You didn’t tell me that you finally got an iPod. Sweet! Which model di you finally decide on? Did you get one of the FM transmitters so that you can listen to it in your car?

I went cheap and got a 1 gig Shuffle--with the FM transmitter for those lengthy trips. I rarely bring along CDs anymore, although I find myself changing the playlist in the Shuffle almost every other day.

The Shuffle is like iPod crack: the first one is cheap and now I want to buy a big iPod so that I can store all of my music. The Shuffle for working out, the real iPod for the rest of my life.

I know what I’m getting myself for Christmas.

Nice. I almost bought a Shuffle for working out. When I did product comparisons I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. When you compare it to other flash-based players it is just as overpriced as the full iPods. Let’s be honest - you are paying for the “cool” factor. Since I alread have the 20 Gig Dell my workout player needs were somewhat minimal, too. I ended up getting an RCA Lyra (256 MB) on sale at Target. It comes with the necessary workour accessories (arm band and ear-clip headphones), is splash-proof, and has several workout features built in (including a stopwatch with lap statistics). Don’t get me wrong, I wanted the Shuffle, but it just wasn’t as good of a value.

The wire split on my FM transmitted and so it stopped working. I was pretty pissed. I spent $50 on that stupod thing, too. I’ve been a little gun shy about getting another one because of that (back to CDs in the car - what a drag). What model did you buy? How well has it worked?

I wanted to be able to play the music that I’ve bought through the iTunes Music Store, so that necessitated an iPod--and, yeah, I still like the cool factor, too.

The FM tuner that I bought works well--can’t remember the make of it, although I’ll try to remember to check it on the drive home. The odd thing, though, is that the little belkin tape converter that I bought for a lot less one day when I didn’t have the FM tuner around works just as well. The only thing it doesn’t do is charge up the Shuffle while it’s playing--not a big deal with the battery life of the shuffle.

I’d suggest getting a tape converter instead of a transmitter, but that’s just me. I think I’m just cranky that the transmitter cost about 2/3rds the cost of the Shuffle itself.

The iTunes issue is kind of a pain. Every dozen songs or so I burn my newest iTunes stuff to CD then rip it to MP3. That’s the only way that I can get iTunes music to my Dell DJ. The result is that I tend to purchase full albums rather than singles. I really should use a different music store, but I’ve grown used to iTunes. Any recommendations?

My car doesn’t have a tape deck, so that isn’t an option for me. When I was buying the RCA player at Target I noticed a $15 FM tuner (my previous one was a Belkin) that I may check out. I won’t be too cranky if it sucks since it’s cheap.

I got a tuner thingy on eBay for about $7.  It works fairly well, but if there’s a radio station on the freq yours comes in, you’re probably screwed.

eBay is an absolute necessity for me, considering some of my quirky tastes.

Oh, and it’s not “becoming your Dad”, it’s “growing into the responsibility of ownership toward the owned object”.  You want to protect your investment.
It’s one of the things I’m already starting to teach my kids: respect for the person who paid for the object, no matter whose it is.

I recently purchased an iPod mini.  It is awesome.  Awesome in a biblical sense.  I didn’t even put songs on it the first night I had it, I just looked at it, worshipfully.

It’s the only one I’ll ever need.  My entire music collection I store on hard drives.  The iPod mini is big enough to store “The Dorkafork Essential Collection”.

Probably the main thing that led me to choose the iPod is the fact that I have all of my music organized in iTunes.  So it makes it simple for me.  And if you look at other mp3 players of a similar size, they’re at the same price point as the mini.  They just have maybe 1G more space.

I have a lovely pink mini and it goes everywhere with me, so I am never without music, unless I chose to be.

The girls really like it to because they have playlists in iTunes that I have downloaded for them, so they can enjoy a car ride, too, and E has a shuffle that we got her for her birthday.  I got some pastel covers to go with it (cheap) so she can truly “accessorize” but she has to earn the iTunes gift cards through extra jobs around the house.

Z, those things are ti. ny.  I mean, itty.  bitty.  I am afraid if someone sat on that thing, it could get, ummm, “lost.”

Heh.