I never bothered calibrating the accelerometer when I first got it. In the manual, it suggested calibrating the unit, but it also said that the default settings were likely fine for most users. I had measured out a variety of distances from my house in half-mile increments, so I figured I'd compare the default calibration with my already known distances and see how they compare. If the accelerometer wasn't too far off, I wouldn't bother.
For the first few weeks, the calibration seemed to mostly match my measurements, with the accelerometer being short about .1 miles after 3-5 miles (ie, I had to run 5.1-5.2 miles in order for the accelerometer to register 5 miles.
In the first week of February, I finally had to get a new pair of shoes - the cushioning in my old shoes was totally shot and my knees were suffering. I bought the same shoes, only in the newer version. Again, I cut a small slit in the underside of the tongue and inserted the transmitter, making sure to place it under where the laces cross, just as I had with my old shoes (I still hadn't figured out the thing was an accelerometer yet).
From the very first run (3 miles, if I remember correctly), the accelerometer seemed a little more off than before. Noticeably. It wasn't until I put in about 7 miles and hit the 7.5 mile mark that I finally decided that I needed to do a calibration.
The calibration process was very simple. A basic calibration can be done with a run or a walk of some distance no less than .25 miles (400 metres). A more accurate calibration is achieved by doing the distance as a walk and as a run. Wanting to be as accurate as possible, I decided to do both.
I measured out .5 miles (I should have done 1 mile, which would likely give a more accurate calibration, but the walk would have taken a while and I was pressed for time) and ran it out. I set it up again and walked the distance back to my original starting point. Good thing I did - it turns out that the calibration was off by about .07 miles PER MILE. That's not a whole lot at a short distance, but when you run 10 miles, it's going to matter.
I've done plenty of runs since the calibration, and the accelerometer seems to pretty much match my measured distances bang on. I read somewhere (website, manual? I forget now) that frequent calibration is encouraged. Now that I see how easy it is for the calibration to be off, I'll likely perform one every month.
My brain is in a constant state of noise. I never seem to think about one thing at a time, and the subject matter is extremely diverse. I plan to use this as a dumping ground for whatever happens to be passing through my head.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
iPod Chronicles - Part 7: Nike+ Data and Website
The Nike+ website itself is nice enough, with an interesting Flash-based interface, but it is a bit limiting. It does a lot of basic stuff, such as graphing each run, keeping track of distances on a per run, week, and month basis, and comparing a particular distance with the best similar distance in the history, but there's a lot more I think I'd like to be able to see.
At a minimum, I'd like to be able to easily see a total history summation, like the iPod interface shows - total miles, total hours, total calories, etc. It would also be nice to be able to select and graph multiple runs at the same time, rather than just one particular run against a "best" run.
I have just recently discovered that people have figured out the API the Flash app uses to access the run data, so I may start to experiment with it in the near future. The data is XML-based, so I could use the API to grab the data, import it into my own database, and then do whatever I want with it. A simple set of web pages that offers a bit more functionality (such as the items listed above) would be interesting to experiment with.
At a minimum, I'd like to be able to easily see a total history summation, like the iPod interface shows - total miles, total hours, total calories, etc. It would also be nice to be able to select and graph multiple runs at the same time, rather than just one particular run against a "best" run.
I have just recently discovered that people have figured out the API the Flash app uses to access the run data, so I may start to experiment with it in the near future. The data is XML-based, so I could use the API to grab the data, import it into my own database, and then do whatever I want with it. A simple set of web pages that offers a bit more functionality (such as the items listed above) would be interesting to experiment with.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
iPod Chronicles - Part 6: Nike+ Running Kit
As I said before, one of the reasons why I got the Nano was because of the Nike+ running kit. A few friends have the kit and raved about how well it works. I'd always run without music in the past, but the idea of being able to determine my pace, distance, and time without having to figure it all out in my head from the time on a regular watch was appealing. I also liked the idea of having a running history (which I tried to keep via an Excel spreadsheet in the past) and being able to graph my runs.
The kit consists of two pieces - an accelerometer/transmitter, which inserted or otherwise attached to one of the shoes, and a sensor that plugs into the sync port of the Nano itself.
Of course, I don't have a pair of Nike shoes with the pocket under the insole for the transmitter, so I needed to come up with some other way to attach it to my shoe.
When I was first fiddling with the accelerometer, I didn't realize that that's what it was. One side of it squishes in a little bit, so I figured the thing worked on pressure, kind of like a pedometer. I was always a little suspect of that, though, since how would it be able to determine distance? In any case, in order to make sure the thing would work, I thought I had to make sure that the squishy part was in contact with my foot somehow.
The accelerometer is pretty small, but I decided to try sticking it under the laces of my shoe, on top of the tongue. With the laces over top, I figured that that would engage the action. After some initial walking around the house, the sensor picked up the transmitter and every thing seemed to be fine. Time for a test run...
It turns out that simply sticking the transmitter under the laces isn't such a good idea. I didn't even get half a mile into my test run before the thing went flying out of my shoe, tumbling down the street ahead of me. I was going to need to find a better way.
I starting thinking that maybe I needed to sew a little bag or something ot tuck under the laces. I'm pretty certain that that would have worked, but while I was lamenting the issue with some friends, one of them mentioned reading that some people cut a little slit in the tongue and put the transmitter in there. My shoes were nearing their end of life, so I figured I'd give it a try.
