Tag Archives: iPod

Mailblocks R.I.P.

Posted on October 14, 2005 | 2 comments

Mailblocks, the best e-mail web service out there is now shutting down. I’m very sad at this, they used CAPTCHAs to make sure you weren’t getting spam and they made e-mail managment more than bearable. Mailblocks gave you extra addresses that you could use for when you didn’t want mail filtered and would check your other accounts for you and emulated the outgoing address that you wanted people to see.

MailBlocks did it right. Think of them as the iPods of MP3 players, or the TiVo of DVRs, they just went the extra miles. I really can’t figure how I’ll manage my mail as well…

AOL bought them 6-10 months ago and has done nothing with the service. Now they are canceling all accounts (in 30 days). They want you to use AIM Mail which is free but appears to offer none of the main features of MailBlocks!!! I think they might have used the screen interface and that’s it. Yuck!

I will be asking for my refund. I guess it’s time to check out SpamArrest (here’s an animated demo). I’ve mentioned it before as an alternative to MailBlocks (when AOL stopped accepting accounts)so now it’s time to do it.

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The New Video iPod

Posted on October 13, 2005 | Leave a comment

Apple finally did it! (Even though in the past they said they saw no need for it). You can buy videos on-line and play them on your iPod! Available in white or black.black (they make 60GB or 30GB models). I don’t think I’ve had mine for a year yet and I feel like I need a new one! They’ve got content from ABC, Disney (I think it’s $1.99 for ad free shows and videos) and 2000 music videos.

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More iPod Nano Torture

Posted on September 14, 2005 | Leave a comment

ArstechnicatestedWhile the previous What’s Inside an iPod Nano ?!? examination was more of a vivisection, these folks at ARS Technica took to a new level in a stress test (followed by a dissection). They didn’t expect the patient to live so they had to keep upping the ante of their test. Just so you know, dropping your iPod Nano while you bicycle may not cause any problems at all. Actually, there’s a chance it’ll survive being dropped while your driving the car (at 50 MPH). Don’t worry about running it over, okay, maybe you should worry about running it over, but it doesn’t mean the music will stop playing! (The good stuff starts on page 3)

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What’s Inside an iPod Nano ?!?

Posted on September 13, 2005 | 2 comments

So on Systm (actually it was SubSystm, a short show focusing on one topic) they just felt the need to crack open the beautiful iPod nano. They filmed it live so you get to see all the guts inside (here’s the specific episode). Besides a little bit of an iPod infomercial, the show included a putty knife, a screwdriver and some really dangerously thin ribbon cables that he was afraid to break remove.

It looks to me like it’ll be easy to replace the battery in the future. It also looks like (assuming the hardware will support it) that it might be easy to replace the memory chips with something larger in the (far) future. Even if it won’t supoort it, they’ll adapt it, everything else is done (you can’t make it much smaller with a screen and a clickwheel), it’s just getting the size of the memory down (a 60GB nano would be nice someday).

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iPod Nano

Posted on September 8, 2005 | 1 comment

So yesterday Apple released the iPod Nano. You’d think with the other stuff going on I would have realized there was just one more thing…

The iPod Nano has 2GB and 4GB models, color screen, click wheel, thin as a pencil (3.5 x 1.6 x 0.27 inches and 1.5 ounces) and I think it’s all solid state (no hard drive) so it doesn’t skip and that should help the battery life too. It’ll hold up to 1,000 songs or 25,000 photos (4GB version) and it comes in black or white. The more I look the more I like. My question is how small can they keep them this size but still get them up to 80 (or 100) GB?

I’m sorry that I’m such an Apple geek, I just think they make really stuff (I’m not really sorry). And with the iPods everyone (even Windows people) can benefit from it. I’m sure these work as external storage devices too. Photo/diagram in the extended entry.

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iTunes v.5 Pluses and Minuses

Posted on September 7, 2005 | 1 comment

Plus: So they’ve finally released a phone with Apple iTunes it’s the ROKR by Motorola (with a camera and speakers built in), it’s sorta like a shuffle with a display. Very cool! 100 Songs on your phone to sync with iTunes (I assumed you would be able download via the phone but I don’t see any references to that, so I guess not). It’s $249, but I’m sure it’ll drop by the holidays… (It looks like you can get it for $99 after rebates and activating a plan)

Minus: They release a new version of iTunes, which seems great but it screwed up on the import of the old data, it gave me an error and renamed my library to “iTunes Library (Damaged)”. It screwed up my list of podcasts, moved all of them to the regular music library and deleted my subscriptions. I could re-add them, if I could remember them :(

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Harry Potter Gets An iPod

Posted on September 7, 2005 | Leave a comment

Ipodhpcrest So I’ve seen many complaints on-line that they’ve never released harry Potter as an eBook, I’m not sure if they’ve every released it as a downloadable Audio Book (I’m thinking no). So the iTunes store has released the books are Audio Book and you can get the complete set for $249. Or you can get a specially engraved 20GB iPod with with the Hogwarts Crest and all the audio books for $549. A little pricey if you ask me, I’m assuming you can by the Audio Books on CD for about the same price (and still have a backup).

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Apple Dream Toys

Posted on August 30, 2005 | 1 comment

Pict05 Iphone R02BSo I found this cool site with all kinds of mockups of futuristic/prototyipical Apple gear. I really liked the iBook Mini (it’s even got the intel inside logo on it) and some of the phones (that were also pda/ipod/camera type devices). Very nice stuff. I’ll take one of everything!

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