Fighting The Suburbs

Digging iPod's Genius Setting

One feature I had heard about with the new iTunes was the Genius setting. But everyone who had tried it told me they didn’t like it. On iTunes itself I can see why it isn’t that great because it’s so easy to search for certain music. But on the 120 GB iPod classic I have loaded with 100+ live Pearl Jam shows, the Genius setting has become a godsend.

See, when I play a shuffle I get a ton of Pearl Jam songs in a row as you can imagine. I still have gigs and gigs of other music though and it gets annoying to skip and skip. So, I turned on Genius and was surprised at not only how easy it works on the iPod but at how great the song selection is.

It seems to know pretty obscure bands too so if I select Pinback or Pelican I get the appropriate similar bands. OK, maybe I’ll become an Apple convert yet.

Don’t Buy at Circuit City Liquidations, Yet

I checked out my local Circuit City’s Closeout sale today around 10:30 a.m. and was shocked at the crowds. This was honestly the most crowded I’d ever seen the store. This is the CC on Elston in the Logan Square area of Chicago.  I’m guessing the holiday helped. But during week one of the liquidation I did not find one deal to be had. Want a new netbook? Lenovo’s S10 was priced at $349. How much is it on Amazon? $349.

I finally got a hands-on of HP’s new TouchSmart set-up which was an open box item only. It was priced at $1199 as an open box price and sale price. It’s $1399 new on Amazon. The open box unit had a broken keyboard. It was missing four keys and wouldn’t type on screen.

How about for the gamer?

Dave Gets an iPod, Bye Bye Zune

OK, I’ve been loyally listening to my Zune 30 GB Brown Brick since it came out almost two and a half years ago. But for the past few months it has been pretty glitchy and driving me nuts. Plus I wanted something that held even more of my 150GB and growing music collection.

I did a lot of research on whether to get the new Zune 120 or the iPod classic 120 GB as my wife offered to get me one for my birthday. It was a tough call, basically decided by my wife’s own logic: “Just get the iPod, it works with everything.”

After testing dozens of cars with iPod integration and no Zune, or even generic MP3 player connections she’s pretty much right. Yet, I have resisted all things Apple for so long — ever since I left college and our huge Macs, and the Apple IIs my Dad had — I was still hesitant. And then yesterday morning, I unwrapped the shiny — well actually matte – black iPod Classic 120GB. Hazzah, I’m now an Apple person.

While most people obviously are familiar with the iPod in its Classic form I do have some thoughts after a few days of listening and a few weeks of getting familiar with iTunes.

Gadget Review: Shure SE110 Headphones

Much to my surprise, last week I won a brand new pair of Shure in-ear headphones from Obsessable.com. This is a new gadget/all-things electronic site that does the blog thing, but also adds a lot of comparison charts and reviews to the mix. It’s more robust than most blogs, but still starting out. I guess to add to the buzz they started some giveaways and my entry for the Shures won out.

They wanted people to write in what they would listen to with the headphones. Here’s my winning response.

Well since I didn't win a new iPod nano....I'll be using these with my 30GB Brown Brick Zune which is slowly fading on me but is still a decent gadget. I actually own Shure's previous generation in-ear headphones and think they're pretty good, but not excellent. These look like they'd be more comfortable because they don't have the over the ear design which is a pain for those who wear glasses like me. The sound quality on the old pair is fantastic though. They're very close to knocking out as much outside noise as sound isolating phones but not completely. Still, they're a lot easier to pack for a flight than a big bulky hardcase like the Bose sets I've tried. BTW on the MP3 vs WAv etc, if you encode MP3s at 320kbs there is very little chance you will notice a difference between CDs, no matter what phones you're rocking.

Well, I figured I’d write a little review of these new phones. Check it out below.

Courtney gets an iPhone

Here's the first post from Courtney's iPhone. I'm not loving the keyboard with my fat thumbs. Otherwise, it's very cool. We'll probably do more food blogging with it...if we go eat out...

What Do I Do Next With a Busted Zune?

Update: Holy crap, the Zune software is actually working for no real reason. I didn't touch anything recently.  Weird! Maybe they knew I was about to leave the Zune fold.

Actually my Zune isn’t busted, it’s the software that no longer will work properly with my Vista PC which was recently wiped clean by malware from Kodak. This turns out to be a common problem I’ve learned from Zune support forums. No being wiped out from Kodak, which is also common I hear, but reflashed PCs not working with Zune software.

I went through all their fixes and it still doesn’t work right. I get dozens of errors messages I have to click through to get off the screen even though the software still operates in the background.

So at home I’ve been using Windows Media Player to do all my ripping and Media Center to play, which I like but my 30GB Zune doesn’t get updated too much now since it’s such a pain to use the Zune software.