I cut a small slit on the underside of the tongue, off to the side, and slid the transmitter in. Again, thinking it worked by pressure, I made sure that the laces were crossing over the top of the transmitter. I walked around for a bit and the thing was still registering, so I went for another test run. Success!
At first, I didn't like running while the music was playing. I have a small (512mb) iRiver MP3 player that I was going to use for running (as well as travel), but I just couldn't deal with the music in the background. Each song had a different tempo, which I subconsciously tried to match, making running difficult. When I started with the iPod, it was just the same as before - the changing tempos kept throwing my running off. I really liked the stats aspect, though, so I kept at it. I figured that if I couldn't deal with the music, I might get away with listening to podcasts.
Music with lyrics really threw me off, but instrumental songs seemed to cause me fewer problems. I started experimenting with different instrumental stuff, eventually settling on Jesse Cook. I ran almost exclusively to Jesse Cook songs for several weeks.
Eventually, I got used to the idea of having music in the background. I've even managed to deal with lyrical songs as well. Sometimes a song will come on and it starts to mess me up if I start to actually listen to it (which happens if it's a song that I think I might be able to easily learn on the guitar). When that happens now, I just skip to the next song. And now the iPod has become a very valuable part of my running program.
The kit consists of two pieces - an accelerometer/transmitter, which inserted or otherwise attached to one of the shoes, and a sensor that plugs into the sync port of the Nano itself.
Of course, I don't have a pair of Nike shoes with the pocket under the insole for the transmitter, so I needed to come up with some other way to attach it to my shoe.
When I was first fiddling with the accelerometer, I didn't realize that that's what it was. One side of it squishes in a little bit, so I figured the thing worked on pressure, kind of like a pedometer. I was always a little suspect of that, though, since how would it be able to determine distance? In any case, in order to make sure the thing would work, I thought I had to make sure that the squishy part was in contact with my foot somehow.
The accelerometer is pretty small, but I decided to try sticking it under the laces of my shoe, on top of the tongue. With the laces over top, I figured that that would engage the action. After some initial walking around the house, the sensor picked up the transmitter and every thing seemed to be fine. Time for a test run...
It turns out that simply sticking the transmitter under the laces isn't such a good idea. I didn't even get half a mile into my test run before the thing went flying out of my shoe, tumbling down the street ahead of me. I was going to need to find a better way.
I starting thinking that maybe I needed to sew a little bag or something ot tuck under the laces. I'm pretty certain that that would have worked, but while I was lamenting the issue with some friends, one of them mentioned reading that some people cut a little slit in the tongue and put the transmitter in there. My shoes were nearing their end of life, so I figured I'd give it a try.
I cut a small slit on the underside of the tongue, off to the side, and slid the transmitter in. Again, thinking it worked by pressure, I made sure that the laces were crossing over the top of the transmitter. I walked around for a bit and the thing was still registering, so I went for another test run. Success!
At first, I didn't like running while the music was playing. I have a small (512mb) iRiver MP3 player that I was going to use for running (as well as travel), but I just couldn't deal with the music in the background. Each song had a different tempo, which I subconsciously tried to match, making running difficult. When I started with the iPod, it was just the same as before - the changing tempos kept throwing my running off. I really liked the stats aspect, though, so I kept at it. I figured that if I couldn't deal with the music, I might get away with listening to podcasts.
Music with lyrics really threw me off, but instrumental songs seemed to cause me fewer problems. I started experimenting with different instrumental stuff, eventually settling on Jesse Cook. I ran almost exclusively to Jesse Cook songs for several weeks.
Eventually, I got used to the idea of having music in the background. I've even managed to deal with lyrical songs as well. Sometimes a song will come on and it starts to mess me up if I start to actually listen to it (which happens if it's a song that I think I might be able to easily learn on the guitar). When that happens now, I just skip to the next song. And now the iPod has become a very valuable part of my running program.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
iPod Chronicles - Part 5: iPod Docking Station
I used to have a pretty decent stereo in my living room, but I've had a couple of amp/receivers fail that I haven't replaced. With the completion of the home theatre, all of the working equipment was moved downstairs, leaving a void in the living room. This wasn't such a big deal because we don't really listen to music all that often upstairs. If we really want to listen to something, there's an under-the-counter radio/CD player in the kitchen or we could turn on the TV to one of the digital music channels.
Despite all of that, one of the reasons for getting an iPod was that we could get a speaker docking station and set it up in the living room, giving us access to a larger library.
I wasn't in any particular hurry to get the dock, but Andrea really wanted one, so, as I always do, I started doing some basic research.
I didn't want anything ridiculously expensive (somewhere around the $150 range would be fine), too hideous, and something that projected decent sound. without actually hooking the iPod into a real stereo I knew that the quality would never be spectacular, but if I was worried about that I wouldn't be using any compressed audio files in the first place.
I did some rudimentary searching online to see what was available from my local stores and then did some basic research into several models that interested me. With that knowledge, I then headed into Future Shop for some sound demos.
Buying stuff at Future Shop is always hit-or-miss, unfortunately. You really do need to know exactly what it is you want, since the staff tend to be non-helpful. Add in the fact that it's sometimes very hard to demo anything and you've got a recipe for frustration. Still, I usually know what I want, which is why I keep going there.
Once I got to the store, I headed to where the docking stations were. As luck would have it, most of them had a power connection, making it easy to give each unit a test. I reached into my pocket, pulled out my iPod, plugged it into the first dock, and ...
