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Re: [Wlug] MP3 Player recommendations

by Sands Fish

One more point on the iRiver. It recharges your rechargable batteries in the unit. --- "Charles R . Anderson" <cra(a)WPI.EDU> wrote: > On Mon, Dec 03, 2001 at 09:23:26AM -0500, Keller, > Tim wrote: > Tim.Keller> 7. It has a 40 second cache so the > battery life is pretty long. > > The Sonicblue Rio Volt SP250 has an 8 minute cache, > and about 15 hours > of battery life. > > Tim.Keller> 3. Can't recharge batteries in the > device. My old discman does this, why > Tim.Keller> couldn't these guys? > > Not sure if they improved this in the SP250. If > not, I would keep two > sets of batteries, one for the device, and one to > charge. Go for NiMH's > or Li-Ion's instead of NiCad's, too, since they > don't have a memory > effect and have a longer life than NiCad's. The > Rat-Shack has a nice > set of 4 NiMH AA's + 4-battery AA charger that will > do NiCad OR NiMH for > about $20. > > Tim.Keller> 4. Those stupid dancing people and that > spinning CD icon (which looks a lot > Tim.Keller> like the fan icon on the front of a Sun > E1000 fibre array). I would have > Tim.Keller> ditched the people and made the text > display larger so you could put more > Tim.Keller> info on it. (in the same vein I would > have dumped the stupid fan icon and > Tim.Keller> put "FAN BROKE" but that's just me...:) > > The display is larger on the SP250, and I believe > they got rid of the > stupid dancing people. They did get rid of the LCD > on the remote, > though, which could be a drawback. I don't know how > useful the > remote-LCD was given the challenge of navigating on > the larger LCD on > the main unit itself... > > I tried to find a place to buy the iriver (basically > the same as the > SP250 but with LCD on remote), but the English pages > were broken. They > do apparently make a U.S. version, though, so you > can plug it in without > a converter and the FM radio part actually receives > the U.S. FM > frequency band. > > -- > Charles R. Anderson <cra(a)wpi.edu> / > http://angus.ind.wpi.edu/~cra/ > PGP Key ID: 49BB5886 > Fingerprint: EBA3 A106 7C93 FA07 8E15 3AC2 C367 > A0F9 49BB 5886 > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Buy the perfect holiday gifts at Yahoo! Shopping. http://shopping.yahoo.com

Dec. 3, 2001

Re: [Wlug] MP3 Player recommendations

by Charles R . Anderson

On Mon, Dec 03, 2001 at 09:23:26AM -0500, Keller, Tim wrote: Tim.Keller> 7. It has a 40 second cache so the battery life is pretty long. The Sonicblue Rio Volt SP250 has an 8 minute cache, and about 15 hours of battery life. Tim.Keller> 3. Can't recharge batteries in the device. My old discman does this, why Tim.Keller> couldn't these guys? Not sure if they improved this in the SP250. If not, I would keep two sets of batteries, one for the device, and one to charge. Go for NiMH's or Li-Ion's instead of NiCad's, too, since they don't have a memory effect and have a longer life than NiCad's. The Rat-Shack has a nice set of 4 NiMH AA's + 4-battery AA charger that will do NiCad OR NiMH for about $20. Tim.Keller> 4. Those stupid dancing people and that spinning CD icon (which looks a lot Tim.Keller> like the fan icon on the front of a Sun E1000 fibre array). I would have Tim.Keller> ditched the people and made the text display larger so you could put more Tim.Keller> info on it. (in the same vein I would have dumped the stupid fan icon and Tim.Keller> put "FAN BROKE" but that's just me...:) The display is larger on the SP250, and I believe they got rid of the stupid dancing people. They did get rid of the LCD on the remote, though, which could be a drawback. I don't know how useful the remote-LCD was given the challenge of navigating on the larger LCD on the main unit itself... I tried to find a place to buy the iriver (basically the same as the SP250 but with LCD on remote), but the English pages were broken. They do apparently make a U.S. version, though, so you can plug it in without a converter and the FM radio part actually receives the U.S. FM frequency band. -- Charles R. Anderson <cra(a)wpi.edu> / http://angus.ind.wpi.edu/~cra/ PGP Key ID: 49BB5886 Fingerprint: EBA3 A106 7C93 FA07 8E15 3AC2 C367 A0F9 49BB 5886

