WorldCAD Access

Why you might want to make that next CD an MP3

LP CDs These days I purchase most of my music from iTunes. I don't like rewarding Apple with 30% of the musician's pay, but... When we here in Canada want to be legit in our music acquisition and reward musicians for their hard work, we have little choice when it comes to downloading tunes. After downloading a new album, I burn it to a CD. To do this in iTunes, you need to make a playlist of the downloaded music, right-click the playlist name, and then choose Burn to CD. I burn new albums to CDs because of the visceral... Read more →

How USB-C Headphones Differ

Digital clarity In I Come to Praise USB-C I explored how the now-ubiquitous USB-C connector single-handedly handles nearly everything for which computers and phones formerly needed multiple ports -- memory cards, regular USB ports (for printers, external hard drives, camera, etc), ethernet, displays, and so on. Bulky, but doable. See figure below. All ports for the price of one The bonus for phone and laptop makers is that USB-C lets them cut costs by providing fewer ports, even as they raise the prices on us. The other peripheral that the USB-C port on your phone might handle is a set... Read more →

From Cassette to MP3

Limitations galore For my daughter's upcoming major birthday, her husband wanted to make a playlist of the music she used in her figure skating routines. It was my job to hunt them down. One song was on a CD, so that was easy to convert to MP3. There is lots of free software that does that, even iTunes will do it once you jump through the correct hurdles. Another song was on a cassette tape. There was a time when I had hundreds of tapes, which I listened to, to spare wear and tear on the roughly 400 vinyl records... Read more →

I Bought a $275 Lossless Music Player, then Returned It

F.AUDIO FA1 I've looked for years for a huge capacity music player, one that could hold my entire music collection, which is about 122GB. I got a 64GB iTouch (which one of my daughters took over), and then a 120GB iPod, but Apple's big, big failing is it doesn't allow playback by folders. I suspect the failing is due to how it sets up its protection system. (So create playlists, Apple-hugging friends tell me. Why, I ask, when I already have all my music sorted into folders. No need to take the extra step of creating dozens of playlists.) My... Read more →

Fixing old hardware: iPod Mini battery replacement

My daughter uses an iPod Nano that I received as a gift from SolidWorks a number of years ago. It suffered from the battery overheating problem, and my daughter was loaned an unused iPod Mini (in bright green!) from a friend. In the meantime, I learned of Apple's replacement program to handle out-of-warranty battery-damaged units, and got my daughter's Nano replaced at no-charge. Which she still uses to this day. In the meantime, she added the bright green Mini to my mini museum of old cameras and computer hardware, for the Mini's battery barely held a charge. After I discovered... Read more →

MP3 Player Stand for $1

I needed a stand to hold up my PlamPilot, so that I could see the screen as it plays tunes over the Internet from Radio Paradise. I found a wiremesh business card holder at the local dollar store. (Well, for $1.25; after recent across-the-board price increases, the Dollar Giant store needs to rename itself the Dollar-and-a-Quarter Giant.) Here's an image of what I mean, except mine is cooler 'cause it's in black: Read more →

Hip Street's MP3 Playing FM Transmitter

I check out Wal-Mart's electronic dept every so often, for they carry stuff I never see anywhere else. The most recent find was the FM Transmitter from Hip Street. This one works like others, where you connect your MP3 player, and then it transmits the music through your car's radio. But this one has added features: An SD memory card slot and a USB connector. A remote control. That's because it is also an MP3 player. And I love it. Finally, and FM transmitter that is also an MP3 player -- one that makes sense. Stick in a memory card,... Read more →

MP3 Players Overpriced in Europe

I'm just back from Spain and Germany, and I am astounded at how MP3 players are overpriced. Basically, our $ prices over here in North America are equal to the Euro prices over there, and higher. For example, the 1GB iPod Shuffle is $49 in Canada and e49 in Europe -- about 50% more. Before my last trip overseas, I bought an 8GB Sony Walkman MP3 player for $139. The 4GB models tend to be priced at e139 in Europe -- about double to 4GB price back home. Perhaps that's why iPod knockoffs are popular in Europe. I saw models... Read more →