A sales droid ran over. "Can I help you?"
"Not really," I replied. "I'm just testing."
With that, the guy starts trying to move me to particular units. I brush him off.
I give the first station a whirl and I'm immediately unimpressed. I move to the next unit and start it up.
Now there are two sales droids. I'm not sure why this always happens, but whenever I'm trying to demo something, I'm immediately surrounded by people who think they know more than I do.
I continue to try units and the sales droids continue to try to interact with me.
"Well, what did you think of that one?"
"Don't like it. Too tinny." I try to be curt, with the hopes that they'll get the message. They don't.
"Yeah, that one's not very good. You should try this one instead." Grrr.
Despite all of the annoyances of the sales droids, I manage to narrow my selection down to two particular units: the Altec Lansing M602 and the Mirage OmniVibe.
I've got a set of Altec Lansing speakers for my desktop and I think the sound they produce is quite nice. The M602 had a similar sound quality (although not as nice without a dedicated subwoofer), configurable bass and treble settings, a remote, and the price was decent ($150).
The OmniVibe had fantastic sound (as you would expect from any Mirage kit). It also comes with a remote, but does not have bass and treble settings. The price was also pretty steep (I believe it was about double).
The decision came down to two things. First was the price. $150 was reasonable and $300 was not. The Mirage had much better sound, but I didn't feel the cost was justified. Second, the OmniVibe has a top-mounted speaker set-up, which would be better if installed in a semi-central location. The M602 has the speakers front-mounted, like a ghettoblaster. Since I was likely to set the unit up on top of the entertainment unit, I figured the front mounts would be a better choice.
So I walked out the with M602.
I eagerly set the unit up when I got home and I must say that I was pretty amazed at how the system manages to fill the living room with sound. Andrea was also impressed with the sound.
Deep down, I know the OmniVibe would have been a better selection, from a sound perspective, but given our listening habits, the M602 has been perfectly adequate.
Despite all of that, one of the reasons for getting an iPod was that we could get a speaker docking station and set it up in the living room, giving us access to a larger library.
I wasn't in any particular hurry to get the dock, but Andrea really wanted one, so, as I always do, I started doing some basic research.
I didn't want anything ridiculously expensive (somewhere around the $150 range would be fine), too hideous, and something that projected decent sound. without actually hooking the iPod into a real stereo I knew that the quality would never be spectacular, but if I was worried about that I wouldn't be using any compressed audio files in the first place.
I did some rudimentary searching online to see what was available from my local stores and then did some basic research into several models that interested me. With that knowledge, I then headed into Future Shop for some sound demos.
Buying stuff at Future Shop is always hit-or-miss, unfortunately. You really do need to know exactly what it is you want, since the staff tend to be non-helpful. Add in the fact that it's sometimes very hard to demo anything and you've got a recipe for frustration. Still, I usually know what I want, which is why I keep going there.
Once I got to the store, I headed to where the docking stations were. As luck would have it, most of them had a power connection, making it easy to give each unit a test. I reached into my pocket, pulled out my iPod, plugged it into the first dock, and ...
A sales droid ran over. "Can I help you?"
"Not really," I replied. "I'm just testing."
With that, the guy starts trying to move me to particular units. I brush him off.
I give the first station a whirl and I'm immediately unimpressed. I move to the next unit and start it up.
Now there are two sales droids. I'm not sure why this always happens, but whenever I'm trying to demo something, I'm immediately surrounded by people who think they know more than I do.
I continue to try units and the sales droids continue to try to interact with me.
"Well, what did you think of that one?"
"Don't like it. Too tinny." I try to be curt, with the hopes that they'll get the message. They don't.
"Yeah, that one's not very good. You should try this one instead." Grrr.
Despite all of the annoyances of the sales droids, I manage to narrow my selection down to two particular units: the Altec Lansing M602 and the Mirage OmniVibe.
I've got a set of Altec Lansing speakers for my desktop and I think the sound they produce is quite nice. The M602 had a similar sound quality (although not as nice without a dedicated subwoofer), configurable bass and treble settings, a remote, and the price was decent ($150).
The OmniVibe had fantastic sound (as you would expect from any Mirage kit). It also comes with a remote, but does not have bass and treble settings. The price was also pretty steep (I believe it was about double).
The decision came down to two things. First was the price. $150 was reasonable and $300 was not. The Mirage had much better sound, but I didn't feel the cost was justified. Second, the OmniVibe has a top-mounted speaker set-up, which would be better if installed in a semi-central location. The M602 has the speakers front-mounted, like a ghettoblaster. Since I was likely to set the unit up on top of the entertainment unit, I figured the front mounts would be a better choice.
So I walked out the with M602.
I eagerly set the unit up when I got home and I must say that I was pretty amazed at how the system manages to fill the living room with sound. Andrea was also impressed with the sound.
Deep down, I know the OmniVibe would have been a better selection, from a sound perspective, but given our listening habits, the M602 has been perfectly adequate.
Monday, April 14, 2008
iPod Chronicles - Part 4: Cover Art
Hello, my name is Mike Digdon, and I'm addicted to cover art.
There, I said it. Now I can take the next step towards recovery, although I'm not all that certain I want to recover, since cover art is fun!
Let's take a few steps back, to give this some context.
One of the nifty things about the Nano is that it has a covert art mode, just like the iPhone/iPod Touch. I don't particularly use the cover art mode to choose an album to play all that often, but it is nice to flip through the collection every once in a while.