Dec. 3, 2001

RE: [Wlug] MP3 Player recommendations

by Keller, Tim

My $.02 I personally own a Sonic blue Rio Volt and really like it. I've never heard of the iriver, but oh well. Things I really like about the Rio Volt 1. 10 hours of music per CD (with 128bit mp3's). 2. doesn't use some weirdo proprietary storage device that they'll stop manufacturing 6 months from now. 3. Can play regular CD's. This weighed heavily into getting a CD based device. I'm not going to carry an mp3 player and a CD player. Invariably, I go some where and someone's got a CD they want to listen to... 4. supports different bit depths on mp3's. My advisor got a cheaper CD based mp3 player and it just assumes that everything's 128bit. His 96bit hotel California mp3 sounds like "Alvin and the chipmunks do the eagles greatest hits" 5. has a recessed switch to disable the controls on the unit. You don't know how many sets of batteries I killed in my Sony Discman because I'd put it in my backpack and the buttons would get pressed and it would play Ride the lightning over and over. 6. The controls are good but a bit esoteric. I've got a CD with the complete works of Pink Floyd on it, organized as "albums as subdirectories" so its got ~156 songs. Until you understand the controls (or read the instructions) finding a single song is a bit mind bending. 7. It has a 40 second cache so the battery life is pretty long. Things I don't like about the Rio Volt: 1. The volume sucks on it. The ear bud headphones are just a complete waste, unless your dumbo. You'll want a pair of headphones with their own gain volume. 2. The battery cover opens easily, not really a big deal, but annoying. 3. Can't recharge batteries in the device. My old discman does this, why couldn't these guys? 4. Those stupid dancing people and that spinning CD icon (which looks a lot like the fan icon on the front of a Sun E1000 fibre array). I would have ditched the people and made the text display larger so you could put more info on it. (in the same vein I would have dumped the stupid fan icon and put "FAN BROKE" but that's just me...:) I'll bring my mp3 player with me to the next wlug meeting so anybody who wants to check it out are welcome. Tim. -----Original Message----- From: Sands Fish [mailto:fishsands@yahoo.com] Sent: Monday, December 03, 2001 7:46 AM To: wlug(a)mail.wlug.org Subject: Re: [Wlug] MP3 Player recommendations A little more depth on the Sonicblue Rio Volt SP250: This is the model I was going to (and still might) purchase, kuz you can't be a cool dork w/out a portable mp3 player. ;) When I dug a little deeper into this model, I came across it's European counter-part, the iRiver. It is, of course, a little more expensive. Essentially, it's from the same company who OEM's the RioVolt line, but the trick is, they water down their products for the American market. There are a few things that the iRiver has that the RioVolt doesn't. 1.) LCD on the remote control. I don't know how much this interests people, but it's a nice little feature. Also, I believe those stupid dancing people that everyone so widely hated do not appear on the iRiver. 2.) I've been told by people experienced in both players that there are much more frequent firmware revisions for the iRiver. Oh, and this is a good place to mention that this is the feature that made me wanna buy it. As patches/fixes/upgrades are made for the player, you can d/l firmware upgrades, burn them to a cd, and run them in the player. One thing that really interested me is that, on the iRiver site http://www.iriver.com/english/imp250.htm they mention the potential implementation of the OGG Vorbis format, which I'm a big fan of, (no royalties threatened like MP3.) This is something I haven't seen mentioned for the American version, but who knows. One other thing I should mention. You'll need a power converter for this model. :) If anyone does end up with this player, please post your impressions on the list. I haven't completely made up my mind yet whether I want to pay more. Sincerely, Cheapskate Sands Fish <x>< --- "Charles R . Anderson" <cra(a)WPI.EDU> wrote: > On Sun, Dec 02, 2001 at 03:00:26PM -0500, Andy > Stewart wrote: > andystewart> Christmas is coming, and I'm thinking > about asking Santa for a portable > andystewart> MP3 player. Of course, it needs to > work with Linux. > > You to, eh? > > andystewart> Judging from the looks of the CDs which > I've ripped into MP3 files, 32 MB > andystewart> of memory looks like it might be a tad > small for a single CD, while 64 MB > andystewart> looks like it might do the trick for > loading up around 2 CDs worth of > andystewart> music. Is this a fair assessment? > Since I use compact flash for my > andystewart> digital camera, any MP3 player that > uses this medium should probably get > andystewart> extra consideration, I would think. > > Personally, I think the memory-based MP3 players are > way too expensive for how > many songs they can hold. I'd rather have a > CD-ROM-based player, since a CD > can hold about 10 hours of music. Also, you don't > have to worry about > Linux compatibility, since it will take any standard > ISO9660 CD-ROM which you > can burn from Linux just fine. The other type of > players, based on hard drives, > are also too expensive for my taste, and who needs > to store 100's of hours of > music on a portable device? The CD-MP3 players are > the "just right" > price/performance right now. > > The latest CD-MP3 players have come a long way since > the Genica 1st generation > units. By far the best ones I have found are these > two, since they have > excellent navigation capabilities, which you'll need > to navigate the hundreds > of songs on a CD: > > Sonicblue Rio Volt SP250 > TDK Mojo > > Check out their reviews on http://music.cnet.com/ . > They both got Editor's Choice. > > -- > Charles R. Anderson <cra(a)wpi.edu> / > http://angus.ind.wpi.edu/~cra/ > PGP Key ID: 49BB5886 > Fingerprint: EBA3 A106 7C93 FA07 8E15 3AC2 C367 > A0F9 49BB 5886 > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Buy the perfect holiday gifts at Yahoo! Shopping. http://shopping.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug

