The Latest Sip of Kool-Aid

Tonight, I took my next step down the cultlike path that is Apple-dom.

I ordered an iPod.

Yeah, yeah, I know that there’s a gazillion little snippy reasons maybe to not order one, but there’s one real good one in favor of it: I wanted one. Listening to music is one of my favorite pastimes that I love combining with other activites. When I’m coding, I’m listening. When I’m mowing, I’m listening. Becky says I have to have music on all the time, and there’s probably some truth to that.

The Apple online store had a deal where they would engrave it for free, and the image you see is the preview image they gave me of the little thing. A little mantra-like reminder for me, wherever I go.

So, the massive re-ripping effort has begun, with well over 300 CDs to rerip into AAC/192Kbps format. The reward is better sound, and only taking up a skosh more space than what I was doing before (MP3/128Kbps). With the 20Gb iPod though, I should be able to carry a lot of my favorites with me.

So, why’d I choose that model, especially when there’s more photo-oriented models out there? Well, the lack of support for Canon RAW files pushed me away from the iPod Photo, although the 60Gb drive was awfully attactive. The battery life wasn’t quite as good as the regular iPod either, and while you could bring in images from media (CF, etc.), the interface to do that was only USB 1.1, and that’s simply not fast enough when you’re talking 4Gb microdrives!

The iPod Mini also had my attention, but for 50 bucks more, the regular iPod has 3.3x the storage space, a little less battery life, and only weighs a couple of ounces more. Capacity, ultimately, won the day, and made my decision pretty easy.

Of course, the $30 coupon through Apple didn’t hurt any!

So, watch out world — here I come, synced, listening, and enjoying myself!