Job Well Done: Apple

Several years ago I was given a 2GB iPod Nano, which my youngest daughter promptly adopted. It was her pride and joy until last Spring, when it became extremely hot while recharging. It no longer operated, and the LCD display looked as if ink had spilled inside it. When I read last week that Apple was replacing units whose batteries had overheated, I called Apple Canada's toll-free number. It took 40 minutes and answering lots of questions, but finally a product specialist decided my iPod met the requirements for free replacement. I was told a box would be shipped to... Read more →

Grandad's First MP3 Player

As my dad watched my daughter washing his car last sunny Saturday, he notice she was listening to music. Those white earbud headphones dangled their thin cord to a pocket in her shorts. He asked me what she was listening to, so we showed him the iPod. "This 4GB model," I explained, "holds about 60 CDs worth of music." My dad didn't think he had that much music to listen to, but the idea intrigued him. "I could use something like that when I drive my tractor [up north on his small farm]." I knew exactly which one to get... Read more →

Downloaders are the Record Company's Friends

The Government of Canada commissioned a study by two professors on the effects of music downloading on the Canadian music industry. (Recall that downloading is legal in Canada, but the record companies want the Canadian government to make it illegal. Only uploading is currently illegal.) The study found that downloaders are more likely to buy CDs than non-downloaders. I am guessing there are a couple of reasons for this: -- downloaders are more into music than are non-downloaders. -- downloaders treat the Internet like I used to treat radio: a way of figuring out which albums are worth buying. I... Read more →

Phillips Noise-reducing Headphones

On a flight to Europe earlier this month, I took along several mini-size noise-reducing headphones, including a new set from Phillips. Model SHE592 is down to $25 at BestBuy in Canada. These look like so many other in-ear headphones, which already lower airplane noise, because (1) they act like ear plugs; and (2) the sound is very close to the ear drum. But these new ones from Phillips have a small box near the plug-end that contains a AAA battery, noise-reducing circuitry, and the on-off switch. I found they worked very well, although I was sitting in a quieter location... Read more →

Downloading ECM Albums from Amazon MP3

Kevin C. Tofel of jkOnTheRun asks, Amazon opens beta of DRM-free music store. Are you buying? Yup. Where else am I going to get MP3-pure jazz records by ECM (the name of Manfred Eicher's famous record label, his initials spelled backwards) for $5.99? At Amazon.com's MP3 Downloads section, I searched for "ECM," then sorted the list from cheapest to most expensive. I picked out likely candidates, and then narrowed them down by listening to clips. This is what I got: -- Gary Peacock: Tales of Another -- Jan Garbarek Group: Photo with Blue Sky, White Cloud, Windows, and a Red... Read more →

Belkin Overpriced by 2.6x

In an earlier post, I wrote about the $20 mini-fm transmitter I got from Wal-mart, for playing back music from my MP3 player over the car stereo. Today I was surprised to see the same-looking item at Staples, but priced at $52 -- and with the Belkin logo. The only difference was the style of power connector (round, instead of rectangular). I am guessing that Belkin sourced it from an OEM in China, and had them apply the logo. And then they and/or Staples Canada marked up the price by 2.6x. Read more →

Review: Morph MP3 to Air

When we got a new car with a CD player, we had a problem: how to playback music without the cassette adapter we'd been using for eight years. A local car stereo shop offered to sell a mini-FM transmitter for $100. Too much! I told my son, going on a band trip to California, to be on the lookout for something cheaper. He returned with a $30 unit, one of the first on the market. It worked well for 3 years, but then the audio connector began to fail, with one channel cutting out intermittently. Time for a new one.... Read more →

Review: Roku SoundBridge Radio R1000

So I bought the Roku Internet radio that I discovered at BestBuy in Langley (BC Canada) for about $100 cheaper than the equivalent some 20 minutes away across the border in the USA. Usually, the pricing is the other way around. I love it, and I hate it. What's to Hate With its integrated subwoofer, the Roku SoundBridge Radio R1000 is too large for a modest bedside table. It towers, and it just barely fits mine. The bass from the subwoofer can be unpleasant when listening to news radio. The unit has no tone controls. It does sound good for... Read more →

iPhone Compatible Headphones -- I Got 'Em

I don't have an iPhone, but I understand the problem users have with existing headphones. The iPhone has a silly design error, where the headphone connector is recessed. Many headphone have connectors are too thick to plug in. The problem doesn't affect just headphones, but also cables for connecting external speakers, stereo sets, and mini FM transmitters (for car use). The Palm TX has the same silly design error. I have found two solutions: 1. In some cases, I have been able to carve off (with a knife) some of the plastic surrounding the cable's plug. That gives sufficient clearance... Read more →