Dec. 3, 2001

Re: [Wlug] MP3 Player recommendations

by Sands Fish

A little more depth on the Sonicblue Rio Volt SP250: This is the model I was going to (and still might) purchase, kuz you can't be a cool dork w/out a portable mp3 player. ;) When I dug a little deeper into this model, I came across it's European counter-part, the iRiver. It is, of course, a little more expensive. Essentially, it's from the same company who OEM's the RioVolt line, but the trick is, they water down their products for the American market. There are a few things that the iRiver has that the RioVolt doesn't. 1.) LCD on the remote control. I don't know how much this interests people, but it's a nice little feature. Also, I believe those stupid dancing people that everyone so widely hated do not appear on the iRiver. 2.) I've been told by people experienced in both players that there are much more frequent firmware revisions for the iRiver. Oh, and this is a good place to mention that this is the feature that made me wanna buy it. As patches/fixes/upgrades are made for the player, you can d/l firmware upgrades, burn them to a cd, and run them in the player. One thing that really interested me is that, on the iRiver site http://www.iriver.com/english/imp250.htm they mention the potential implementation of the OGG Vorbis format, which I'm a big fan of, (no royalties threatened like MP3.) This is something I haven't seen mentioned for the American version, but who knows. One other thing I should mention. You'll need a power converter for this model. :) If anyone does end up with this player, please post your impressions on the list. I haven't completely made up my mind yet whether I want to pay more. Sincerely, Cheapskate Sands Fish <x>< --- "Charles R . Anderson" <cra(a)WPI.EDU> wrote: > On Sun, Dec 02, 2001 at 03:00:26PM -0500, Andy > Stewart wrote: > andystewart> Christmas is coming, and I'm thinking > about asking Santa for a portable > andystewart> MP3 player. Of course, it needs to > work with Linux. > > You to, eh? > > andystewart> Judging from the looks of the CDs which > I've ripped into MP3 files, 32 MB > andystewart> of memory looks like it might be a tad > small for a single CD, while 64 MB > andystewart> looks like it might do the trick for > loading up around 2 CDs worth of > andystewart> music. Is this a fair assessment? > Since I use compact flash for my > andystewart> digital camera, any MP3 player that > uses this medium should probably get > andystewart> extra consideration, I would think. > > Personally, I think the memory-based MP3 players are > way too expensive for how > many songs they can hold. I'd rather have a > CD-ROM-based player, since a CD > can hold about 10 hours of music. Also, you don't > have to worry about > Linux compatibility, since it will take any standard > ISO9660 CD-ROM which you > can burn from Linux just fine. The other type of > players, based on hard drives, > are also too expensive for my taste, and who needs > to store 100's of hours of > music on a portable device? The CD-MP3 players are > the "just right" > price/performance right now. > > The latest CD-MP3 players have come a long way since > the Genica 1st generation > units. By far the best ones I have found are these > two, since they have > excellent navigation capabilities, which you'll need > to navigate the hundreds > of songs on a CD: > > Sonicblue Rio Volt SP250 > TDK Mojo > > Check out their reviews on http://music.cnet.com/ . > They both got Editor's Choice. > > -- > Charles R. Anderson <cra(a)wpi.edu> / > http://angus.ind.wpi.edu/~cra/ > PGP Key ID: 49BB5886 > Fingerprint: EBA3 A106 7C93 FA07 8E15 3AC2 C367 > A0F9 49BB 5886 > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Buy the perfect holiday gifts at Yahoo! Shopping. http://shopping.yahoo.com

