Sony’s late entries into the “mp3” market are starting to come at a rapid pace. Few people imagined that Sony would actually follow through on their promise to embrace MP3s in their digital audio players. Sony has already started with the HDD based players but they’re struggling to catch up with Apple who has recently started selling the iPod Shuffle flash-based players.
Sony’s forthcoming 512MB or 1GB (E407 model) entry looks darned sexy:
Known specifications:
- OLED Screen
- FM Radio
- 50 hour lithium battery
- 37 grams
And yes, it has a screen. It’s my personal opinion that a 512MB+ type device needs to have some sort of a screen. I’ve been using a 512MB flash-based MP3 player for the last year and having a screen is absolutely necessary. I do use the random shuffle feature but I often want to hear a specific song or group of songs (like when I’m teaching dance class or when I’m at the gym working out). Without the option of having a screen to easily navigate to my music a device isn’t exactly useful.
What Sony will need to do is provide a better software interface. As a user of OpenMG Jukebox 1.0 to SonicStage 2.3, I must say that Sony’s software is absolutely atrocious. For the most part, most of Sony’s draconian DRM measures are gone or finally transparent which is good. However, the user interface of their software is cryptic and poorly designed. Sony has this fascination with creating their own interfaces which often waste screen real estate and don’t follow traditional user interface conventions. Allegedly, SonicStage 3.0 will be a complete rewrite that will finally be worthy of mention. For Sony’s new push into digital audio players, the end-to-end experience is going to have to be very good if they want a shot of claiming back some of the market place.
I’m still alive but have been both extremely busy and extremely lazy since the new year. Actually, part of my “excuse” is that my notebook’s hard disk died during Christmas and as you all know, I rely heavily on my notebook to get any work done even though I have plenty of desktop systems.
I have been spending time with my HTPC that I built before the holidays and researching a new HTPC that I will be building soon. My first attempt at building a HTPC was an eye-opening experience and I’ve definitely learned a lot about building one and what one needs to truly think about when putting one of these together.
My first “prototype” HTPC consists of the following setup:
- Shuttle SK83G Barebones System
- AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (2Ghz, 512KB cache)
- 1GB DDR DRAM PC2700
- 200GB Maxtor 8MB cache 7200RPM
- NEC-3510A 8x DVD-RW/+RW/DL
- ATI Radeon 9600SE 256MB AGP Video Card
- Hauppauge WinTV PVR250 PCI Capture Card
- Phillips MCE Remote
- Windows Media Center 2005
It’s connected to my Zenith/LG L23W36 23” LCD TV (1280x768) via my VGA connector and it’s a solid setup. The system is actually pretty powerful for a HTPC. Most HTPCs don’t really need to be all that powerful but of course it depends on what you want to use it for. I’ll have a full write up about it soon before I start my HTPC 2 project next month.
I’ve noticed this annoying trend where my inkjet printers seem to die just after a few years of use. Even though I take pretty good care of my stuff and don’t use 3rd party inks, I find that the printers just develop problems after a fair amount of time. Also, the inks seem to go faster and faster and the heads get dirty and clogged so fast now.
I’m currently using an Epson Stylus Photo 780 (6 color version) which has been wonderful when it’s working. I only use 6-color or higher printers because the end results always look better to me than your regular 4-color printer. The only problem with this printer is that it still uses a single cartridge for all of the colors meaning relatively expensive replacements even if 4 of the 5 colors are fine. Inks cartridges are the dirty secret of the printing industry. These companies make no money on the hardware and make a killing on the ink. We’re all crack addicts on the comeback for more INK.
I will not skimp on the next color printer I get. It will have 6-colors and all of them will be separate. It should be more economical in the long run and I should be able to get more prints out. I’m especially interested in larger format printing based on some work I’ve seen. I had a photoshop project printed out at a professional studio in large format on archival watercolor paper and the results were astounding. So, I’d like to be able to do miniature versions of that kind of stuff at home. I still need to shop around some more. I’m really partial to Epson even though I know HP stuff is now pretty good as well.
Oh, and profound advice for the night. Don’t ever buy more ink cartridges than you need unless you’re going to be printing a ton of stuff at the moment. These inks dry up after a while so you’re better off going to the store and buying the inks as you need them. It’s a hassle but saves you headaches in the long run.
I ended up having to clean hundreds of entries out of the database. I lost count but it was close to 800 posts. I had another site that had nearly 3000 posts that needed cleaning.
Some behind the scenes code changes have been implemented and should help block the spam from being added to the forum. So, feel free to leave comments now. Thanks for your patience.