The big thing for me is that I absolutely can't stand seeing that yucky grey default cover picture that the iPod uses when there's no cover art for a particular album/song, so I absolutely insist that every song loaded onto my iPod have the cover art from the album that I ripped it from.
When you rip a CD into iTunes, iTunes has an option to go fetch the album art for you. I find that this only works some of the time. There are typically two reasons why it doesn't seem to work all that well for me.
The first is that iTunes seems to sometimes grab the wrong cover art for a particular album. Unfortunately, it grabs the first entry it finds and that's what you're stuck with. This is something that Window Media Player has in it's favour - if it detects multiple entries for a particular album, you are presented with the list of possibilities and then you can select the one that is appropriate for you.
The second is that I seem to have a bunch of albums that aren't available on iTunes. If an album isn't available, there's no cover art for it. Bummer.
All is not lost, however, since iTunes has a mechanism to load cover art images from disk. The only question was "where would I get the images?"
Of course, I knew that Windows Media Player keeps track of cover art images, so I figured that if I could find out where they were stored on my computer, I could just use WMP to find all of the missing images. So, I went through the effort of trying to find those images.
After much searching the internet, I discovered that the images are kept in the album folder in a file called Folder.jpg. Of course, these are hidden files, so I first had to modify the folder view options in order to be able to see them.
Somewhere along the line, it occured to me that going to Amazon, looking up the album, and saving the cover art image to a local file would be a lot easier. It also wasn't too much later that I discovered that I can simply paste a cover art image into iTunes, rather than loading one from disk.
I still use iTunes to find the cover art first. If the correct image cannot be found, I then go to Amazon and get the correct image.
One day, I happened to look at the Nano while it was playing a song and noticed the evil default cover art image. I was a little confused about that, since I knew that I had installed the correct cover art image. And thus another little idiosyncrasy with iTunes was revealed.
When you have iTunes download cover art or your opt to add it in yourself via the "Get Info" option, the image is only attached to whatever songs you currently have selected. Ultimately, this makes perfect sense, but what confused me is that I would click on the first song and use iTunes to fetch the image, which would eventually be revealed. However, sometimes only portions of the album art would be revealed. By clicking on the other songs in the album, additional portions would be revealed. I have no idea why iTunes does this, but it led me to believe that the album art was attached to all songs in the album. Apparently not.
Once I had figured out that I need to select all songs in the album first, everything has been fine, and I'm able to collect my cover art with ruthless efficiency.
There, I said it. Now I can take the next step towards recovery, although I'm not all that certain I want to recover, since cover art is fun!
Let's take a few steps back, to give this some context.
One of the nifty things about the Nano is that it has a covert art mode, just like the iPhone/iPod Touch. I don't particularly use the cover art mode to choose an album to play all that often, but it is nice to flip through the collection every once in a while.
The big thing for me is that I absolutely can't stand seeing that yucky grey default cover picture that the iPod uses when there's no cover art for a particular album/song, so I absolutely insist that every song loaded onto my iPod have the cover art from the album that I ripped it from.
When you rip a CD into iTunes, iTunes has an option to go fetch the album art for you. I find that this only works some of the time. There are typically two reasons why it doesn't seem to work all that well for me.
The first is that iTunes seems to sometimes grab the wrong cover art for a particular album. Unfortunately, it grabs the first entry it finds and that's what you're stuck with. This is something that Window Media Player has in it's favour - if it detects multiple entries for a particular album, you are presented with the list of possibilities and then you can select the one that is appropriate for you.
The second is that I seem to have a bunch of albums that aren't available on iTunes. If an album isn't available, there's no cover art for it. Bummer.
All is not lost, however, since iTunes has a mechanism to load cover art images from disk. The only question was "where would I get the images?"
Of course, I knew that Windows Media Player keeps track of cover art images, so I figured that if I could find out where they were stored on my computer, I could just use WMP to find all of the missing images. So, I went through the effort of trying to find those images.
After much searching the internet, I discovered that the images are kept in the album folder in a file called Folder.jpg. Of course, these are hidden files, so I first had to modify the folder view options in order to be able to see them.
Somewhere along the line, it occured to me that going to Amazon, looking up the album, and saving the cover art image to a local file would be a lot easier. It also wasn't too much later that I discovered that I can simply paste a cover art image into iTunes, rather than loading one from disk.
I still use iTunes to find the cover art first. If the correct image cannot be found, I then go to Amazon and get the correct image.
One day, I happened to look at the Nano while it was playing a song and noticed the evil default cover art image. I was a little confused about that, since I knew that I had installed the correct cover art image. And thus another little idiosyncrasy with iTunes was revealed.
When you have iTunes download cover art or your opt to add it in yourself via the "Get Info" option, the image is only attached to whatever songs you currently have selected. Ultimately, this makes perfect sense, but what confused me is that I would click on the first song and use iTunes to fetch the image, which would eventually be revealed. However, sometimes only portions of the album art would be revealed. By clicking on the other songs in the album, additional portions would be revealed. I have no idea why iTunes does this, but it led me to believe that the album art was attached to all songs in the album. Apparently not.
Once I had figured out that I need to select all songs in the album first, everything has been fine, and I'm able to collect my cover art with ruthless efficiency.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
iPod Chronicles - Part 3: Using the iPod
Once I got some songs copied over to the iPod, it was time to demo the unit and see if I had thrown away my money or not.