Dec. 3, 2001

Re: [Wlug] MP3 Player recommendations

by Sands Fish

A little more depth on the Sonicblue Rio Volt SP250: This is the model I was going to (and still might) purchase, kuz you can't be a cool dork w/out a portable mp3 player. ;) When I dug a little deeper into this model, I came across it's European counter-part, the iRiver. It is, of course, a little more expensive. Essentially, it's from the same company who OEM's the RioVolt line, but the trick is, they water down their products for the American market. There are a few things that the iRiver has that the RioVolt doesn't. 1.) LCD on the remote control. I don't know how much this interests people, but it's a nice little feature. Also, I believe those stupid dancing people that everyone so widely hated do not appear on the iRiver. 2.) I've been told by people experienced in both players that there are much more frequent firmware revisions for the iRiver. Oh, and this is a good place to mention that this is the feature that made me wanna buy it. As patches/fixes/upgrades are made for the player, you can d/l firmware upgrades, burn them to a cd, and run them in the player. One thing that really interested me is that, on the iRiver site http://www.iriver.com/english/imp250.htm they mention the potential implementation of the OGG Vorbis format, which I'm a big fan of, (no royalties threatened like MP3.) This is something I haven't seen mentioned for the American version, but who knows. One other thing I should mention. You'll need a power converter for this model. :) If anyone does end up with this player, please post your impressions on the list. I haven't completely made up my mind yet whether I want to pay more. Sincerely, Cheapskate Sands Fish <x>< --- "Charles R . Anderson" <cra(a)WPI.EDU> wrote: > On Sun, Dec 02, 2001 at 03:00:26PM -0500, Andy > Stewart wrote: > andystewart> Christmas is coming, and I'm thinking > about asking Santa for a portable > andystewart> MP3 player. Of course, it needs to > work with Linux. > > You to, eh? > > andystewart> Judging from the looks of the CDs which > I've ripped into MP3 files, 32 MB > andystewart> of memory looks like it might be a tad > small for a single CD, while 64 MB > andystewart> looks like it might do the trick for > loading up around 2 CDs worth of > andystewart> music. Is this a fair assessment? > Since I use compact flash for my > andystewart> digital camera, any MP3 player that > uses this medium should probably get > andystewart> extra consideration, I would think. > > Personally, I think the memory-based MP3 players are > way too expensive for how > many songs they can hold. I'd rather have a > CD-ROM-based player, since a CD > can hold about 10 hours of music. Also, you don't > have to worry about > Linux compatibility, since it will take any standard > ISO9660 CD-ROM which you > can burn from Linux just fine. The other type of > players, based on hard drives, > are also too expensive for my taste, and who needs > to store 100's of hours of > music on a portable device? The CD-MP3 players are > the "just right" > price/performance right now. > > The latest CD-MP3 players have come a long way since > the Genica 1st generation > units. By far the best ones I have found are these > two, since they have > excellent navigation capabilities, which you'll need > to navigate the hundreds > of songs on a CD: > > Sonicblue Rio Volt SP250 > TDK Mojo > > Check out their reviews on http://music.cnet.com/ . > They both got Editor's Choice. > > -- > Charles R. Anderson <cra(a)wpi.edu> / > http://angus.ind.wpi.edu/~cra/ > PGP Key ID: 49BB5886 > Fingerprint: EBA3 A106 7C93 FA07 8E15 3AC2 C367 > A0F9 49BB 5886 > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Buy the perfect holiday gifts at Yahoo! Shopping. http://shopping.yahoo.com

