I-POD Studio

[EWBrown]

I've never owned an I-POD and probably never will, but for those who do and want to experiment and DYI a little:

http://ipastudio.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=9

Closest thing to an I-POD I have is a somewhat aging Archos Jukebox with a slowly deteriorating 20GB HDD. Thanks to the generosity of one of the systems engineers, I now have some replacement 20 and 30 GB Hitachi "Travelstar" HDDs. THese days, 20-30GB is passe' for laptops / notebooks. Nothing smaller than 60 or even 80GB around here Yellow_Light_Colorz_PDT_06

The Archos unit is basically an MP3 recorder, but it can also act as a USB connected hard drive. Nice unit, but getting kinda "dated"...

[TomMcNally]

The Archos Jukebox with the RockBox software is pretty nice.
I modded one with 60 gig drive and it has about 5000
high quality 256K MP3's on it ... not bad sounding for
background type use.

I did break down and buy and iPod ... it sounds pretty good
with the Kensington docking station.

[Sal Brisindi]

You mean the Archos generation zero MP3 player shown in this picture... This "Darling" (hint hint) has been given to me and modded by a well known broadcast engineer who lurks on this forum. It has been upgraded from a 10 gig hard drive to a 40 gig hard drive.... I had to take this picture quick before it melted on top of my Dynaco 70... Yellow_Light_Colorz_PDT_48

Happy Thanksgiving to all,
Sal

[EWBrown]

That's the one... Someday I'll open it up (and attempt brain surgery) and replace the slowly disintegrating HDD with a 30GB HDD that I have (or perhaps wrangle a 60GB outa one of the systems engineers here, he recently gave me some "notebook" 60GB SATA drives, but they're NG for this application...


/ed B in NH

[TomMcNally]

There are picture instructions on the web on how to get
the Archos Jukebox apart to change the hard drive.
It's not too complicated.

Check out the RockBox software at http://www.rockbox.org/
it's easy to install and much better than the original.

In getting the link, I found that they now have RockBox
for the iPod too ... so I put it on mine - very cool !

I picked a font called DOS Blue ... the oldest looking one
I could find ... there are lots and lots of themes and fonts.



I love hacking stuff ! I hate the iTunes concept, so I
was using third party software anyway ... now it's 100%
non-Apple.[/img]

[Slartibartfast]

I love hacking stuff ! I hate the iTunes concept, so I
was using third party software anyway ... now it's 100%
non-Apple.[/img]

What about the iTunes concept do you not like? I have an earlier ipod and it very functional. I have even bought some music off of iTunes, though not a lot.

[TomMcNally]

iTunes .... let's see ...

I don't like:

being forced to conform to their thinking
being forced to put my music in silly libraries
buying songs from Apple
having someone control what I do with my songs
worrying about losing everything in a crash
not being able to move files around the way I want to
anything involving DRM

It's just not for me ...

[Slartibartfast]

iTunes .... let's see ...

I don't like:

being forced to conform to their thinking
being forced to put my music in silly libraries
buying songs from Apple
having someone control what I do with my songs
worrying about losing everything in a crash
not being able to move files around the way I want to
anything involving DRM

It's just not for me ...

Well I hate DRM as well, but iTunes is the least offensive online music solution out there. If you burn the music as a regular CD music format, you can then do with it as you please.

As for losing it, that is what backups are for. You do back up your computer, don't you? Yellow_Light_Colorz_PDT_03

Robert

[DerekVa]

I was recently given a 30GB Zune (1.0) but updated the firmware. I also have an iPod Mini. I vastly prefer the Zune. The UI is better, it holds more music and sounds better as well.

I've gotten heartily sick of the whole 'i' experience as well. Yellow_Light_Colorz_PDT_21

-D

[Slartibartfast]

I was recently given a 30GB Zune (1.0) but updated the firmware. I also have an iPod Mini. I vastly prefer the Zune. The UI is better, it holds more music and sounds better as well.

I've gotten heartily sick of the whole 'i' experience as well. Yellow_Light_Colorz_PDT_21

-D

That's funny. I am fed up with the entire Micro$oft experience, and have been for at least 10 years. Give me a linux or BSD based OS please. :)

Robert

[sorenj07]

Well I hate DRM as well, but iTunes is the least offensive online music solution out there.
Robert

no offense, but whaaaaat? Yellow_Light_Colorz_PDT_49 ever heard of Foobar? about as no-fuss as it gets, plus they have plugin based support for any format under the sun.

[Slartibartfast]

Well I hate DRM as well, but iTunes is the least offensive online music solution out there.
Robert

no offense, but whaaaaat? Yellow_Light_Colorz_PDT_49 ever heard of Foobar? about as no-fuss as it gets, plus they have plugin based support for any format under the sun.

Hey don't jump on me. Yellow_Light_Colorz_PDT_16 I was only replying to someone else. DRM does suck, but the ipod does give you many opportunities to get around it.

[DerekVa]

I was recently given a 30GB Zune (1.0) but updated the firmware. I also have an iPod Mini. I vastly prefer the Zune. The UI is better, it holds more music and sounds better as well.

I've gotten heartily sick of the whole 'i' experience as well. Yellow_Light_Colorz_PDT_21

-D

That's funny. I am fed up with the entire Micro$oft experience, and have been for at least 10 years. Give me a linux or BSD based OS please. :)

Robert

Whatever floats your boat. I admit there are a lot of things I like about Apple's Mac products (starting with their use of mobile chips / chipsets for low power / heat), but I can't stand their 'holier than thou' attitude. Face it; they're just another PC manufacturer with a prettier flavor of Unix than Gnome or KDE.

And in the interests of full disclosure, I work for Microsoft. However, the first computer I used extensively (in college) was a Mac SE, and I have had lots of experience with VMS, Solaris, NetWare and even a passing fancy with Ubuntu. Yellow_Light_Colorz_PDT_08

-D

p.s. And Apple is just as bad as Microsoft with regards to DRM. However, I think this points more to the undue influence of the RIAA and MPAA on the software industry rather than any insidious plot by Apple and MS to own every aspect of your life.

p.p.s. I would love to see Zune have more options (such as FLAC or OGG), but I've heard from someone I know on the Zune team that this is not likely anytime soon <sigh>

[Slartibartfast]

Whatever floats your boat. I admit there are a lot of things I like about Apple's Mac products (starting with their use of mobile chips / chipsets for low power / heat), but I can't stand their 'holier than thou' attitude. Face it; they're just another PC manufacturer with a prettier flavor of Unix than Gnome or KDE.

Well their computers are built better than anything out of Dell or Compaq. Having worked on just about every PC brand, I have not been impressed with any of them, save for IBM's server line.

As as prettier goes, it is more than that. They have graphical interface that works and is not a kludge. The same can not be said of KDE and Gnome. BTW, KDE and Gnome are not flavors of Unix, they are just a graphical interface. BSD has a "more free" license than Linux does, especially if you are developing commercial apps.

[ecir38]

I've never owned an I-POD and probably never will, but for those who do and want to experiment and DYI a little:

http://ipastudio.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=9

Used this http://web.archive.org/web/2 to find
http://web.archive.org/web/200708040500 ... 0Schematic

This link was in a sticky from the original posts site but didn't work. The web archive is great for this kind of things.

After opening the links that work, just remove the begining of the address to get to the present site.