Using a Camera for Music Playback

A reader asks, I haven't used the NV3, but I do know several people with Samsung cameras, and they've been pretty pleased with them. I do have to ask about the MP3 player function, though. I haven't had a camera with that, but I'm very interested in buying a camera/MP3 combo. I'm concerned about running out of memory, though. Should I buy two memory cards, one for pictures and one for music? Or can I fit a nice number of songs on the card and still have room for pics? Does the NV3 offer features comparable to most MP3 players,... Read more →

Disky "Borrows" My Idea

Some months ago, I got the idea of selling dedicated MP3 players. With prices plummeting, you could sell a CD on a 64MB music player for less than the store price of the CD. Today on Mobile Magazine, I read that Disky has taken my idea and commercialized it: a two-hour (128MB) MP3 player for US$26 that comes with Disky's selection of music. The playlist is "static," meaning it can't be changed. Time to start sending me the quarterly royalty cheques. Read more →

Camnext Auto-Transfer Cable

I like poking around big stores, because they sometimes carry electronic goodies at unreasonably low prices. Like the Shark brand Webcam I picked up for $25 from Winners. Yesterday I came across a $5 item at Wal-mart: Auto-Transfer Cable CA101. It promised to convert CD music into MP3 format and stick it onto your MP3 player. Hmmm, I wondered, how does that work? For $5, I took it home. The cable has a 3.5mm audio plug at one end (and miniUSB converter), and a fat USB connector at the other. The fat end holds 380KB flashRAM, which holds the encoding... Read more →

No, Mr Jobs, I Won't Pay $1.29 Per Song

Apple has increased the price of downloadable songs to US$1.29 each -- for those that are DRM-free and of higher compression quality. As noted in an earlier entry, I don't like downloading songs, and the new pricing benchmark won't encourage me in that regard. In contrast, take the new Nora Jones CD set I mention below: 31 tracks for US$9.99. That works out to 32 cents for each DRM-free, uncompressed track from a brand-new release. With 2 "backup" CDs (the originals, heh), beautiful CD holder (the box with slipcover), and nice cover art thrown in at no extra charge. In... Read more →

Great New Nora Jones CD!

I love jazz, but I haven't cared for the jazz singing of Nora Jones, even if she was born in the same Canadian provice as me. Now comes a different project for her, one where she ventures into blues and R&B and hiphop and EuroPop -- and I love it! The Peter Malick Group Featuring Nora Jones: The Deluxe Collection (Koch Records KOC-CD-4206) has Ms Jones singing a set of songs with different mixes. Fer instance: "Deceptively Yours" is first sung as blues, but then in a later track, it is sung with a Seedy Hotel Remix by DJ Strobe.... Read more →

The CommSec iPod index Is Wrong

The CommSec iPod index compares the cost of buying a 2GB iPod Nano in numerous countries. The index finds that the most expensive iPods are in Brazil, costing 2.1x more than in the iPod's home country of USA. The cheapest, claims the index, is in Canada: US$144.20. Which made me blink my eyes. Canada? Shurley not! The base price, in Canadian dollars, is $169.95. The Canada-US exchange rate has been roughly 1.14 this month. Thus: Canadian price in US dollars = $149.08. But that price is only part of the equation. Taxes play a factor. In Canada, the sales tax... Read more →

Boombox Ripper

I notice Phillips selling a boombox that rips CDs for under CDN$50 at our local Wal-Mart. It has a USB connector. Insert a CD, press the appropriate button, and I presume the boombox converts the tracks to MP3 and copies them to the attached MP3 player. I presume further that no CDDB info is available, however. Read more →

Genre-Specific MP3 Players

As we decorated our Christmas tree and put another Christmas music CD on to listen, it occurred to me that MP3 players are getting so cheap that they could become task-specific. For instance, pick up a 1GB model for $50, fill it up with Christmas music, plug it into the home stereo, and then press Play. When Christmas is over, pack the player away with the rest of the decorations for next year. No need to switch the CD every 35 minutes. One gigabyte holds about 16 hours of music -- roughly 20 CDs (Christmas CDs tend to be shorter... Read more →

