Breaking News (or Twitter notifications) on My MP3 Player.

I consider myself a news junkie.  If there is some breaking news occurring, I want to know what it is, immediately.  While on my computer, I get breaking news alerts by subscribing to @cnnbrk and @breakingnewson on Twitter.  Even when I am out-and-about, I have breaking news sent to my mobile phone via SMS text messages.  The one place where I have no access to breaking news is while driving.  If I get an SMS text message notification, I will not read it because it is very distracting to keep checking my messages while driving.

The technology I have in mind that will fix this problem is very simple: include in internet-enabled MP3 players the ability to speak breaking news as they happen.  The process will work as follows.  I am driving down the highway listening to my MP3 player.  When breaking news is occurring somewhere in the world, my music player will be notified.  When the unit gets notified, it will gradually lower the volume of the music that is playing and then speak the breaking news to me, preferably a short snippet ala Twitter.  After the breaking news has been spoken, the music volume will return to its original state.  Technology-wise, it seems very simple.  So simple that I think something like this may have already been created.  Anyone?

To extend on this idea a bit further.  Maybe I can send selected twitter notifications to my MP3 unit and not only will I get breaking news, but friends’ updates, as well.  Pretty cool, ha?

Vinyl to MP3s even easier

About a year ago, I posted my intentions to rip all my vinyl into mp3s using the ionAudio – Vinyl Recording USB Turntable.  Needless to say, I haven’t even started ripping my first vinyl record.  That might change in the near future thanks to a new turntable that makes it even easier and less time consuming to transfer all your vinyl into MP3s: The LP 2 Flash Turntable made by the same company, ion.  With this new generation of turntable, you simply set the record and forget it.  The turntable will automatically rip and will seperate the record in tracks when it senses silence between tracks.  All I need to do is add the MP3 tags afterwards to all the tracks.

After ripping all my vinyl into MP3s, all that will be left to do is to get rid of it.  I might sell all my vinyl records on eBay.  It seems that there is still a market for them.

120GB Zune

When it came time to purchase an MP3 player, I invested quite some time in researching which was the best player for me.  These were my requirements (in order of importance):

1. Large Capacity

2. Fast Desktop Software (one that will respond quickly even with a large collection.

The only two players I really took into concideration were the iPod 160GB Classic and the 80GB 2nd Generation Zune.  I ended up picking the Zune.   Even though, both players were similar in pricing, I ended up with the lower capacity Zune 80GB.  What really convinced me was Zune’s desktop software more than the player itself.  The desktop software is very fast with my current collection size (at about 70GB, I have way more than that, but i only import to the Zune player my tagged files).  It is also easier to import songs into the Zune software than the iTunes.  You merely place the file into the Zune folder and the software will automatically import it.

My current dilemma is that I am about 6GB shy of filling up my 80GB Zune.  I prefer to have *all* my files with me all the time.  Therefore, I will have to upgrade to a higher capacity player.  Just in time, I hear news that Zunes will come in 120GB in the near future.  Not a really big jump from 80GB, but at least it shows that they’re working towards higher capacity players.  I probably won’t invest in a new player for just 40GB – so I still have the problem in excluding some tunes from being synchronized with my player.  I will just have to wait to at least a 160GB Zune player before I concider replacing my 80GB one.

Hitachi’s New 1TB Hard Disk and 250GB USB-Powered Portable Disk

The 250GB USB-powered disk is $250. There is no price out yet for the 1TB external hard-disk. I think that 250GB is more than enough for my 80GB collection. I have no use for the 1TB disk, for now. I would only take up 8% of the 1TB space with my current collection. By the time I reach to the point in time when my collection requires 1TB, a few years will have passed and this 1TB disk would be obsolete.

So just how much will 1 TB of music files is, really? Some quick and rounded math provides these figures:

• 20,833 Hours of Music
• 868 Days of Music
• roughly 2 years and 4 Months of Continuous Music without repeating a single song.

* Assuming 1GB is about 250 Songs and each song is about 5mins.

10+ years of collecting mp3s down the drain?

No, it did not happen. I did not loose all of my 80+ GB of mp3 files I have collected in about 10 years. However, the though of this occurring is always on my mind. I am taking precautions at this time in case of a disk failure, but I need one more level of security.

Currently, I have two copies of all my digital music files in two separate Western Digital USB external hard disks. One is always connected and the 2nd disk is only connected when backing up the files from the 1st disk. I usually create a complete backup about once a month. The process of backing up the files from disk #1 to disk #2 takes about 2 hours and is not one of my favorite things to do.

I realize that my current backup system is good, but not optimal. I still run the risk of having both disks failed, having both disks stolen, or both disks damaged. The only way I can finally have a peace-of-mind is to have a complete backup somewhere outside of my house – an online backup service. There are only two requirements that an online service must have for me to even concider them: unlimited storage (or at least a few hundred GB) and relatively cheap. A quick Google search landed me into this company: Carbonite. For $49.95 a year I can store an unlimited number of files for online backups. I just have a few questions about this service: I wonder how much time it will take to upload all of my files? would this online system be ’smart’ enough to only grab the new files from my disk rather than do a complete backup each time? I will sign up for the demo and log my experiences here in the coming weeks.

From vinyl to mp3 via USB.

Back in my high school years, I used to be a mobile DJ. I played mostly vinyl records on two Technics 1200 turntables (the king of turntables). I also carried a CD player for perhaps 10% of the time where a song was not available in vinyl. Fast-forward about 10 years to the present and I am left with boxes full of vinyl records that I want to convert to mp3s. Now, more than ever, it is necessary to get rid of them because of the price per square foot of storage space in California is very expensive. It’s been on my TODO list for years to throw these records (or sell them if there is a market for ‘em) after I have converted them into MP3s.

The ionAudio Vinyl Recording USB Turntable will help me do just this for about $150. I will be blogging about this experience in the coming weeks. After my vinyl is converted, the only analog music under my possession would be my audio tapes. Those will be next.