The interface on the iPod itself is pretty intuitive, as you would expect from a finely-honed Apple device these days. The screen is sharp, the colours are nice, the font is readable.
I really like the click-wheel, although I must say that sometimes it misbehaves a little bit on me. Sometimes I'll scroll through to a particular item, yet when I remove my finger, the selection changes to either the item before or the item after.
I'd heard some horror stories about Cover Flow not working all that well on the Nano, but I have to say that it seems to work pretty well for me. There are times when you scroll through the albums really fast and the Nano hasn't had a chance to load in the cover art in time - maybe that's what they were referring to. I haven't seen Cover Flow on an iPhone, so I have no previous reference for correct behaviour.
Of course, the most important aspect of the Nano is the sound quality. I'm no audiophile (if I was, would I be using MP3s in the first place?), but the sound quality on the Nano seems pretty good to me. Definitely better than the iRiver. Earbuds/headphones make a lot of difference, so it could just be that the earbuds that come with the Nano are better than the ones that came with the iRiver. In any case, I'm very happy with the audio quality.
One thing that the iPod can do is normalize the volume from the various tracks. Depending on how you have iTunes set up (or how your MP3s were originally created), the volume levels from all of the tracks may be different. With the flick of a virtual switch, the Nano will supposedly adjust the volume levels from track to track to keep them consistent. I've tried this briefly, but I have to say that I wasn't all that thrilled with the results. I'll definitely do some additional testing, but I have a feeling that I'll get better results by configuring iTunes to do the normalization at rip time.
A totally useless feature that I like anyway - when you select a source category (music, podcasts, movies, etc), the Nano will start up a slideshow using the various cover art that you've supplied (or opening frame to a movie or whatever).
I showed nervousness about iTunes in the previous posting, but now I see why it wants to be the keeper of all things. iTunes takes all of that song data and uploads it to the iPod, allowing you to see all of that information, as well as search for songs based on title, artist, album, and composer. I tend to just do album searches, but it's still nice to have the option.
Video playback was not really much of a factor in my choosing the Nano - the idea of watching a movie on a 2-inch screen wasn't appealing in the least. However, since it had the functionality, I figured I've at least test it out.
You can't just put any video onto the Nano - it first needs to be in the correct format. iTunes supposedly will convert a video automatically when you import it, but so far I haven't been able to get that to work. Unable to get a video onto the Nano, I did some googling to see what I could do. It turns out that there are all kinds of video convertors for the Nano.
I found a free one called Videora, installed it, and gave it a whirl. I didn't want to wait around all day for the conversion to finish, so I selected the Robot Chicken Star Wars double-episode for the test source. I used all of the default settings in Videora and let 'er rip.
It took a while, but eventually it finished. I loaded up iTunes and the newly-converted video appeared in the video library (which is how I knew the auto import stuff wasn't working, because it never showed up on the library). I synced up the Nano and there it was in the Movies menu. Not expecting much, I started up the video.
I was amazed.
Yes, it's still a rinky-dink 2-inch screen, but I was amazed at how watchable the video really was. I don't think I could watch a lot of stuff on it, but I could probably sit through a movie on a flight.
Of course, the converted videos only look good on the Nano screen. If you use iTunes to view the video, the quality is quite awful.
Unfortunately, the iPod seems a little unstable at times. For the first little while, I never had any problems with it at all. I think I had to "reboot" the thing only once. However, once I got the Nike+ kit (see parts 6, 7 and 8), I found that I had to "reboot" at least a couple of times a week.
Sometimes the iPod seems a little slow, too, like the CPU has been maxed out or something. I'll turn it on and try to use the click-wheel, but the scrolling is delayed. I'm not sure why this happens, but it's only sometimes.
Hopefully future versions of the firmware will address some of these issues.
The interface on the iPod itself is pretty intuitive, as you would expect from a finely-honed Apple device these days. The screen is sharp, the colours are nice, the font is readable.
I really like the click-wheel, although I must say that sometimes it misbehaves a little bit on me. Sometimes I'll scroll through to a particular item, yet when I remove my finger, the selection changes to either the item before or the item after.
I'd heard some horror stories about Cover Flow not working all that well on the Nano, but I have to say that it seems to work pretty well for me. There are times when you scroll through the albums really fast and the Nano hasn't had a chance to load in the cover art in time - maybe that's what they were referring to. I haven't seen Cover Flow on an iPhone, so I have no previous reference for correct behaviour.
Of course, the most important aspect of the Nano is the sound quality. I'm no audiophile (if I was, would I be using MP3s in the first place?), but the sound quality on the Nano seems pretty good to me. Definitely better than the iRiver. Earbuds/headphones make a lot of difference, so it could just be that the earbuds that come with the Nano are better than the ones that came with the iRiver. In any case, I'm very happy with the audio quality.
One thing that the iPod can do is normalize the volume from the various tracks. Depending on how you have iTunes set up (or how your MP3s were originally created), the volume levels from all of the tracks may be different. With the flick of a virtual switch, the Nano will supposedly adjust the volume levels from track to track to keep them consistent. I've tried this briefly, but I have to say that I wasn't all that thrilled with the results. I'll definitely do some additional testing, but I have a feeling that I'll get better results by configuring iTunes to do the normalization at rip time.
A totally useless feature that I like anyway - when you select a source category (music, podcasts, movies, etc), the Nano will start up a slideshow using the various cover art that you've supplied (or opening frame to a movie or whatever).
