Paul
35
Live in Hong Kong
English
Ipod - "The Beags" - 15gb

CDex for ripping
ID3 tagit for tagging
Winamp for playing
Ephpod for transferring

Hi all,

I have been posting on this site in the forums for the last week or so to find out as much about my ipod as possible.

As I have written elsewhere, my girlfriend bought me my ipod a few weeks ago when we were on holiday in the states. When we returned to Hong Kong it was placed on the book case as some form of ipod torture for me. You see, she said I have to wait for my birthday (7th August) until I got it....what a bind.

Anyway, I decided that I would spend the time finding sites about the ipod and came across this one. I love the design and layout...exactly the same style as the ipod itself. I started reading the forums and posted some questions about whether MM was that bad and also how to best rip my CD's.

Answers came flooding in, mostly from a guy called Bill Mcnair (Southside Irish)(who I am very much indebted) and a few others including Adam. This resulted in me getting CDex to rip my cd's and it produced fantastic results at 160kbps. I also downloaded ID3 tagit as recommended by southside and this helped me retag some of the songs that some kind software had sent to my pc through a peer to peer network, very good of them actually.
I also downloaded winamp as a result of these forums and am very pleased with that.

So, I now had about 1000 songs ripped and now had to come up with a plan to get my ipod early. It is my girlfriends birthday at the end of august (she will be 30) and so I decided that I would buy her an early present and perhaps then she would be benevolent and give me the ipod. I bought here a PS2 and wrapped it up and unvelied it this morning and lo and behold it worked. While she was setting up the PS2, she gave me the ipod and I sat eagerly at the computer desk and opened it.

It is true what everyone says, when you first open it, you notice very attention to detail from Apple. The gatefold box opens and you flip the inside cover and there it is. It seems even smaller than I remembered, even though I had gazed at many in the shops. It even distracted my girlfriend from the PS2 and she could not believe the size.

I lifted it out and believe it or not, it turned on by itself and already had a fulll charge.

I unpacked everything and laid it out. The dock was as perfect as the ipod, and the wires and even the plug mount had a certain style.

I had already bought a few extras in the states, such as the travel adaptors (so it would work in Hong Kong) and the USB cable.

I set it all up next to the computer, plugged in the USB cable and fired up the computer. I put the CD in and loaded everything except MMJB.

I then opened ephpod (which I had downloaded following advice received here) and the ipod was recognised. I decided to download 1 album as a sort of christening and chose the bends by Radiohead. It worked perfectly. I then unhooked the ipod and listened to the first songs. I already had the sony MDR71's and the sound was perfect, and the volume was at the correct setting meaning I did not have to increase the volume much past halfway.

So, I was no ready to download the rest of the 100 songs I had ripped. Here is where the problems started (but I think as a result of my stupidity). When I redocked the ipod it would not be recognised by the computer. I tried everything, unplugging the usb cable, restarting the computer...nothing. In the end, i relooaded the software from the disk and it then recognised it, but of course there were no songs on it.

I then remembered that you should unmount the ipod before removing it from the docking station, so the problem was my doing.

I was now ready to go again. I highlighted the 1000 or so songs and downloaded to the ipod. It took about 11 minutes, awesome stuff.

I then unmounted it using the ipod manager icon and removed it. All the songs were there and played perfectly. Now I tried to remount it and it worked perfectly this time.

yahooo...what a relief

I am now ripping more cd's and listening to the ipod while I am doing it.

Perfect present.......gadget..........music machine

I cannot wait till it is full and I still cannot comprehend how much music I will be carrying around with me.

Thanks again to everyone who helped me have an almost perfect experience with my ipod.

I will still keep viewing here to keep up with the latest info.