12/24/2003 11:36:00 PM|W|P|Jackson|W|P| To all my friends here at LostInLouisville, and everywhere else: Merry Christmas. Let's all gather around the Christmas Chair and enjoy the fact that we're all here, together and happy. And to those of you not here, we're thinking of you. Take care.|W|P|107232698964376706|W|P|Merry Christmas, All|W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com12/22/2003 01:45:00 PM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|So, to expand on my previous post on the iRiver iHP120... This is the kind of device that I imagine most music geeks have or will have in the near future. It makes things so much simpler, on many fronts. I now have good quality copies of a large number of albums at my fingertips anywhere I go. I can listen to the tiny little thing at the gym, at work, at home, and now that I have my new Belkin FM transmitter, in my car. I don't like driving with headphones, as it disconnects me from the world outside. I had a near wreck as I drove down Dixie Hwy. the day the thing came in the mail. I was messing with the extremely handy LCD remote, skipping through my selection of albums, when I looked up and realized I was about to rear-end a brand new Cadillac. That's bad business, to be sure. I've never been in a wreck, and I don't want to start now that I have this wonderful new toy. So I got the FM dealie, which allows me to broadcast the output of my little jukebox to any FM receiver within 30 feet. The performance of the transmitter depends largely on it's placement, and I have found today that the whole setup works quite well with the main unit in the cup holder, the remote clipped onto the half-opened ashtray and the transmitter directly above in one of the many little cubbyholes in my Focus. It sounds a little cluttered, but in reality it works amazingly well. It's almost as if the whole setup was designed to work with my vehicle. So now I have thousands of songs at my fingertips while I drive. On demand. One thing about the iHP120 is that it doesn't come with a car charger. And it doesn't seem to be an option either. I heard on Car Talk once that some devices have more amperage, or voltage, or wattage, or whatever than the car electrical system. This means that instead of the juice flowing into the device, it flows into the car. Electrical systems are something that I don't claim to understand well, though they have been explained to me repeatedly. But I'm guessing that something of that sort may keep me from charging this thing in the car. This is a drawback. But today, I found these wonderful things called power inverters. I can plug one of these things into my car outlet and magically turn it into a regular AC outlet. It's amazing what they can do these days. Couple that gizmo with some sort of mounting device, and I'll be all set. I'm just wondering how much clutter I can have surrounding this thing in my car and still be able to stash it all out of sight when I park the car and lock it up. If only there were some sort of all-in-one car-mounting-battery-charging-FM-transmitting doohickey I could buy. I would gladly invest in such a thing. But back to the iHP120 itself: It's tiny. I never imagined how small it could actually be. There's a 20 gig hard drive in there somewhere, and whatever other things are required for it to store and play MP3, WMA, WAV and OGG files. Oh, and it will also let you read text files. And it has optical lines in and out. It came with an external mic in addition to the highly capable internal mic for recording. I tested the internal mic by recording my friend Tom's son Addison playing his violin. It did an extremely good job, as well as displaying a high sensitivity by picking up the sounds of someone working (quietly) in the kitchen about 15 yards away. As for the line-in, I tested that feature by copying the first couple of tracks from an album by "The Singing Sisters of Mount Joseph" direct from my record player to WAV files. Very good copies there also. I could clearly hear all those nuns singing their hearts out. (I was recording this because one of the nuns singing church songs on the A side and showtunes on the B side is my great-aunt.) So, I'm happy with every aspect of this thing so far. Battery life is good. Usability is excellent (it mounts as a USB mass storage device under XP). And it's got more features than I know what to do with. I looked at all the alternatives, including the slick-but-overpriced (for the number of features) iPod. I made the right choice. |W|P|107211875767017935|W|P|More in the iHP120|W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com12/16/2003 02:44:00 PM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|Ok, I've only got two words for now: iRiver and ihp120. More later. |W|P|107160384253917283|W|P|Two Words|W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com12/02/2003 08:44:00 PM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|It's been a long time since I've been this sick. I had almost forgotten what the flu felt like, but now I remember. To be sure. I think I heard somewhere that when your temperature gets up over the 104 degree mark you are at risk of some kind of serious injury to your brain. I can't speak to any long-term affects just yet, but I can say that my head was spinning and pounding. I hopped into the shower, freezing cold, yet sweating profusely. The fever's broken mostly now and the cocktail of robitussin, dayquil and tylenol seems to be doing the job. Ideally I'll be back at work tomorrow, because I can't handle another day of coughing and sweating and being miserable.|W|P|107041588617876475|W|P|104.1 degrees|W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com