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20070311
Rockbox
Entry 309
Rockbox is an open source replacement firmware for mp3 players. It runs on a number of different models:
-
Archos:
Jukebox 5000, 6000, Studio, Recorder, FM Recorder, Recorder V2 and Ondio
-
iriver:
H100, H300 and H10 series
-
Apple:
iPod 4th gen (grayscale and color), 5th/5.5th gen (Video - 30GB and 60GB models only), 1st gen Nano and Mini 1st/2nd gen
(Nano 2nd gen and 80GB Video 5.5th gen are not supported)
-
iAudio:
X5 (including X5V and X5L), M5 (including M5L)
-
Toshiba:
Gigabeat X and F series
(the S model is not supported)
Top priority of Rockbox is audio playback quality - Rockbox, for most models, includes a wider range of sound settings than that device's original firmware. A lot of work has been put into making Rockbox sound the best it can, and improvements are constantly being made. All models have access to a large number of plugins, including many games, applications, and graphical "demos".
If you liked this post - you might be interested in this one as well: Audacity 1.2.5
20070601
iPod Statistics May 2007
Entry 311
I confess. I'm a major geek. And I luv statistics. That's why I wrote an Excel macro that reads my iPod playlists and tells me later what songs I have been listening to in the past month. As if I didn't know that already.
Then I publish these on my MySpace page.
Twice.
The overview of the past months / year can be found under the Blurbs
section.
A detailed month per month overview in the Blog
section.
If only I could find the time to turn these into charts or even better, pivot tables, I get all hot and horny from pivot tables. Pivot tables rock my balls.
But that is an entirely different matter...
If you liked this post - you might be interested in this one as well: Random Blueß aka sucking for statistics
20070630
iPod Statistics June 2007
Entry 314
Again a bunch of useless iPod stats on my MySpace page.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to since January go to MySpace.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in the month of June, go to the MySpace blog section.
If you liked this post - you might be interested in this one as well: iPod Statistics May 2007
20070801
iPod Statistics July 2007
Entry 319
Again a bunch of useless iPod stats on my MySpace page.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to since January go to http://www.myspace.com/atagong.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in the month of July, go to the MySpace blog section.
If you liked this post - you might be interested in this one as well: iPod Statistics June 2007
20070901
iPod Statistics August 2007
Entry 326
Again a bunch of useless iPod stats on my MySpace page.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to since January go to http://www.myspace.com/atagong.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in the month of August, go to the MySpace blog section.
If you liked this post - you might be interested in this one as well: iPod Statistics July 2007
20071001
iPod Statistics September 2007
Entry 341
Again a bunch of useless iPod stats on my MySpace page.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to since January go to http://www.myspace.com/atagong.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in the month of September, go to the MySpace blog section.
If you liked this post - you might be interested in this one as well: iPod Statistics August 2007
20071101
iPod Statistics October 2007
Entry 351
Again a bunch of useless iPod stats on my MySpace page.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to since January go to http://www.myspace.com/atagong.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in the month of October, go to the MySpace blog section.
If you liked this post - you might be interested in this one as well: iPod Statistics September 2007
20071202
No time.
Entry 358
I had these superb ideas for at least half a dozen of posts on this blog but local warfare prevented me from writing, more about that later. Then yesterday, when I had some time at hand, my LA-girl threatened with divorce if I didn't go to the hairdresser.
So I took a bus to the hair stylist where a consultant recommended me what to do. In my days one went to the local barbershop where an elderly cantankerous guy would give you the choice of three different haircuts: short, shorter or bald. Nowadays you get a horde of women of the opposite sex who smother you with a lot of oohs and aahs. In those places that practice, for whatever reason, the haute coiffure you never get the same girl twice but as long as they carry the obligatory T&A you won't hear me complain. Yesterday there were 4 or 5 fresh daisies, so to speak, to choose from and one entity who I immediately baptised the hairdresser from Hell. Guess who took care of me? A while later I came home and this time my LA-girl threatened with divorce because I had gone to the hairdresser. Some things will never change.