Price/Capacity Ratios for MP3 Players

$3.20 for an 8MB iPod Nano? Not if Steve Jobs can help it. Yet that's what it would cost if the pricing matched that of hard drives. FutureShop this week is advertising a 500GB external drive for CDN$230 -- about US$200. That's 40 cents a gigabyte. Over at A&B Sound, they have a 30GB Phillips MP3 player for the equivalent of US$175. It works out to $5.80 per gigabyte. As cheap as the Phillips price is, it's still a 14x premium over that 500GB external hard drive that could play back MP3 music unrepeated for an entire year (after it's... Read more →

The *New* Travel Charger

When I travel, I no longer take along the myriad power supplies for my Zen Micro MP3 player, Palm T|X, etc etc. Instead, I charge these battery operated devices through my notebook computer's USB ports. A couple of short USB cables take up far less room than the power transformers and their long cables. Plus I don't need to worry about voltage or having sufficient wall outlet converters internationally. Last week I was thinking: how could I recharge these pocket-size devices if I didn't take along my notebook computer? (I had seen the new USB travel chargers in the xmas... Read more →

Origami'ing the Zune

Mobilemag.com reports: "Amazon.com, the giant online purveyor of just about everything on earth, says that iPod chargers sell better than Zune." There has been much written about the Zune music player from --- . (I'd've written "Microsoft," but the company didn't put its name on the player, it's that embarrassed by the relabeled Toshiba product.) When the convicted monopolist can't impose its poorly-written software on the masses, it is unable to compete. This year's examples include: - the failure of its search engine, whose market share continues on a steady decline -- an amazing feat, considering it is the default... Read more →

Record Companies Want Songs to Cost $15

If the music industry had its way, songs would cost $15 a track. You can get a sense of that from the pricing of ringtones -- the first few seconds of a song for which Those With Too Much Cash pay $3 or $4 each. Extrapolate the pricing and you get about $15 for the whole song. The Register notes: The ringtone business, for example, grossed $75bn for operators last year -- double the global revenue of the music industry. I get a further sense of greed from some of the new prices. I'm not paying $23 for the new... Read more →

Microsoft Can't Make Money

Apple makes huge profits selling iPods at $249.00, but Microsoft claims it will incur losses selling a similarly-spec'ed product priced at 99 cents more. There must be a socialist running the Zune division. Must be. Unless, of course, "taking a loss" is Microsoft PR's spin to cover up something else. Like maybe to give the impression that this is a really expensive piece of equipment (really expensive = better than iPod) but we are being generous to the consumer by choosing to price-match. It occurs to me that Microsoft would be bankrupt, dead, and out of our memories like a... Read more →

iPod Suffers the Palm Effect

The Guardian's Observer newspaper has a distressing article about the decline in the iPod's popularity. Brave analysts dared speak of the decline in sales earlier this year, and now David Smith puts it together in Why the iPod is losing its cool. His theory is that the iPod is a victim of fashion: so many have sold that it's not longer fashionable to have white earphones dangling from the sides of one's head. I disagree. It's the Palm effect: eventually, everyone who's going to buy one will have bought one (or a second or a third). The market is limited,... Read more →

Review: Nextar P7 GPS

I own three GPS units. All of them are annoying. The first was Delorme's Earthmate designed for use with PalmPilots. I thought the concept was brilliant; the execution was so flawed as to be fatal. When I first installed the GPS software on my Palm, Delorme also installed a huge map file that locked up the Palm and it took me three days to get it working again. The second fatal flaw was the connector: it did not lock onto the Palm, and so easily broke free; that meant losing all the collected data and restarting the GPS. The second... Read more →

iPod Charger

My 15-year-old daughter's off to South Korea -- the first Grabowski to have visited four continents (North America, Europe, Anza, and now Asia.) You may recall the crisis over how to recharge her iPod Nano. CDN$57 for Apple's charger was too much. A visit to a local electronics store found third-party brands for nearly half the price. So I bought one for her. The charger's slim, works with 110-220V, and has a folding plug -- good for travelling. Now that she's in Korea, she may not need it after all. At her first destination, the home had _two_ computers (from... Read more →