I showed nervousness about iTunes in the previous posting, but now I see why it wants to be the keeper of all things. iTunes takes all of that song data and uploads it to the iPod, allowing you to see all of that information, as well as search for songs based on title, artist, album, and composer. I tend to just do album searches, but it's still nice to have the option.
Video playback was not really much of a factor in my choosing the Nano - the idea of watching a movie on a 2-inch screen wasn't appealing in the least. However, since it had the functionality, I figured I've at least test it out.
You can't just put any video onto the Nano - it first needs to be in the correct format. iTunes supposedly will convert a video automatically when you import it, but so far I haven't been able to get that to work. Unable to get a video onto the Nano, I did some googling to see what I could do. It turns out that there are all kinds of video convertors for the Nano.
I found a free one called Videora, installed it, and gave it a whirl. I didn't want to wait around all day for the conversion to finish, so I selected the Robot Chicken Star Wars double-episode for the test source. I used all of the default settings in Videora and let 'er rip.
It took a while, but eventually it finished. I loaded up iTunes and the newly-converted video appeared in the video library (which is how I knew the auto import stuff wasn't working, because it never showed up on the library). I synced up the Nano and there it was in the Movies menu. Not expecting much, I started up the video.
I was amazed.
Yes, it's still a rinky-dink 2-inch screen, but I was amazed at how watchable the video really was. I don't think I could watch a lot of stuff on it, but I could probably sit through a movie on a flight.
Of course, the converted videos only look good on the Nano screen. If you use iTunes to view the video, the quality is quite awful.
Unfortunately, the iPod seems a little unstable at times. For the first little while, I never had any problems with it at all. I think I had to "reboot" the thing only once. However, once I got the Nike+ kit (see parts 6, 7 and 8), I found that I had to "reboot" at least a couple of times a week.
Sometimes the iPod seems a little slow, too, like the CPU has been maxed out or something. I'll turn it on and try to use the click-wheel, but the scrolling is delayed. I'm not sure why this happens, but it's only sometimes.
Hopefully future versions of the firmware will address some of these issues.
iPod Chronicles - Part 2: iTunes
One of the things that sort of bothered me about getting an iPod is that I knew I would have to use iTunes to manage my files. Although I had to use proprietary apps to get songs onto a media player in the past, they tended to merely be conduits and let me do pretty much whatever I wanted. I'd heard lots of horror stories about iTunes over the years, but lots of friends with iPods told me that the latest iterations of the app are pretty decent. So I bought the iPod, with some mild trepidation about signing my life away to an Apple application.
Having said all that, iTunes is a decent piece of software, but it can be pretty infuriating at the same time.
When I first started it up, it asked me where my music files were kept so that it could import them into the iTunes library. That was cool, since I was going to have to do that anyway.
What's not so cool was that as soon as I plugged the iPod into the USB port, iTunes immediately tried to copy my entire music library onto the iPod. On the surface, that's probably not all that bad, but automatically trying to copy about 15 gigs of music over to the iPod without once asking if I really wanted to do that is probably bad form.
There are some things about iTunes that I find a little aggravating.
The first is that it grabs the very first cover art image that Apple offers up (based on the CDDB listing for an album). I wish there was a way to be able to search for the correct image (as it turns out, I found a better way - see part 4).
Second, iTunes seems to be limited in the length of a filename, resulting in filenames (which are made up of track number, artist, and song title) being chopped off. It doesn't affect the MP3 track info within iTunes, but it's annoying.
Third, the idea that a compilation album is somehow different from regular albums. If an album is tagged as being a compilation, it gets put into the "Compilations" sub-folder. Again, this doesn't really affect anything, but why??
Of course, there's lot about iTunes that I really like.
I really like how iTunes will automatically ask to import and convert a CD as soon as you put one into the CD drive. What's even nicer is that it asks first if that's what you really want to do. It's too bad this behaviour isn't a little more consistent throughout the interface.
I'm completely impressed at the speed at which iTunes will rip a CD. In the past, I've always used a program called CDEX, which I've always found to be excellent, although a little on the slow side. It wouldn't be unusual for a CD to take about 20 minutes to rip. iTunes, however, can rip a CD in 4-6 minutes.
I love the whole podcast system. I love being able to subscribe to a podcast and have iTunes automatically check for, download, and sync new programs. I also like how it detects that you haven't listened to a particular podcast in a while and stops downloading new episodes until you start listening again.
Finally, there's also lots of stuff that I haven't really messed with yet, such as playlists. On-the-go playlists are interesting, although I find using the iPod itself to generate the playlist is a little time-consuming. I typically just find a genre or band that interests me and turn on shuffling.
All in all, iTunes is an interesting app and I hope it only improves going forward.
Having said all that, iTunes is a decent piece of software, but it can be pretty infuriating at the same time.
When I first started it up, it asked me where my music files were kept so that it could import them into the iTunes library. That was cool, since I was going to have to do that anyway.
What's not so cool was that as soon as I plugged the iPod into the USB port, iTunes immediately tried to copy my entire music library onto the iPod. On the surface, that's probably not all that bad, but automatically trying to copy about 15 gigs of music over to the iPod without once asking if I really wanted to do that is probably bad form.
There are some things about iTunes that I find a little aggravating.
The first is that it grabs the very first cover art image that Apple offers up (based on the CDDB listing for an album). I wish there was a way to be able to search for the correct image (as it turns out, I found a better way - see part 4).