Last week I also found a budget DVD (only 6 Euro!) containing the first two Age of Empires games and their expansion packs and that is what kept me busy on my PC for the last few days. So before I'm off to kill some Greeks (geeks?) here is what is new, in a hurry...
Again a bunch of useless iPod stats on my MySpace page.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to since January go to http://www.myspace.com/atagong.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in the month of November, go to the MySpace blog section.
...and oh yeah, there is a new Thingamablog version as well... it has some goofy extra features, but I've got no time to explain you, I've only got some time to kill...
If you liked this post - you might be interested in this one as well: Heroes In The Sky (beta release)
20071231
iPod Statistics December 2007
Entry 362
Again a bunch of useless iPod stats on my MySpace page.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to since January go to http://www.myspace.com/atagong.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in the month of December, go to the MySpace blog section.
If you liked this post - you might be interested in this one as well: No time.
20080125
Random Blueß aka sucking for statistics
Entry 367
In my youthful days I was a member of a, then illegal, university radio station where the lefty management proudly believed that revolution would come if we played enough Lynton Kwesi Johnson records. The Jam and The Clash (Sandinista!, what else?) were politically correct choices as well. As a voluntary contributor I always tried to sneak in some Pink Floyd. One night, I still remember this as if it were yesterday; I programmed a tune from Rick Wright's Wet Dream album called Mediterranean C note. When the track got on the air, one of the self-proclaimed radical managers peeped in the studio. "Is that Pink Floyd?", he snarled. I confessed that his guess was close enough. "I have had a Pink Floyd period in my life as well...", he sighed as if it had been an ugly disease he recently got rid off. Then he strayed away probably contemplating the fact that the Cultural Revolution was still a long way to go with revisionist buggers like Felix Atagong.
A while later I was put on the graveyard shift where I met this bloke who mixed (hard) rock, (vintage) blues, jazz and folk in one radio show and who also happened to be a very big Floyd fan. He taught me that you could actually appreciate different styles of music and introduced me to sounds I had never heard before. Nearly 25 years later the first bands I stored on my iPod Nano were The Beach Boys and Iron Maiden. They fit nice together.
For those that have never been on my MySpace spot - can't blame you for that, actually - I will hereafter give my iPod 2007 Greatest Hits list:
- Manik Shamanik (System 7)
- Hello (I Love You) (Roger Waters)
- God Only Knows (The Beach Boys)
- Le Soleil Est Pres De Moi (Air)
- Message From The Country (The Move)
- Burning Of The Midnight Lamp (Rotary Connection)
- Perpetual Dawn (Ultrabass II) (The Orb)
- Country Girl: Whiskey Boot Hill/Down, Down, Down/Country Girl (I Think You're Pretty) (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
- Wouldn't It Be Nice (The Beach Boys)
- I Think I'm Paranoid (Garbage)
2007. Last year's iPod statistics were biased, to say the least, because for the first few months my player practically lived on a Pet Sounds Iron Maiden diet. When I finally had enough tracks on my iPod to put the thing on random play the distance between the first dozen of high-ranking records and the rest was so big that only minor changes would take place from month to month. And of course I cheated as well by listening four times in a row to Roger Waters' Hello (I Love You), without doubt the best track he recorded in the last two decades or by making System 7's Manik Shamanik my morning train wake up tune.
2008. With 700 tunes transferred to my pc (still several thousands to go) I have decided to give only pure chance a chance. Starting from the first of January, well actually a few days later, I let the Nano shuffle menu decide what songs to pick as a kind of experiment in iPod randomness. At the end of the year I will know what the apple scruffs had in store for me.
The technical geeky stuff
Although the iPod is set to random the synchronisation between player and pc isn't.