Defending Steve

Some commentators are denigrating Apple's new products. But I think I see the logic to the "poor designs." Let's take the leather case. US$99 for something with just one hole for slipping the iPod in and out. The complaint is that you have to take out the iPod to (1) see the display, such as videos and (2) use the controls. Then there's the boombox. $350 (or something like that) for a set of speakers into which the iPod is plugged. The complaints are that it's ugly (true), it's overpriced (true), and that it's under-featured (also true). I particularly don't... Read more →

Downloads? No Thanks

I've decided I don't like downloading music. I get all kinds of offers for free downloads, ranging from a single download free with the purchase of a box of granola bars, to an entire month of free downloads with the purchase of a Zen Micro MP3 player. In each case I have to provide credit card data, go through the time and sometimes confusing effort of entering registration data -- all for a single download? No thanks. ... especially for those wierdo sites where you don't get to keep the download. About as satisfying as eating a granola bar: what... Read more →

Cassettes -> MP3s

Last year, I converted all my cassette tapes to MP3 format. Before I had a chance to back up the multi-gigagbyte collection, the Maxtor external hard drive crashed. I am back to recording the tapes in MP3 format, remembering to make copies to a second hard drive every so often. Here's how it's done: 1. Hook up a cassette deck to an amplifier's Tape In connectors using RCA cables. I happen to use my 30-year-old Marantz 2225 receiver, but you can also get low-cost amps from computer and electronic stores. 2. Hook up the amp's Tape Out connectors to the... Read more →

iPod Blues

My 15-year-old summed up her iPod Nano experience like this: "I'm only using it 'cause it's free." (Recall I had been given the Nano as a corporate gift; I continue to prefer the Creative Zen Micro I bought a year ago.) + She likes the capacity. At 2GB, the Nano holds 16x more music than her first MP3 player. + She likes the kewl factor. The iPod is a requirement for being cool among friends. But - She doesn't like that it lacks replaceable batteries. She'll be travelling to Korea next month and doesn't think the Nano will last the... Read more →

Free iPod? No Thx

I was at a conference last week where members of the media were given free 2GB iPod Nanos. White. A wonderful gift, but I already have been using a 5GB Zen Micro for near a year. Black. By default, my youngest daughter inhereted the Nano, since the two older siblings weren't interested in it. I found her a trial copy of Anapod Explorer so that she wouldn't have to install iMusic on her PC. Over the last few years, I've received some very nice gifts from corporations. The drawback is that the free object results in an expense for me.... Read more →

Inside-studio.mpg

The new Delirious CD, Mission Bell, has a bonus movie track. When you stick the CD into your computer, autorun launches InsidePC.exe, which displays the movie in a tiny window -- 3"x2" on my computer. It's far better to watch the movie fullscreen. Here's how: 1. In Explorer, go to the CD drive. 2. Double-click Inside-studio.mpg. 3. Press Ctrl+Enter (or whatever) to run the movie fullscreen. Enjoy! Read more →

The Source Has Itchy Ears

"The Source" is the new name for the chain of Canadian electronic parts stores formerly known as Radio Shack. (There was some dispute between Circuit City and Tandy that required the name change.) I was in The Source in Semiamho Mall (South Surrey) making time while my wife checked out Boxing Week clothing sales. I overheard a female customer buying a bright pink MP3 player, asking if she could return it. The sales clerk replied, "Yes," but then added this bizzare provisio: "You would only have to pay for a new pair of headphones for sanitary reasons." I know that... Read more →

Indie: The Anti-DRM Solution

Two days ago, I wrote about how record companies are looking to DRM to increase their profits through customer lock-in. Their theory is that if customers are prevented from making copies -- indeed, be forced to buy a copy of the same music for every playback device -- this will lead to higher profits (higher bonuses, higher share value). The tactic described in my earlier blog entry is to guard your music collection and playback devices against infiltration of DRM techniques by Microsoft, Apple, music device manufacturers, and software companies whose anti-copying technology creates unintended harm. Music comes from musicians.... Read more →

Now is the Time to Guard Against DRM

With record companies (how quaint that they are still named after technology no longer used) increasingly desparate for increated profits that they feel naturally belong to them, they are working to make it more and more difficult for customers to use their product. We already have millions of customers willingly let Apple and its iPod restrict use of the music they've purchased. Here are examples of what corporations are doing now, and what you can expect in the coming years: - CDs with software that monitors your listening patterns and copying behavior. - Rental music that limits you to listening... Read more →