Second, iTunes seems to be limited in the length of a filename, resulting in filenames (which are made up of track number, artist, and song title) being chopped off. It doesn't affect the MP3 track info within iTunes, but it's annoying.
Third, the idea that a compilation album is somehow different from regular albums. If an album is tagged as being a compilation, it gets put into the "Compilations" sub-folder. Again, this doesn't really affect anything, but why??
Of course, there's lot about iTunes that I really like.
I really like how iTunes will automatically ask to import and convert a CD as soon as you put one into the CD drive. What's even nicer is that it asks first if that's what you really want to do. It's too bad this behaviour isn't a little more consistent throughout the interface.
I'm completely impressed at the speed at which iTunes will rip a CD. In the past, I've always used a program called CDEX, which I've always found to be excellent, although a little on the slow side. It wouldn't be unusual for a CD to take about 20 minutes to rip. iTunes, however, can rip a CD in 4-6 minutes.
I love the whole podcast system. I love being able to subscribe to a podcast and have iTunes automatically check for, download, and sync new programs. I also like how it detects that you haven't listened to a particular podcast in a while and stops downloading new episodes until you start listening again.
Finally, there's also lots of stuff that I haven't really messed with yet, such as playlists. On-the-go playlists are interesting, although I find using the iPod itself to generate the playlist is a little time-consuming. I typically just find a genre or band that interests me and turn on shuffling.
All in all, iTunes is an interesting app and I hope it only improves going forward.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
iPod Chronicles - Part 1: Selecting the iPod
I've always had a portable music player of some sort since about Christmas of 1983 when I got my first Walkman. I've gone through times when I was a heavy user and times when I hardly ever used it at all, but I've always had one available.
When I started training for the marathon back in 2005, I started thinking that it might be nice to have listen to music while I was running. Everything I have is on CD now and I don't think I actually have a functional tape deck, so I figured that I'd take the plunge and get myself an MP3 player.
iPods were all the rage at the time, but they were prohibitively expensive, so they were off the list right away. There were all kinds of other models available at the time, but I didn't really know a whole lot about them.
Long story short, I opted for an 512mb iRiver 700 series, mostly because a couple of friends had iRivers and were reasonably happy with them. It was interesting because you could very easily drag-and-drop MP3s to and from the player, even though you had to use the iRiver manager program. The sound quality was lacking, but it was good enough. And it came with an armband.
I never really used it for running because I found it difficult to listen to music and run at the same time, but I did use it a lot for all of the air travel that I was doing at the time.
As you can well imagine, 512mb doesn't really hold a whole lot of music. It wasn't much of a chore to copy music back and forth from the player, but it did mean that I had to think about what I might want to listen to on a flight.
* fast forward to mid-2007 *
I was doing a LOT of travelling at this point and figured that I could use a player with a little more room on it, so I started some research.
Basically, I was looking for something with around 16gb that had decent audio quality. Lots of players now can do video as well, but I didn't really care about that. The idea of watching a movie or whatever on a 2-inch screen didn't really appeal to me. I also needed to be able to find some sort of strap or armband for it, since I was hoping to try using it for running (again, even though that didn't work in the past).
iPods had some down in price considerably since I last looked at players, but they were still at a premium compared to other units. I researched some other players, but the only other one that made any sort of impression was the SanDisk Sansa e200, which has all of the same functionality as an iPod, but is considerably cheaper.
I hummed and hawed for quite a while, trying to decide what to do. During this time, I decided that I wanted a player that did not use some sort of hard drive for storage. An hdd-based player probably doesn't have any skipping problems, but I didn't want to have to deal with that in a high-impact environment (such that running would provide). That eliminated all of the video iPods, leaving only the Nano and Shuffle. The shuffle doesn't have enough storage, so it was off the list. That left the Nano and Sansa.
Also during this time, a couple of friends who have iPods also started talking about the Nike+ kit they were using for their running. This obviously intrigued me and definitely had me leaning towards the Nano.
It was around this time that Apple was going crazy with the new iPhone. I have no interest in the iPhone whatsoever, but what is important is that shortly after the introduction of the iPhone, Apple announced that some new iPods were coming, including a new Nano. The new Nano looked very interesting to me, but without being able to actually see the thing, I still couldn't make up my mind. The smaller size was appealing, as was the better display. Sure, it was supposed to be able to play video, but I didn't care about that.
Eventually the new iPods were available for purchase and I headed over to Future Shop to take a look. There they had the new Classic, Nano, and Shuffle. Not only that, but they actually had power (a rarity), allowing me to play with the menu.
I immediately grabbed the Nano and the first thing that I really liked about it was the size and shape. It fit in my hand perfectly. I worked through the menu and I was pleasantly surprised with the interface and how good everything looked. I played with the cover flow stuff (there were a handful of albums on it) and was surprised by the performance of it (I had previously read that the cover flow stuff was pretty sluggish).
All in all, I was pretty happy with what I saw.
I continued to do some research into the Nike+ kit, and the more people told me, the more I liked it. The scales were finally tipped in favour of the Nano and I decided that that's what I would have.
Andrea and I had discussed getting a new MP3 player and we decided that it would be a Christmas gift for me, so I was going to have quite a wait. I tend to be pretty patient about that kind of stuff, so it wasn't going to be that big of a deal.
