Archive for the 'iPod' Category

Video search via rss

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 24/10/2005
in IT@Cork, RSS, Search Engines, Technology and iPod
. 5 Comments

Yahoo! have posted a nice instruction set on their blog, detailing how to subscribe your copy of iTunes to video searches of interest so that you are constantly fed relevant updated video casts!

Basically, to do it you simply use the RSS url generator to generate the RSS feed for your video search, add that to iTunes and watch the videos as they arrive in iTunes (or if you have one of the new Video iPods, you can watch them on that!).

I will be talking about other uses for RSS tomorrow evening at the IT@Cork RSS event - hope to see you there!

Ripping DVDs for your iPod made easy!

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 14/10/2005
in Mac, Technology and iPod
. 1 Comment

Mark pilgrim has written a simple step-by-step guide to ripping DVDs so that they can be played on your shiny new video iPod.

The guide is incredibly straightforward and has large screenshots to make it completely idiot-proof (even I could do it!).

Obviously this will only be of interest to you if you want to watch your own DVDs on your video iPod - anything else would be illegal!

Video iPod and new iTunes

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 12/10/2005
in Mac, Technology and iPod
. 3 Comments

Apple, after much anticipation, released the video iPod at their “one More Thing…” event in San Jose today.

The new model is 30 percent thinner than previous models, has a larger 2.5-inch QVGA display with 324 x 240 resolution, at 30fps, 260,000 color 2.5-inch display, H.264 support, and either a 30 or 60GB hard drive allowing up to 150 hours of video.

Video iPod

A new version of iTunes (version 6) has been released to con-incide with this launch. iTunes 6 will allow download of music videos, and tv shows (like Desperate housewives and Lost! - you hated them on TV - you can now hate them even more on your video iPod!).

The new iTunes also has built in functionality for:

  • Buying videos
  • Buying songs for friends
  • Reviews and
  • Recommendations based on previous purchases

Videos will cost $1.99 each.

UPDATE:
Engadget have more here and Cnet have coverage here.

Nano problem solved - leave it in the store window

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 28/9/2005
in Mac, Technology and iPod
. 9 Comments

Jim Dalrymple writing in macWorld, got a response from Apple about the iPod Nano screen scratching problem I mentioned here a couple of days ago.

On Apple’s own Discussions site - the number of posts complaining about the screen scratch problem was 583 when the Register checked, and when I had a look this morning, that number was up to 704!

What are Apple saying about this serious quality issue with one of their flagship products? Well according to Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller:

We have received very few calls from customers reporting this problem – we do not think this is a widespread issue. If customers are concerned about scratching we suggest they use one of the many iPod nano cases to protect their iPod.

Sorry, what? Why not just tell people to leave it in the box? Or better yet - leave it in the store window.

I have a feeling that’s the decision more and more potential iPod customers will make.

UPDATE:
The Discussion on Apple’s Discussion site about this problem has been closed (no new posts allowed after 704 posts) - several posters were complaining about posts having been deleted.

FURTHER UPDATE:
If you have a scratched iPod Nano, you can get rid of the scratches using Brasso!

Record labels getting desperate!

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 26/9/2005
in Technology and iPod
. 2 Comments

Record labels - the only companies more reviled than insurance companies, are obviously getting desperate now. They are looking enviously at the income coming to Apple from iTunes music sales and from Apple’s iPod sales and want for a larger slice of the action.

Now they say Apple should share the revenue from iPod sales with them! No seriously, Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman contends that if if Apple is “artificiallyâ€? keeping the price of downloads low to promote sales of iPods, then as he sees it, the labels should get to “share in those [iPod] revenue streams.â€? Yeah, like that’s going to happen.

I think what they are really afraid of is that someday the artists will go directly to iTunes, bypassing the labels, for distribution - the sooner the better!

Cool iPod Nano pics

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 26/9/2005
in Technology and iPod
. 7 Comments

There are some cool iPod Nano pics on Seog’s site - they really put the size of the Nano into perspective. I especially like the picture of the nano beside the credit card.

Try not to get too upset by the fact that Seog listens to Will Smith and Glen Frey!

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