Dec. 3, 2001

Re: [Wlug] MP3 Player recommendations

by Charles R . Anderson

On Sun, Dec 02, 2001 at 03:00:26PM -0500, Andy Stewart wrote: andystewart> Christmas is coming, and I'm thinking about asking Santa for a portable andystewart> MP3 player. Of course, it needs to work with Linux. You to, eh? andystewart> Judging from the looks of the CDs which I've ripped into MP3 files, 32 MB andystewart> of memory looks like it might be a tad small for a single CD, while 64 MB andystewart> looks like it might do the trick for loading up around 2 CDs worth of andystewart> music. Is this a fair assessment? Since I use compact flash for my andystewart> digital camera, any MP3 player that uses this medium should probably get andystewart> extra consideration, I would think. Personally, I think the memory-based MP3 players are way too expensive for how many songs they can hold. I'd rather have a CD-ROM-based player, since a CD can hold about 10 hours of music. Also, you don't have to worry about Linux compatibility, since it will take any standard ISO9660 CD-ROM which you can burn from Linux just fine. The other type of players, based on hard drives, are also too expensive for my taste, and who needs to store 100's of hours of music on a portable device? The CD-MP3 players are the "just right" price/performance right now. The latest CD-MP3 players have come a long way since the Genica 1st generation units. By far the best ones I have found are these two, since they have excellent navigation capabilities, which you'll need to navigate the hundreds of songs on a CD: Sonicblue Rio Volt SP250 TDK Mojo Check out their reviews on http://music.cnet.com/ . They both got Editor's Choice. -- Charles R. Anderson <cra(a)wpi.edu> / http://angus.ind.wpi.edu/~cra/ PGP Key ID: 49BB5886 Fingerprint: EBA3 A106 7C93 FA07 8E15 3AC2 C367 A0F9 49BB 5886

Dec. 2, 2001

Re: [Wlug] MP3 Player recommendations

by Frank Sweetser

On Sun, Dec 02, 2001 at 03:00:26PM -0500, Andy Stewart wrote: > > HI gang, > > Christmas is coming, and I'm thinking about asking Santa for a portable > MP3 player. Of course, it needs to work with Linux. > > Judging from the looks of the CDs which I've ripped into MP3 files, 32 MB > of memory looks like it might be a tad small for a single CD, while 64 MB > looks like it might do the trick for loading up around 2 CDs worth of > music. Is this a fair assessment? Since I use compact flash for my > digital camera, any MP3 player that uses this medium should probably get > extra consideration, I would think. > > Any thoughts or recommendations will be greatly appreciated! Personally, I'd avoid the memory based ones altogether. Unless you really want the small physical size, the cost per song can't even come close to the ones that read ISO9660 cds filled with MP3 files, or the ones with a built in multi-gig hard drive. If you do want a tiny memory based one, though, I'd reccomend also checking out the Digital Wallet - essentially a large hard drive with a builtin simple file manager that connects via USB, SmartMedia, CompactFlash, MMC, StrataFlash, IBM Microdrive, Sony Memory Stick, and Panasonic SD Memory Card. http://www.thinkgeek.com/ has a small, but very high quality, selection, including the Digital Wallet. -- Frank Sweetser fs at wpi.edu, fs at suave.net | $ x 15 Full-time WPI Network Tech, Part time Linux/Perl guy | After they make styrofoam, what do they ship it in? -- Stephen Wright

