Actually, this came to mind because my fiancee asked me recently if I plan to get one. In the Philippines, it only costs around 25K so I am told so it’s hella cheaper than when my N80 came out in the market and I immediately pounced on it. So why am I not talking about the iPhone when I’ve talked about other mobile phones on my blog before. I’m not an Apple hater, mind you. I’m a proud owner of a 2nd Gen iPod Nano and I’m quite happy with it. I’ve even managed to convince my cousin who was a bleh, Apple kind of guy until he got himself a new Shuffle. But again, why am I not talking about the iPhone?

One, I was never excited about it to begin with. It didn’t excite me the way the MacBook did or the way the iPod Nano did. I just wasn’t excited about getting a phone that’s got no buttons, has motion sensors and a very complex OS. Well, not really no buttons but it doesn’t have your standard keypad. You just have a large touchscreen, no stylus and you navigate with your fingers.

Two, I’m more inclined to get myself a new Sony Ericsson or an N95. Yes, I’m more willing to dole out more cash for an N95 than save a couple of grand for an iPhone. It’s just not that mainstream so when this sweet baby fails on me, I’ve got nowhere to run here in the Philippines without my pockets getting drained from support fees.

Three, there’s the fact that iPhone was set to be exclusive to a particular mobile phone service. I’m not sure if the Pirates of Asia Pacific can ship in open line iPhones or if they already have but I’m not one to wait outside the shop for it to happen.

Four, I’m happy with my phone at the moment. It took me quite some time to fashion my N80′s functionality to fit my needs, set up easy access to applications and all the hulabaloo about crystal cases, leather cases and whatnot. If I get myself an iPhone, I’ll have to learn that phone all over again.

Five, I commute. N80 is already an eye-catching phone but it’s black so it’s still more or less discreet. The iPhone is going to be hot on snatchers’ eyes. That last thing I need is another object on my person to be a reason for me to get mugged.

I’ll probably purchase an iPhone down the line especially once it gets more stable. But not right now. 

My brother and my cousin own an iPod Shuffle and much to their dismay, the Shuffle doesn’t have the drag-and-drop feature. No, not even the new one shown above. So that means everytime you plug in your Shuffle to a new computer, it automatically syncs to that computer’s iTunes and if a good number of your songs aren’t there, then expect them to disappear in your iTunes too. Whoever designed this for the Shuffle was probably thinking with his balls.

So I figured, maybe a workaround is needed. It can be a bit tedious but at least your Shuffle doesn’t get wiped out clean of songs everytime you plug it into a new PC.

First, disable automatically running iTunes whenever you plug your Shuffle into a PC. That disables the autosync that iTunes does to the Shuffle whenever it starts running.

Second, adjust the allocation of space. Don’t put it all to your music. Set aside like 3MB for data if you rarely use your iPod Shuffle for a hard drive.

Third, download an application called iDump. Remember how you can stick songs into your iTunes but you can’t extract them through it? And have you ever tried manually sifting through your 8Gb worth of albums/songs? Sucks doesn’t it. Well, iDump allows you to conveniently browse through your iPod’s list of songs and easily extract the songs that you would like to share to your friend on his or her PC. No iTunes needed. Really. Glee? Glee!

Fourth, when you finally got your iDump, store it in a separate folder inside your Shuffle. How do you browse your Shuffle like a hard drive in Windows? Just press Windows button + R. That makes a small window pop up on the lower right corner of your screen. Normally, your Shuffle registers as drive E: or F: depending on how many drives you actually have plugged into your PC. Type that in and your Shuffle opens up as a regular window. You’ll see that there’s a “hidden” folder named iPod_Control (if memory serves). Anyhoo, make a separate folder and put your iDump inside.

How does this workaround work?

When you plug your Shuffle to a new computer that doesn’t have your songs in them, get iDump from inside your Shuffle, copy it onto the desktop, run it and extract the songs form your Shuffle onto that PC. Unplug your Shuffle first and then run iTunes. Synchronize the songs onto the iTunes on that new PC, plug in your Shuffle and put them all back again.

