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I frequently miss having familiar music while out and about. I also frequently want to 'time shift' radio broadcasts and such. I know that portable mp3 players can be used for this sort of thing but I've never owned one and I know next to nothing about them.
I've been told that there are some limitations in which mp3 players can be used with what sources (eg: music ripped from CDs, music from iTunes or similar services)
I also don't have a clue about how 'pod casts' work. Must they be captured in real time or are they just mp3 files that get transferred to my computer and later loaded to the player?
Any of y'all use mp3 players? Suggestions regarding good/bad points?
Thanks.
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....... and noted that a broadband connection is recommend for downloading. You will find some answers there re: iPods specifically
Perhaps the MP3 player forum would provide useful information.
Angeline
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or ear buds so I have never considered getting an mp3 player for myself.
I guess this comment wasn't too helpful 
grim
... if "Walkmans" are still around.
Angeline
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it's now an mp3 player. LINK
They do offer cassette players too though.
No way would Sony ever abandon such a prime brand name.
Yeah, they made other popular products but everyone and their brother had a Walkman when I was a teen. Heck, you know how ubiquitous the term has become? The spell check on my computer corrected me when I misspelled it just now!
It's an AIWA, not a Sony and we never use it but it's in a cabinet and it works.
If you have a car and the sound system has the appropriate jack, you can plug an iPod in and listen to the music in your car.
I have an iPod Shuffle that I won in a raffle recently. It's bare-bones and the audio quality is so-so, but it was free so what the heck.
Cassette Boy. It was superior to the Sony Walkman my wife had. It even came with a little microphone that I never used.
I'm exploring the same. We can plug an iPod into the Goldwing we just bought, so I'm investigating which unit would be best for our uses. I was thinking the 80Gig video would be the ticket because it would easily hold all our tunes with room for expansion, but it occurred to me that a smaller unit with just music playback might be better. Apparently the Nanos/Shuffles are flash memory, while the Video units say they have a hard drive. Not too sure how sturdy that would be in the long run getting jostled about.
I swear, you need a degree to figure out all the details. I also wondered if when you rip a CD if the music must remain on the computer, or if it can be deleted once it's on the iPod?
I need to find a kid to ask. LOL
Cindi
Why would you need a sound system on a motorcycle? How do you hear anything from a sound system on a motorcycle? Even at bicycling speeds the wind noise can be substantial. On a motorcycle at highway speeds I don't know how you could hear yourself think.
The short answer is: You don't. That said, the Gold Wing has a lot of fairings that keep a lot of the wind and weather at bay and the speakers are within that area. You can hear quite a bit, more so in the driver seat than the passenger seat, though. The bike has AM/FM, CB, and weather bands, and an aux jack, which is where the mp3 player can attach. We also have an in-helmet communication system and so the stereo plays and we can talk to each other through the sound system. I personally never used any kind of sound device on my own motorcycle...I enjoyed the sounds around me. Plus, piloting a bike requires WAAAAY more attention than a car, but at highway speeds the wind can be annoying. The Gold Wing is really a long-distance touring bike so is built for comfort. Being a passenger is a bit more relaxed and the tunes will help the miles slide by.
Cindi
After you rip the CD and transfer that to the iPod it can be deleted as long as you have the hard copy in the event anything goes wrong.
As for the hard drive vs flash memory. i have a Creative Zen Microphoto and its hard drive based and I have dropped it several times and its still fine. many of the mobile hard drives are made with abuse in mind. Although for running, jogging, ect flash is better since there is no skipping. The good thing about hard drive players are that they have big capacities for cheaper prices but they tend to be big where flash based is small and light but expensive.
That information helps! I've been reading so much about these things my eyes are crossing. Now I'm looking at the Sansa line. I like the "cheaper than iPod" idea. 
Cindi
One of the Nanos is on its way. Since I'll primarily be using this during exercise, and my favorite exercise (mountain biking) involves considerable vibration, I decided to go for a flash memory unit.
The information from Consumer Reports suggests that the large capacity players are relatively resistant to damage, but I suspect their damage testing was done primarily with the unit 'off'. They did not comment at all on performance during rough handling with the unit in operation.
You can get a 2 gig thumb drive for maybe 20+ bucks. I don't know how that applies to ipods, though. I thought they just plugged into computers.
It's expandable with a miniSD card and plays non-proprietary music formats, and also pictures and video. It was also less expensive.
I'll still need maybe 80 gig to get all my music on one, but I can wait for flash memory prices to go down before purchasing. This one works fine for now!
Cindi
One things I learned immediately was that it will automatically get everything that might be on your Windows media player, whether or not they are mp3 format. At least that is my take on it. Correct me if I'm wrong. It sure would be nice if that stuff was automatically changed to mp3! Not that mp3 is better-sounding music, but the point is, it is a more compact form of the music, so it doesn't take up as much space.
I've semi-recently learned about something called "Limewire," a P2P program that allows you to search for songs, albums, singers, and etc. I've been cautioned against getting songs that are CC protected, but there is a filter on the program you can use to filter those songs out. Anyway, I'm most interested in the older songs -- stuff I grew up with.
Another caution is that there's the possibility of getting some kind of computer critter. So far I haven't had that problem. I just keep my firewall up and run my maintenance programs on a regular basis.
I have seen and heard about too many computers that have been destroyed from something they downloaded from there. A firewall and antivirus helps but once you accept the download you never know what could be attached to those downloads.
I can see where some of these viruses come from. "Pictures" for example. Ack! Just use your imagination a bit to see who might be putting that stuff up so other people can download it. No telling what kind of stuff you'll see, coming from who knows what critter-riddled sites.
I have a Creative Zen microphoto and its great. I've also heard good things about iRiver. I've found that the other, non-iPod, mp3 players typically will give you more memory at a lower price compared to iPods and many, like most of Creative's, have built in FM radio which I find to be nice included feature especially since many allow you to record off the radio which I also find to be a nice feature. Also iPods don't support WMA format which was a bit inconvenient for me. But iPods do have a HUGE selection of accessories, that other brands can't match.
My last bit of advice is to look for players that have user-replaceable batteries. I've heard a lot of stories about people have bought iPods and a year later their battery dies and they have to either pay Apple $90 to fix it or buy a new one and that goes for the other players with built in batteries too, since the lithium ion batteries degrade over time and every time you charge and discharge it. whereas on my Creative Zen Microphoto all I have to do is take off the back cover and pop in the replacement($40-ish).
Personally, that's what I'm planning to do, as soon as they come out with some wide-screen smart phones (like they've had in Japan for over a year now). Yes, the usual caveats re: multi-function devices apply, but IMO those are outweighed by the convenience of having only one device to carry around.
Until then, I'm using a NEX ia from Frontier Labs. I picked it because it's one of the few that uses Compact Flash memory, and I have a bunch of CF cards for my digital camera. And it has a user adjustable EQ. (Many other models only have presets that you're stuck with.) Although I don't use them, it also has an FM tuner, as well as a microphone (in case you want to dictate patient notes or whatever). The only downside for me is that it doesn't support some (open) formats. e.g. Ogg.
HTH - Mark
Short term because of the way my service is structured I have a very limited selection of phones.
Also, I understand that there are battery life issues when cell phones (or PDAs) are used as music devices.
Long term, though, it makes sense that phones, PDAs and music devices would combine.
For now I'm stuck with phone, PDA and (soon) iPod.
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