Dec. 2, 2001

MP3 Player recommendations

by Andy Stewart

HI gang, Christmas is coming, and I'm thinking about asking Santa for a portable MP3 player. Of course, it needs to work with Linux. Judging from the looks of the CDs which I've ripped into MP3 files, 32 MB of memory looks like it might be a tad small for a single CD, while 64 MB looks like it might do the trick for loading up around 2 CDs worth of music. Is this a fair assessment? Since I use compact flash for my digital camera, any MP3 player that uses this medium should probably get extra consideration, I would think. Any thoughts or recommendations will be greatly appreciated! Thanks, Andy -- Andy Stewart Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA, USA http://www.wlug.org

Dec. 2, 2001

RE: [Wlug] Forcing scsi probe on the fly...

by Keller, Tim

This worked perfectly! Thanks, Tim! -----Original Message----- From: Theo Van Dinter [mailto:felicity@kluge.net] Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 2:14 PM To: Worcester Linux User's Group Subject: Re: [Wlug] Forcing scsi probe on the fly... On Wed, Nov 28, 2001 at 01:50:01PM -0500, Keller, Tim wrote: > Does anybody know with Redhat 7.1 (using 2.4.2-2) if theirs a way to force > the scsi chain to rescan its bus (without an unload/reload) of the module? > > so far, I haven't found something like HPUX's ioscan. Unless something's changed, Linux doesn't have the capability to do that yet (the last time I checked, there needs to be some extra functionality added to the kernel SCSI code). Whenever I had to add a device live, there's a thing with /proc/scsi/scsi that you can do (this is from the SCSI Programming HOWTO): Dynamically insert and remove SCSI devices If a newer kernel and the /proc file system is running, a non-busy device can be removed and installed 'on the fly'. To remove a SCSI device: echo "scsi remove-single-device a b c d" > /proc/scsi/scsi and similar, to add a SCSI device, do echo "scsi add-single-device a b c d" > /proc/scsi/scsi where a == hostadapter id (first one being 0) b == SCSI channel on hostadapter (first one being 0) c == ID d == LUN (first one being 0) There's also a script which tries to automate this kind of stuff: http://www.garloff.de/kurt/linux/rescan-scsi-bus.sh I've never tried it, but I've seen it mentioned on a few mailing lists that I monitor. -- Randomly Generated Tagline: "Does anyone not understand what the hell is going on?" - Prof. Bagchi _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug

Nov. 29, 2001

Re: [Wlug] linuxconf/7.1?

by Keith Wright

> From: Bill Mills-Curran <subssn594(a)charter.net> > > I put together a RedHat 7.1 machine recently and was surprised to find > that linuxconf was not part of the default installation. It's clearly > improved over older versions of linuxconf, so why isn't it installed? > Anyone know why? If you check the file RELEASE-NOTES in the root of the first CD, you will see o Deprecated Packages -- the following packages are deprecated, and could disappear in a future release: - linuxconf "Deprecated" is a polite way of saying that it sucks big greasy chunks through a tiny straw. You may disagree, in which case you should write a 'man' page for it. I don't like a huge program that runs at boot time to update configuration files without telling me what it is doing and has no documentation except for some happy talk*. If you want it, you can install it, what's the problem with not installing what you don't ask for? * From /usr/share/doc/linuxconf-1.24r2/RPM-README: Congratulations! You are now running the most powerful Linux administrative tool known to mankind! I guess it's so powerful that nobody can write down what it does. -- -- Keith Wright <kwright(a)free-comp-shop.com> Programmer in Chief, Free Computer Shop <http://www.free-comp-shop.com> --- Food, Shelter, Source code. ---

Nov. 29, 2001