Nano
Mrs. Zen gave me one of these nifty iPod Nano devices for Christmas.
I am not a huge music fan which is why I paid little attention to the iPod when it first came out. However, the advent of podcasting and intellectual opportunities like Stanford on iTunes have made me reconsider the utility of owning one.
My drive to work is fairly long and Chicago talk radio is, with the exception of the excellent Steve Dahl and Dr. Milt Rosenberg ( who is on later at night), quite mediocre these days. Secondly, I expect to spend more time the next few months on the treadmill to lean out after this holiday’s celebratory prime rib dinner and excessive consumption of adult beverages. I have time to fill with something substantive when reading is either dangerous or simply inconvenient.
After playing around with the Nano today for the first time, I think I’ll be using more of the functions than people who primarily want it for music related applications. After I load perhaps fifty or at most, a hundred, songs, I would gravitate to podcasts, audiobooks and videos stored on a short term basis. Perhaps a few photos though the idea of whipping out your iPod to show ppl pics of the kids strikes me as too much work.
This being a tech subject and with my being a non-geek, I welcome comments from those who are.
December 26th, 2007 at 8:32 am
Apple released some vids for those new to the iPod you might want to check out:http://www.apple.com/itunes/tutorials/ I use mine to listen to podcasts, lectures and audiobooks. I have owned every version of the nano but this latest one I like because of the video. I watched Superbad in the airport waiting room last week, and get my Colbert hit on the bus in the mornings.
December 26th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
the genius of the iPod, imo, is making mobile media so easy for the masses. with a little tweaking you’ll have lots of stuff to choose from. subscriptions to a few podcasts (in iTunes) will guarantee you always have something fresh.
(that said, it pains me you don’t like music more. think about what the ZenKids are missing!
then again, no one’s perfect
December 26th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
I love iTunesU, which has some fairly interesting stuff (content from MIT to Stanford), from great class lectures about physics, urban planning, history, etc. to lectures and interviews of people like Amy Chua, Tony Zinni and others.
An awesome gift, it seems the wives this year were extra thoughtful of the husbands.
December 26th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Zen, Why restrict your educational ventures to just the leland stanfurd junior university? I recommend you up the intellectual ante and sample the offerings from <a href="http://itunes.berkeley.edu/">Cal</a>.
December 26th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Or, to use your convenient HTML tag on your comment window, Cal.
December 26th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Thanks guys!
YH,
I hadn’t realized that you could fit an entire film on a nano – very cool!
Sean,
The Zenkids like music – the Firstborn gets piano lessons and the Son experiments with drums and various kinds of wind instruments – he actually has perfect pitch and can sing on key from just listening to a song ( unlike his father or sibling) – it’s just that they won’t learn very much about music from me. My hearing isn’t that great and a lot of the subtleties can elude me, particularly if there are other background noises present.
Shane & Eddie
I’ll check out Cal and MIT. I bet MIT has some good Security studies and IR lectures available. I also want to see if Conversations with History has downloadable podcast versions – I think that’s Berkley as well
December 26th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
When I formatted Superbad (a 2 hr film) for my nano it came out to just under 300MB. I have an 8GB black nano. That’s a lot of movies. Just remember, for audio the nano has a 24hr battery life, but when watching videos it drops to 5 hrs.
December 27th, 2007 at 5:53 am
Hi YH,
I suspected you had an 8 gig one. Mrs. Z did not feel I was worthy of such impressive memory -LOL !!!
Thanks – I was curious how a major motion pic would break down in MB.