iPod – I still don’t get it.

Setting here on my desk I have two mp3 players- my wife’s 3G iPod and my Rio Karma. I have been playing around with the iPod over the past few days…studying it and trying to figure out why in the world it is so popular.

I’ve been listening to this “podcast” called “This Week in Tech” on Monday’s and one of the guys on the show is a writer for extremetech (link on the right) and extremeipod.com. Since I like most of his reviews and such I decided to check out the iPod site and that’s when it started hitting me- there is an unbelievable following of not just mp3 players, but specifically the iPod. I’ve been looking through dozens upon dozens of different accessories and mods for it. I found a page that has a video showing you how to take apart the iPod to replace the battery, which is not recommended by Apple. All of this is great, some of it’s useful and a few things informative, but it didn’t really tell me why the iPod is so popular. After seeing all of this I decided I needed to dig a little deeper myself, to try to see if I was missing something with the iPod, some great feature, maybe mindblowing sound, or beauty in it’s simplicity…but, still nothing. As you can read in my OSX post, I have become a pretty big fan of Apple…but I must say, the iPod I still just don’t get it.

Is there anyone who can tell me why the iPod is so popular?

Sage RSS – Slashdot

1. Your Headline Reader Has Been Banned
Your RSS reader is abusing the Slashdot server. You are requesting pages more often than our terms of service allow. Please see the FAQ link for more information, and if you email us, include your IP’s srcid: 20901624B08BA89A.

2. You May Only Load Headlines Every 30 Minutes
…

3. In 72 Hours, Your Ban Will Be Lifted.
…

4. Do Not Bother Contacting Us For 72 Hours
…

This was the message I recieved when I woke up this morning and checked my RSS feed for Slashdot.org Pretty harsh don’t you think? Especially considering that I haven’t checked the site since last night!

confessions of a juvenile mind.

Over the past couple days I’ve been thinking a lot about how much progress I’ve made in life. A reflection time if you will…among other things I’ve been thinking about how my webpage has transformed over the years, this one you’re reading being roughly revision 12 or so. Then, for some reason, I just had this memory of my old keyboarding class in High School and kind of felt led to confess. Yes, it’s true…I cheated back in High School.

I was just beginning to learn about the computer and at the same time, learning how to type in my keyboarding class. Well, every day we had about 10 minutes to do “warm-ups”…but my time couldn’t be taken up by such things, so I would cruise around the machine looking for trouble. When it came time to turn in those warm-ups I was far short, but no problem, I thought I would do them at home since I had made myself a copy of the program and brought it to my home PC. Well…I worked and worked, but eventually decided it just was taking way too much effort and time…so…I did my first hacking job, broke into the code and did a lot of copying and pasting. Long story short 2 pages of magically turned into 15…but of course I was 15 and couldn’t keep my mouth shut. I instantly told a couple friends about my “good fortune”, assuming they wouldn’t tell anyone.

Well, the time came when I was to turn in my work. It was a Friday at the end of the day…I put my work on the teacher’s desk and walked away with a smirk on my face thinking I had shown her. That unfortunately was the last moment of bliss for days to come, because it wasn’t an hour later that one of my friends told me that the jig was up and that my teacher knew…she was just waiting for me to turn my stuff in; I would be taken to “the office” on Monday. Needless to say, that weekend turned into the longest weekend of my life. I remember lying awake for hours just pummeled by guilt. So, there was no getting around it, I had to do everything in my power to make it right.

For the next two days I typed and typed and typed. To this day, that could possibly be the hardest I ever worked in any given weekend for school work (see what guilt can do!). On Monday morning I came in, layed my “real” work on my teacher’s desk and said “I cheated. The stuff I gave you on Friday wasn’t real. I felt horrible about it all weekend, so I redid all my work. I’m sorry”. She simply replied, “I know”. And surprisingly she must have seen something noble in me because she didn’t take it any farther than that. I waited all day to hear my name on the loud speaker, but nothing. I was on pins and needles all week waiting for something to happen, but it didn’t. Of course, the other teachers found out and my reputation was ruined, but hey at least I didn’t get in any real trouble, right?

So, that’s it, that’s my confession. Sickening isn’t it?

Hello WordPress.

Well, here is to a warm welcome to the new world of wordpress. In a rare shot of spontaneity I decided to change my site and try out this wordpress system and so far I have nothing but praises for it. It is much, much cleaner and simpler than moveable type, much more robust than blogger and it’s just flat out more convienant than doing it the old fashioned way. so…here it is. i hope you all like it.

Hey Orrin, aren’t you happy now!? I have an RSS feed!