Universal Chargers -- Don't Need 'Em

Reading the inflight magazine of the overcramped and underfed United Airlines last month, I noticed an ad from Kingston (I think) for a universal charger, costing around US$130. Universal chargers consist of an adjustable-voltage battery charger with a multitude of tips. Problem is, universal chargers aren't. For example, no universal charger is going to include the unique data/power connector found on my Sony Clie PDA. Just ain't gonna happen. They should be renamed "semi-universal chargers." There is, however, a new standard in universal charging emerging around the USB connector, which outputs 5 volts. Many new devices can be charged from... Read more →

Rechair Refuses Re-install

I use the Notmad software from Redchair to manage the songs on my Zen Micro MP3 player. The software is well worth $25, being far superior to Creative's software that's included free. Last week, I bought a new notebook computer and wanted to install the Notmad softare. Imagine my shock when it refused to install. The reason: it claimed to be out of date, and I was supposed to download a newer version from the redchair.com Web site. Further frustration when I spent time fruitlessly trying to figure out where on the site to start the download. I tried the... Read more →

Olympus Descales the M(p3)ountain

In came up with one of the most dramatic looking MP3 players every designed -- and oddest name (m:robe) -- but good looks didn't work. Olympus is quitting making MP3 after just a few months. The'yre also abondoning the low-end digital camera business, and concentrating on the now-croweded DSLR market. Just because you name your company after the home of Greek gods doesn't mean they'll smile kindly on you. Read more →

Microsoft: Still Playing that Monopoly Game

Microsoft Watch reports that Microsoft continues to force hardware manufacturers into respecting its Natural Monopoly: It turns out that [Microsoft] was attempting to force media-player makers to agree to contracts that would prevent them from supporting iTunes, RealPlayer and Napster to Go. Microsoft's excuse? It was just a draft contract sent out for commenting by hardware vendors. Uh huh. Still trying to get away with it, and hoping to not get caught. Having met with Microsofties, it seems to me that they consider their software solutions superior and that allowing access to competitors just messes up the user. This hubris... Read more →

Compact Flash Prices Flatten

After my 1GB Microdrive broke down (see next item), I checked over prices of CompactFlash memory cards at futureshop.ca. (I'm off to Europe next month.) I found it interesting that the price of CompactFlash memory has flattened -- in terms of price per GB (gigabyte). It used to be that large capacity cards were priced at a premium, but now high-end, high-capacity cards have per-GB prices similar to low-end, low-capacity cards. The table shows the Canadian prices as of today. "Low" means low-end cards; "high" means high-end, such as SanDsik Ultra II. Capacity - Low - High -------------------------------- 256MB -... Read more →

Nano: The Form Factor is Correct

What I like about the Apple Nano MP3 player is its form factor. Not smaller, but thinner. While it is possible to design and build very small devices, they still need to be navigated with our relatively stubby fingers. Making buttons and displays tiny is wrong. Apple got it right by keeping the Nano's width and height relatively large, but very thin. Read more →

Too Plain to Sell

Betanews.com notes that Apple's iPod is selling poorly in South Korea. Why? Its design is too minimalist. " Consumers in Asian countries have traditionally opted for tech gadgets with more bells and whistles, and MP3 players are apparently no exception." Market shares in South Korea are: iRiver = 35% Samsung = 14% Cowon = 13% ... Apple = 1.8% Another reason might be nationalism: the Top 3 sellers are all Korean products. Creative Losses Meanwhile, the company that hoped to unseat Apple is not doing so well. Creative says that disappointing sales of its MP3 players caused a quarterly loss... Read more →

10th Anniversary of .mp3

The Register reports: On 14 July 1995 Germany's Fraunhofer Institute chose to use the .mp3 extension for files holding audio data encoded using the MPEG standard's Audio Layer 3 specification. The MPEG Audio Layer 3 codec was standardised in 1992. In the last few years, .mp3 has become MP3, with few people realizing it is short for MPEG Layer 3, with MPEG an abbreviation for "motion picture experts group." The first portable MP3 player was Diamond Multimedia's Rio PMP300, in Sept 1998 Read more →