I’ve downloaded iTunes because Courtney’s getting a new iPhone for her birthday. I like the fact that you can rip everything in high-quality MP3 and not do AAC. But the software is still glitchy on my now-clean, very powerful PC. It takes forever to scroll and the search isn’t as good as the Zune Software. Nor is it as pretty or as fast as Vista’s Windows Media Center.

In the end all the problems would be solved if Microsoft let the Zune players work with WMP. I can’t believe they went the route they did, especially now that the second generation of Zunes is being rated so highly in the press. I think they’d really put the Samsungs, Creatives, iRivers in straights if they did this.

I was virtual-shopping – I’m not buying anything just looking - new media players and for the money the new Zune 80GB is by far the best player. But I would never buy a new Zune because of the software issues. So, I’m stuck with my old 30GB brown one with the stale music.

If I was buying new what would you suggest? Bite the bullet and get an iPod? I think the next Touch would be a good alternative, but the current one is so pricey. I hate the click wheel of other iPods too.

I’d like something that’s good with video so maybe something like Creative’s Zen W30? I hear that’s being replaced soon too. The Archos version is too expensive and big. Or I could just go small and cheap, but I like having 30GB at least. Let me know what you think of all of this.

PC Update, Zune Software Holding Me Back

So I was saying that I was going with as few applications on my newly rebuilt PC as possible. I just need Zune for my music. Well guess what. It seems a common error with Zune happens after a computer’s OS has been wiped out like mine and no support on the official Zune forums has helped. I’ve tried everything from clean reinstalls to rebuilding the library etc.

Everything works fine in Windows Media Player which I could live with. But how would I update my Zune? I was looking forward to this as a way to show how good of a multimedia system this could be with little else on it. Now, I’m thinking the Mac life might not be such a bad idea.

Microsoft Vista: Starting Over, Thanks Kodak

On Mother's Day I got my wife a new digital frame since we inexplicably didn't have one yet. I got her a Kodak Easy Share which had wifi and could just pull the photos off our PC onto the frame. Sounds great right? I went to install the software and poof! The entire OS was wiped away.

Two days at Micro Center later I have the PC back and it's working but is obviously a blank slate. I had everything backed up to a new external harddrive. Of course Micro Center (who rapidly and politely fixed the computer) forgot the mini USB plug with it, something I don't have an extra of, so I can't get things totally back up to speed.

Now, I'm thinking two things. One, I hate Kodak and will never buy another Kodak again. Their support was NOT helpful and they will not pay for the repairs to my computer.

Two: I'm going to try and keep my PC as free of software as possible. I've already moved my email to Zenbe which is a great webmail app with sharing, so once my wife gets an invite she and I can coordinate our tasks and to-do lists.

I've downloaded Firefox and the Zune software so I can have music. And that's it. My work laptop has photoshop and I will probably add our personal copy because I'm just so used to it, but I could use their new site/flickr app instead if I wanted.

But I'm mainly going to see what else is vital. My main goal is to have the cleanest PC around isntead of cluttering it with downloaded apps for everything. Oh, and I did purchase Quicken recently, so I'll redownload that. I'm scared of doing Mint with my finances.

Any suggestions are welcome for web tools and apps versus the old standard.

My Canon G9 Review

Hey everyone. It’s been some time since I posted here but we’re back in the city. In a new place in Bucktown. That means I’ll have some regular time to post and hopefully get more restaurant reviews. For now here’s a brief review of my new Christmas present. I got the new Canon G9 on many recommendations.

It has a lot of SLR features but I didn’t want to lug around an SLR with a big lens, bag etc. I’ve field tested the G9 at the Detroit auto show for work last week and took a few shots downtown this morning. It really does shoot a great picture. I probably will never use the full breadth of features but the quality is such a huge step-up from my current point and shoot it’s unbelievable.

Check out the gallery and let me know what you think.

Microsoft Vista Update: It works, kinda

Well, a few months with Vista now I'm not really that impressed. It is buggy even on a brand new Vista loaded machine. Certain programs are worse than others. The surprise there is that Office and Zune are the main troublemakers, crashing frequently if you leave them open and unattended for long periods of time. I do like the image interface a lot. Home PC users are probably very into photos and the way Vista sorts everything by date and tags is very intuitive. Plus it is so much easier to find photos now when putting up a blog post or just when browsing. All the menus are easier to use, although I rarely use the search which is supposed to be the big deal. bah. Games. I playedthe new Star Trek game but the game itself is so bad I didn't even enjoy the improved graphics of my new PC. I got the new Tiger Woods because it was so cheap, but it's buggy and after a swing the grass disappears forever more. Kind of hard to play golf with no grass. Plus, EA's download software for patches...doesn't work on Vista it seems. Hopefully, I'll be happy with it in a year or so when all the bugs are fixed.