute and keep my work calendar and to do list on it. And when you're comparing the price to Palms instead of other MP3 players, the price difference isn't as big.

Scary thing for me was finding out that the 30GB model didn't have a big enough drive to hold my entire music collection (which I really thought it would). When I'm ready to upgrade from this one, I'm going to need the 60GB version.

And my 1987 Mac Plus didn't have a hard drive. I splurged for the external floppy drive (to go with the one in the machine) so I wouldn't have to swap disks any time I wanted to open a program or save a file. It's hard to believe that the Mac OS used to be able to fit on a 400K floppy. I remember how happy I was when I bought my 40 MB external hard drive to work with the Mac Plus in 1988. I didn't think I'd ever need to worry about storage issues again. Life was simpler then. It's scary to think I now walk around with a device the size of a half a deck of playing cards with 768 times as much storage, and yet I complain that I need more.

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The joy of 1G flash drives...and the agony of MP3 file-loss

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