NAPSTER info:
Thanks tekboy!
OK, CompactFlash passes the Peter Lynch test. It's the Real Slim Shady, and I'm a believer. For the benefit of those late adopters even further behind the tech curve than moi, I will describe why.
My old Walkman finally broke down the other day and I decided, in the spirit of the thread, to replace it with a product from one of our companies. I ended up buying a Lyra Personal Digital Player from RCA with a 64MB SanDisk CompactFlash Universal Memory Card (http://www.lyrazone.com/). It cost $250 at the local Best Buy, for which price I got the following:
--the Lyra unit, roughly the size and heft of a deck of cards;
--one 64MB memory card, about 1" square and .2" thick;
--two AA batteries;
--a pair of headphones;
--a CompactFlash external drive;
--RealJukeBox software;
--a conversion kit that lets you power the unit from a car lighter and/or play it from a car cassette deck.
I connected the external drive (it goes in between your computer and your printer & keyboard, without disabling anything) and installed the software; this was pretty easy and straightforward, even for a klutz like me, and took about 1/2 hour total. So far, so good.
Next came the music. Uploading stuff to the computer from a CD is a snap; you just put the CD in your CD-ROM drive, click a couple of times, and the selections you want are copied to your hard disk at about 2X speed. Later on, thanks to a lurker, I figured out how to get stuff off the net by going here:
zdnet.com
I downloaded and installed Napster--also easy, total time maybe 10 minutes--and soon was downloading MP3s for free: Wagner, Hendrix, Dusty Springfield, you name it. Each download took a couple of minutes; I did it in the background while surfing. Once downloaded from Napster, the MP3s look and behave like the files uploaded from a CD; they are like records in a jukebox, with title, artist, etc. visible.
So now I have a folder full of digitized music clips on my hard disk; then what? Well, you can either use the jukebox by itself on your computer, or insert the memory card into its external drive and copy the files you want onto it. Time required to add or delete selected files to/from the card: seconds. Pop the card out of the drive, pop it into the player, and bingo: the sound and functions of a CD player in the palm of your hand, with a little display showing all the information about the tracks, allowing you to manipulate them, etc.
64MB gives you a bit over an hour of playback. Perfect music every time; no moving parts; small and lightweight; easily reprogrammable--what more could one want? One day with it and I'm already hooked; going back would be impossible. Short the cassette makers....
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