As my hard disk contains more tracks than my player, and new tracks will be added on a regular basis, only a selection of tunes will be uploaded / deleted whenever I charge the battery. Some songs will have a bigger chance to stay on the pod than others or to put it into Orwellian terms: all tracks are equal but some tracks are more equal than others.
iTunes has this nice ability called Smart Playlists. I have created 7 playlists that are automatically updated whenever I synchronise. You can stop reading here if you want, the next is really boring:
Popular. This playlist contains the 50 most popular tracks. As I did a reset on the first of January this list started filling itself with each song that was randomly chosen by my iPod player from the other playlists. These debuting 50 songs may have a statistical advantage, as they will be picked up at the next synchronisation. And the next. And the next...
Confused, Wait till you read the rest of this chapter. I'm only starting...
Antiques. This playlist contains the 50 'oldest' tracks of my collection, sorted by the date I last listened to them. Basically this list was made to create a rotation schedule and to make sure that every song in my collection will be played from time to time. As my iPod statistics were reset on the first of January this list was empty to begin with. I found it amusing when I observed that this list started to fill itself after all places in Popular (see above) had been taken. The 50 songs on this list may have a statistical advantage as well, although that effect may wear off later in the year.
New. The title says it all, doesn't it? This list contains 50 songs that have never been played before. As everything was reset in January this means that all songs in my collection carry the 'new' flag. Recently added songs have an advantage, which makes sense, if you ask me.
Zero rating. In the beginning I didn't bother to rank my songs with the 5 star system iTunes offers. Only in October I meticulously started giving points. This list contains 100 tunes that haven't got points next to their name. As more and more songs will get a ranking - I check every tune that passes the pod - this list will get less and less important. When I write this 145 songs out of 701 haven't got a rating yet.
Three Stars. This list contains maximum 60 tunes that have a 3 stars ranking. This list is unique, meaning that songs appearing here do not appear in any other list. Counting at 58 it is almost full.
Four Stars. This list contains maximum 80 tunes that have a 4 stars ranking. This list is unique, meaning that songs appearing here do not appear in any other list. It is complete.
Five Stars. This list contains maximum 100 tunes that have a 5 stars ranking. This list is unique, meaning that songs appearing here do not appear in any other list. For the moment it only contains 59 songs.
So what about one and two stars?
I use the 1 star to rank songs that may safely be deleted from iTunes. In other words, these are garbage. Not Garbage of course, whose I think I'm paranoid rates 5 stars, has made the 2007 top 10 list but has utterly failed to be chosen.
Two star songs are bad, but not bad enough to be deleted. They will only appear on the Antiques list, unless of course they happen to creep into the Popular list. To my disgust three 2 star songs are in the top-pop list. The random generator picked Hey Stoopid by Alice Cooper (actually that songs merits a two and a half ranking), the syrupy Gary Moore ballad Separate Ways (yuck!) and the truly horrific Nip it In The Bud by the B52's. These will haunt me for the rest of the year.
That reminds me. I still have to upload Lynton Kwesi Johnson. Just for old times sake.
Note: I just remarked that the above mentioned Rick Wright Fan Site (that I found when writing this post) uses one of my entries on Wikipedia. Neat, not! It takes a thief to catch another one, I guess. Back to text.
If you liked this post - you might be interested in this one as well: iPod December Stats
20080131
iPod Random Generator January 2008
Entry 368
Also in 2008 my MySpace page will contain some useless iPod statistics. This year however my iPod will always stay in shuffle mode, in others words: the machine will decide what songs will be played. For more information: Random Blueß aka sucking for statistics.
At the end of each month I will publish the ten most popular songs of the year and the ten most popular songs of the past month.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in 2008 go to http://www.myspace.com/atagong.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in January, go to the MySpace blog section.
If you liked this post - you might be interested in this one as well: Random Blueß aka sucking for statistics
20080301
iPod Random Generator February 2008
Entry 424
Also in 2008 my MySpace page will contain some useless iPod statistics. This year however my iPod will always stay in shuffle mode, in others words: the machine will decide what songs will be played. For more information: Random Blueß aka sucking for statistics.