However, something about having it now totally resonated with me. I had been saving up some money anyway, so I went out and bought it, telling Andrea that it would be an early Christmas present and that she was not to get me anything substantial (to which she abided!). I also bought the official Apple Nano armband at the same time (which turned out to be perfect, since it has two "settings" - one for the plain Nano and one for the Nano and Nike+ sensor).
I ripped open the (minimal) packaging, hooked it up to my laptop, copied over some songs (sort of - iTunes started copying over my entire MP3 collection), and had a listen.
I've been happy ever since.
When I started training for the marathon back in 2005, I started thinking that it might be nice to have listen to music while I was running. Everything I have is on CD now and I don't think I actually have a functional tape deck, so I figured that I'd take the plunge and get myself an MP3 player.
iPods were all the rage at the time, but they were prohibitively expensive, so they were off the list right away. There were all kinds of other models available at the time, but I didn't really know a whole lot about them.
Long story short, I opted for an 512mb iRiver 700 series, mostly because a couple of friends had iRivers and were reasonably happy with them. It was interesting because you could very easily drag-and-drop MP3s to and from the player, even though you had to use the iRiver manager program. The sound quality was lacking, but it was good enough. And it came with an armband.
I never really used it for running because I found it difficult to listen to music and run at the same time, but I did use it a lot for all of the air travel that I was doing at the time.
As you can well imagine, 512mb doesn't really hold a whole lot of music. It wasn't much of a chore to copy music back and forth from the player, but it did mean that I had to think about what I might want to listen to on a flight.
* fast forward to mid-2007 *
I was doing a LOT of travelling at this point and figured that I could use a player with a little more room on it, so I started some research.
Basically, I was looking for something with around 16gb that had decent audio quality. Lots of players now can do video as well, but I didn't really care about that. The idea of watching a movie or whatever on a 2-inch screen didn't really appeal to me. I also needed to be able to find some sort of strap or armband for it, since I was hoping to try using it for running (again, even though that didn't work in the past).
iPods had some down in price considerably since I last looked at players, but they were still at a premium compared to other units. I researched some other players, but the only other one that made any sort of impression was the SanDisk Sansa e200, which has all of the same functionality as an iPod, but is considerably cheaper.
I hummed and hawed for quite a while, trying to decide what to do. During this time, I decided that I wanted a player that did not use some sort of hard drive for storage. An hdd-based player probably doesn't have any skipping problems, but I didn't want to have to deal with that in a high-impact environment (such that running would provide). That eliminated all of the video iPods, leaving only the Nano and Shuffle. The shuffle doesn't have enough storage, so it was off the list. That left the Nano and Sansa.
Also during this time, a couple of friends who have iPods also started talking about the Nike+ kit they were using for their running. This obviously intrigued me and definitely had me leaning towards the Nano.
It was around this time that Apple was going crazy with the new iPhone. I have no interest in the iPhone whatsoever, but what is important is that shortly after the introduction of the iPhone, Apple announced that some new iPods were coming, including a new Nano. The new Nano looked very interesting to me, but without being able to actually see the thing, I still couldn't make up my mind. The smaller size was appealing, as was the better display. Sure, it was supposed to be able to play video, but I didn't care about that.
Eventually the new iPods were available for purchase and I headed over to Future Shop to take a look. There they had the new Classic, Nano, and Shuffle. Not only that, but they actually had power (a rarity), allowing me to play with the menu.
I immediately grabbed the Nano and the first thing that I really liked about it was the size and shape. It fit in my hand perfectly. I worked through the menu and I was pleasantly surprised with the interface and how good everything looked. I played with the cover flow stuff (there were a handful of albums on it) and was surprised by the performance of it (I had previously read that the cover flow stuff was pretty sluggish).
All in all, I was pretty happy with what I saw.
I continued to do some research into the Nike+ kit, and the more people told me, the more I liked it. The scales were finally tipped in favour of the Nano and I decided that that's what I would have.
Andrea and I had discussed getting a new MP3 player and we decided that it would be a Christmas gift for me, so I was going to have quite a wait. I tend to be pretty patient about that kind of stuff, so it wasn't going to be that big of a deal.
However, something about having it now totally resonated with me. I had been saving up some money anyway, so I went out and bought it, telling Andrea that it would be an early Christmas present and that she was not to get me anything substantial (to which she abided!). I also bought the official Apple Nano armband at the same time (which turned out to be perfect, since it has two "settings" - one for the plain Nano and one for the Nano and Nike+ sensor).
I ripped open the (minimal) packaging, hooked it up to my laptop, copied over some songs (sort of - iTunes started copying over my entire MP3 collection), and had a listen.
I've been happy ever since.
iPod Chronicles
I bought an iPod Nano back in October 2007 (well, whenever the 3G Nanos came out) and I am absolutely delighted with it. Sure, there have been a few hiccups, but overall it's been a fabulous device for me.
From the time I got it, I've been making notes about my various experiences with it, both good and bad. I've always intended to post those thoughts and experiences here, but as you can see, I'm pretty lazy and I'm only just getting to finally formalizing those notes.
Over the next couple of days, I will be posting an 8-part series on my experiences with the iPod, including iTunes and the Nike+ running kit.
I hope you find the information interesting.
From the time I got it, I've been making notes about my various experiences with it, both good and bad. I've always intended to post those thoughts and experiences here, but as you can see, I'm pretty lazy and I'm only just getting to finally formalizing those notes.
Over the next couple of days, I will be posting an 8-part series on my experiences with the iPod, including iTunes and the Nike+ running kit.
I hope you find the information interesting.
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