iPod Shuffle

A very cheap iPod I thought by myself (only $99) when I saw an advertisement of an iPod Shuffle passing by. So I went to Apple's web site and found out that I actually saw a USB memory stick put into an iPod jacket.

At first I thought it was a real rip off because it doesn't even have a screen where you can see which song is playing. But then I realized that I never use the screen of my MP3 player to see which song is playing. I don't even care which song is playing, when I hear a song for which I am not in the mood I just press the next button and again and again until I find a song I like.

I think the iPod shuffle is made for the oudoors user who is busy and just wants to listen to some music and doesn't care about which song they are listening at.

Although you can find cheaper USB MP3 players that have a screen, none of them look as nice as the iPod shuffle.

Podcasting with Adam Curry

Yes ladies and gentleman Adam Curry is back !!!

A couple of weeks ago I came across something called podcasting. Podcasting is all about recording your own radio show and put it online through an RSS channel. You could call it radio-on-demand, instead of watching a video when you want (video-on-demand), you can now listen to a radio show of your choice when you want. I love this, because every morning it takes me about an hour to drive to work, and I really don't like the radio shows they are playing at that hour. So now I download Adam Curry's "Daily Source" radio show to my MP3 player when I drive to work.

Why the hell is it called podcasting, I hear you say. Well it seems that Adam owns an Apple iPod to listen to MP3's. And he wanted to hear radio shows from his iPod. So now you know why it is called podcasting.

How do you start listening to podcasts, well the first thing you should do is install an RSS reader so you can subscribe to RSS feeds. Another possibility is to download podcast software, I downloaded iPodder and jPodder and they are able to download the sound files when you want.
When you've got your software up and running just Google for podcasting or go directly to PodcastAlley.com.

Today you have to listen to a lot of podcasts to find one that suits you, because most of them aren't from real DJ's like Adam but from regular people like you and me. So what I hope is that also radio stations will start podcasting so I can listen to those shows as well when I want to. So if someone from StuBru is reading this, please go up to your boss and beg him for starting podcasts.

Palm Zire 72

Palm Zire 72, no my Belgian friends this is not a new beer brewed by the Belgian brewery Palm, but a PDA with a built-in camera.

A couple of years ago I won a Palm m105 during a course at IBM and I really used it a lot. But the m105 didn't have an internal battery, so I used these rechargeable ones. But sometimes I forgot to sync with my PC and lost all my data when the batteries went down. So I was looking for a new one with a built-in battery and a USB cable so it could charge from that one as well.

I work for the research department for a big French telecommunication company and our division bought these Zire 72's to play with. So I grabbed one and tried it out... . And I love it !!!

Palm Zire 72
(Yes it's blue)

What you notice right away is the blue colour, it's some kind of coating which unfortunately can be damaged easily. So after a few days of intensive use, near the stylus holder the plastic coating was gone. A colleague of mine bought a second hand one for himself where the blue coating was already fully removed. At first he was glad he had a nice grey one, but when we looked closer we saw some blue spots, ... yes the blue plastic coating.

1.2 megapixel

The back of the Zire is made of metal and has a 1.2 megapixel camera, which you can use to take pictures with or you can also use it to make small movie clips. But for these movie clips (asf - format) you need to pop-in an SD-card in the SDIO-slot on the top. The camera is nice to fool around with but the quality isn't that good, all pictures have a rather green look.

You can also use the Zire as a MP3 player, again pop-in an SD-card stuffed with songs and you have turned your PDA into a small jukebox. You don't even need a head-set, the speaker at the back is good enough to play the music. Although if you have a good head-set it's better to use it.

Another thing I like is bluetooth 1.1, so you can use the Zire to look up a contact and then through bluetooth you connect to your GSM and you can call the person, send an SMS or whatever you have in mind.

For the rest its Palm, if you love it you are certainly going to love this one. For technical specifications go to the PalmOne web site, it isn't something I want to talk about ... .

All I want to say : go and get it buster :-)

Happy New Year !

My daughter Cammie wishes you all the very best for 2005

What is this thing called blogging ?

Nowadays everybody is talking about blogs, news feeds, Atom and RSS. I've subscribed to a lot of them and now I want to try it out myself.