At the end of each month I will publish the ten most popular songs of the year and the ten most popular songs of the past month.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in 2008 go to http://www.myspace.com/atagong.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in February, go to the MySpace blog section.
If you liked this post - you might be interested in this one as well: iPod Random Generator January 2008
20080331
iPod Random Generator March 2008
Entry 569
Also in 2008 my MySpace page will contain some useless iPod statistics. This year however my iPod will always stay in shuffle mode, in others words: the machine will decide what songs will be played. For more information: Random Blueß aka sucking for statistics.
At the end of each month I will publish the ten most popular songs of the year and the ten most popular songs of the past month.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in 2008 go to http://www.myspace.com/atagong.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in March, go to the MySpace blog section.
If you liked this post - you might be interested in this one as well: iPod Random Generator February 2008.
20080430
iPod Random Generator April 2008
Entry 762
Also in 2008 my MySpace page will contain some useless iPod statistics. This year however my iPod will always stay in shuffle mode, in others words: the machine will decide what songs will be played. For more information: Random Blueß aka sucking for statistics.
At the end of each month I will publish the ten most popular songs of the year and the ten most popular songs of the past month.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in 2008 go to http://www.myspace.com/atagong.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in April, go to the MySpace blog section.
If you liked this post - you might be interested in this one as well: iPod Random Generator March 2008
20080601
iPod Random Generator May 2008
Entry 822
Also in 2008 my MySpace page will contain some useless iPod statistics. This year however my iPod will always stay in shuffle mode, in others words: the machine will decide what songs will be played. For more information: Random Blueß aka sucking for statistics.
At the end of each month I will publish the ten most popular songs of the year and the ten most popular songs of the past month.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in 2008 go to http://www.myspace.com/atagong.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in May, go to the MySpace blog section.
If you liked this post - you might be interested in this one as well: iPod Random Generator April 2008
20080630
iPod Random Generator June 2008
Entry 871
Also in 2008 my MySpace page will contain some useless iPod statistics. This year however my iPod will always stay in shuffle mode, in others words: the machine will decide what songs will be played. For more information: Random Blueß aka sucking for statistics.
At the end of each month I will publish the ten most popular songs of the year and the ten most popular songs of the past month.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in 2008 go to http://www.myspace.com/atagong.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in June, go to the MySpace blog section.
If you liked this post - you might be interested in this one as well: iPod Random Generator May 2008
20080801
iPod Random Generator July 2008
Entry 907
Also in 2008 my MySpace page will contain some useless iPod statistics. This year however my iPod will always stay in shuffle mode, in others words: the machine will decide what songs will be played. For more information: Random Blueß aka sucking for statistics.
At the end of each month I will publish the ten most popular songs of the year and the ten most popular songs of the past month.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in 2008 go to http://www.myspace.com/atagong.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in July, go to the MySpace blog section.
If you liked this post - you might be interested in this one as well: iPod Random Generator June 2008
20080831
iPod Random Generator August 2008
Entry 965
Also in 2008 my MySpace page will contain some useless iPod statistics. This year however my iPod will always stay in shuffle mode, in others words: the machine will decide what songs will be played. For more information: Random Blueß aka sucking for statistics.
At the end of each month I will publish the ten most popular songs of the year and the ten most popular songs of the past month.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in 2008 go to http://www.myspace.com/atagong.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in August, go to the MySpace blog section.
If you liked this post - you might be interested in this one as well: iPod Random Generator July 2008
20080930
iPod Random Generator September 2008
Entry 1024
Also in 2008 my MySpace page will contain some useless iPod statistics. This year however my iPod will always stay in shuffle mode, in others words: the machine will decide what songs will be played. For more information: Random Blueß aka sucking for statistics.
At the end of each month I will publish the ten most popular songs of the year and the ten most popular songs of the past month.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in 2008 go to http://www.myspace.com/atagong.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in September, go to the MySpace blog section.
If you liked this post - you might be interested in this one as well: iPod Random Generator August 2008
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