I know it’s a long workaround. But it’s a workaround nonetheless. It’s better than seeing all your songs from your Shuffle disappear when you accidentally plug in to a different PC and you forget that you’re not synchronized with that PC or you already want to load a song but can’t because of the sync problem. I have iDump in my 2nd Gen iPod Nano just so I can easily extract files from my Nano whenever I plug in to a PC.

tech, ipod, shuffle, apple, workaround, idump, apps
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Time to step away from the uproar that is MG 100 Turn A Gundam and talk about a gadget I own.

If not for the need to upload Fort Minor’s The Rising Tied album and Linkin Park’s Minutes to Midnight album, I would not have plugged in my iPod Nano 2nd Gen to my computer at home and discovered that there was already a firmware update waiting to be installed. It’s version 1.1.3. I tried combing through the first search results in Google but didn’t see any substantial changelogs regarding this new firmware. It appears to be a minor update. I don’t see anything new in it and I don’t see any significant improvements in music quality either. I don’t know if the firmware update improves battery life but with Nano 2nd Gen’s long battery life, that’s something that’s already hard to detect unless the firmware adds 1-2 days worth of battery life to the unit.

“Bug fixes” just isn’t enough.

Been thinking about skinning my iPod Nano also. Since it’s a small gadget, it wouldn’t cost as much (there’s a skinning company here in the Philippines but their services cost an arm and a leg…in exchange for a new look to your usual aluminum casing and the prospect of having swarovski crystals all over your iPod). But I decided to stick with the current look.

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Went searching for updates on the web and something here.

One of the members mentions three things that supposedly weren’t in the 1.1.1 version:

1. There is now a DST option. You can toggle it to be on or off from the Clock settings.
2.  The copyright year now includes 2007.
3. Diagnostics details slightly updated

Nothing really significant although they always mentioned Error-48. I’ve never encountered that error but it’s good to know that I’m not likely to encounter it ever.

I was looking through my blog’s stuff today and I noticed that for a change, my latest post regarding the 1.1.2 update for my iPod Nano 2nd Gen got the most hits today.

Well, I tried updating my iPod Nano at home using the data cable the iPod came with. Lo and behold, it updated without any hitches! So it seems there IS a compatibility issue with regards to the data cable that you use and your iPod when it comes to updating its firmware. The data cable that I had in the office was the data cable that came along with the USB converter that I bought. This allowed me to simply plug my iPod into a power outlet and charge it. No need to turn on my PC. So if figured it would work just like my regular data cable. WRONG! When I was using the non-Apple data cable, iTunes would always say the firmware file is corrupt so my iPod wouldn’t be updated. But like I mentioned earlier, when I used the legit data cable, it actually worked.

It’s frustrating when things don’t go your way. One particular instance is when I was going to update my iPod Nano from 1.1.1 to 1.1.2 today. The message is always:

Cannot update iPod “Winterheim” because firmware file was corrupt.

D’Arvit! I went to the Apple website and saw their supposed solution, went and did it…but to no avail. Oh well… 

Went to Gizmodo and saw this article.

It looks like the new iPod Nanos ditched their really nice glass look and went back to the discontinued iPod Mini look. They have aluminum casings and whatnot. Oh well. I’ll just buy myself a Nano. I don’t like the look of these. Also, it appears that the colors are exclusive to the memory sizes. So if you want a pink or blue one but you could only afford the cheapest of the bunch, too bad.

It looks like you can play Tetris on your iPod 5.1G. If this was an old feature, I didn’t know so spare me. But I’m not going to buy an iPod just to play Tetris. I’d rather buy a Nintendo DS Lite AND an iPod Nano with matching colors. Or I can just stare at Sayaka Isoyama’s bazoombas.

Oh yeah, and the iPod Shuffle just got smaller. *shrug*

Images from Gizmodo.