StandingWater Creations

It’s time to do an update that is strictly Ipod related. Yes Ipod. I have one and people should know that it is, perchance, one of those electronic items that has gone from being a passive companion to being a relatively active companion almost everywhere I go. That is to say, I generally refuse to leave the house without making sure I have my phone in my pocket, or on me somewhere, and now I find that I am beginning to think along the lines of newer headphones that are better fit to ride with me and the Ipod as I head places. I like the pair I am currently using, with non-snare or snag wires and over ear design, but the truth is they don’t seem to fit the idea of the Ipod. With that said, neither do the earbuds that came with the Ipod (disgusting white things that they are). So, I am passively out looking for earphones that will fit what I want and will be portable enough to tote with me.

The cool thing about the whole Ipod revolution is the movement toward video blogs, podcasting, or vloging in general (blog = web log; vlog = video web log). It has caused a stir inside of me, a want to get the equipment so I can start some kind of a podcast/vlog of my own. I think that would be fun. Granted, I am not the first with this idea, nor will I be riding a wave that hasn’t already broken against the shore, but at the same time, I think it is still a cool concept to, probably once a week, add video to the website. We did pictures a week or so ago. Not that I’ve uploaded anything I can use as tags for the kinds of entry’s I am doing, but that will happen in time as I continue to wander, take pictures, get them developed, draw, create, and eventually find what I want to have the look of the site be. Sure, I am not skilled enough at programming and manipulation of code to get exactly what I want, but that too will come in time as things change and I am able to focus on the outlay rather than merely on what is happening around me. When, if, I get to the whole video blogging thing it may also engender some other changes in the way I do things, where data is stored; and on top of that I have no immediate direction for what I want the outlay to be.

StandingWater Creations was meant to be a business portal. It turned into me reviewing everything. And has become more of a personal forum to express ideas and opinions, I think, about a wide variety of things, more or less focusing on my life as I try to go back to school and get a degree. Once some areas of my life solidify, that may change to cover career opportunities and the effect of the changes that are currently taking place. The video blog may be a part of that. As I was laying in bed reading, I was thinking that it is possible to do screen caps of movement and in truth, I could create a partial vlog on doing searches online. I’m actually pretty (read extremely) good at that and think I could add to the blogosphere and vlogosphere in that area. Of course, I could also take on the persona of a petulant and melancholy teenager and vlog about that. Who really knows? Things will happen when and how they will, but as things change I am sure I will keep people abreast of those changes and will have a pretty good time exploring how that should be done.

Posted by smokingpen at 4:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Several months ago I gave away my previous mp3 player to James with the intent of acquiring an Ipod Nano from Jack. The Nano never materialized because of several unexpected expenses and when it came down to thinking I might be ready to jump into the pond, Jack was back to using the Nano in place of his other mp3 players. In the end, at that time, it pretty much all worked out as I didn’t really see a need, and the other participants all seemed pleased on their respective ends.

Of course, I came out sans mp3 player which meant that I had to either listen to music off of CD (not a bad option given the whole car thing) or mp3’s off of the computer, since I have a tendency to rip everything I own, music-wise. The result, on my end, was that the whole CD/computer thing was becoming a little more of a hassle than I wanted, plus having something to listen to while walking, exercising, hiking, or any other –king did start to appeal to me (again) so I acquired myself an Ipod Video.

The reason for the acquisition was mostly monetary. I couldn’t see spending a mint for a Nano when for a little more you could get an external hard drive that holds more music and videos and plays said, and can be used to store and transfer information. The outcome was the purchase of a Ipod Video and it seemed to work relatively well for the first few days. It never launched Itunes (not exactly fond of that program) when I plugged it in, but the computer recognized a new hard drive, and Itunes saw the Ipod sitting there, so it was all good. Well, the other night I went to plug it in and… nothing. The computer saw a hard drive, but any attempt to access the hard drive ended up with the computer locking up, Itunes not recognizing the Ipod, and my not being able to upload new videos or music.

I went to Apple.com and found their forums on troubleshooting problems with Ipods and Itunes and then proceeded to spend about four hours walking, slowly, through the process. It required a lot of restarts, downloading new Microsoft software, and in the end still not having a machine that speaks to my mp3 player. I was going to try the setup on a roommates computer and then realized, with a smack to the head, that I owned another computer that I use and grabbed it. This time the computer told me that the hard drive was not formatted and offered to do just that. Itunes still didn’t see anything.

So, yesterday, after beating my head against something I can’t just take apart and see what is inside, I took it back to the BYU Bookstore and asked what they needed me to do. I know they have repair options, but having the Ipod be less than a week old you’d think there might be more than merely shipping it off to get repaired – though I was totally good with having it shipped off for repairs. They had me call Apple support (a pretty significant waste of time, which also reminded me why Apple users have been considered the bottom dwellers of the computer using community in the area of savvyness) to get them to walk me through more steps; we put the Ipod into disk mode, which, in essence, makes the ipod only appear as a hard drive and doesn’t try to sync it to Itunes. I was good with that, another tool to play with for the future, only to discover, once again, that you get nothing when it tries to connect to my computer. The computer sees the hard drive and then, when you try to access it, everything locks up.

The outcome from that was a call number saying I’d gone through that step and then the Bookstore gave me a new Ipod. What makes it interesting, to me, and makes me believe that the first one was bad from out of the box, is the moment I plugged it in and the computer finished installing the proper drivers, Itunes launched and the computer immediately allowed me to rename the Ipod and then began syncing my music to the new hard drive. It was cool. The other one (to repeat) never did that. It always required me to tell the computer what to do. Further, when the sync was done, the Ipod released from Itunes and gave me access to the menu which also allowed me to leave it plugged in to finish charging. Pretty cool, if’n you ask me.

For the future, I will probably be sharing more on the Ipod as it is the most interesting thing to change in my life.

Posted by smokingpen at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)