The Gadget Show #7
Kirk McElhearn’s recent book, iPod & iTunes Garage, is the music lover’s guide to the gadget. Which is the reverse of the norm for a technical how-to. Usually you’ll find a pure geek writing the book, occasionally throwing in items about music. That’s not the case with this guide, which focuses on how to use the iPod and iTunes literally from the point of view of a music lover.
After reading the book, I had the pleasure of spending several hours on the weekend speaking with Kirk via Skype. Kirk is also responsible for a batch of other technical books and certainly knows his stuff. However, we had to narrow the focus for the podcast and we get into the nitty gritty of iPods and digital music. It was great fun, and you’ll hear his passion for music. I’ve taken a rain check on catching up with him again about some of his future books.
We also have a special prize for listeners. Answer the question in the podcast by sending an email to me, and the first three correct answers will be sent a copy of the book for free.
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The Gadget Show #7 - 6th April 2005 (01hr 13min 38sec): MP3 - 25.4MB
TIME
00:00 Network intro.
01:05 Welcome to Kirk McElhearn.
01:50 The books Kirk has written, How to Do Everything with Mac OS X Panther, Mastering Mac OS X, The Mac OS X Command Line: Unix Under the Hood, Microsoft Office v. X for Mac Inside Out, MacWorld, TidBits, iPod Lounge, and his blog.
02:00 How Kirk got into Macs, and his PowerBook 100.
04:30 iPod & iTunes Garage, his latest book, and how he came to write it, and the Garage series.
09:35 Dr. Michael Bull, Socialologist at the University of Sussex, and his thoughts on the social impact of the iPod.
11:40 The Pressman TC-D5.
12:30 Music on Kirk’s iPod and his CD collection.
14:20 Which bands does Kirk love.
18:15 Growing up in New York.
21:10 Why is the iPod and iTunes so successful.
25:35 Smart Playlists.
27:35 What’s some amazing things that the iPod has been used for.
32:10 Audioscrobbler.
33:15 The digital music revolution and the radio.
35:02 ARIA’s recent announcement blaiming broadband and Alex Malik’s research showing less CD choice.
36:30 The legal use of the internet for distributing music.
38:10 Brad Sucks and the internet as a tool for bands online.
44:45 No fair use act in Australia and the blank media tax in France.
48:40 Digital Rights Management.
53:58 Dave Slusher’s : The Future of Music podcast at IT Conversations, and the different models for music sales in the future.
56:40 Bit rates and audio compression formats like MP3 and AAC.
59:45 Audible.
61:20 Tips for extending the iPod’s battery life.
65:27 Kirk’s favourite gadgets, a Logitech USB P-1025A Headset for iChat and Skype, Griffin PowerMate (Kirk’s article on the PowerMate), Airport Express, stereo, speakers, headsets, etc.
71:23 iPod and iTunes Garage book give away competition.
72:30 Thanks.
April 7th, 2005 at 10:54 am
I have 3 noname tiawanese/chinese/hongkongese(?), don’t know where they were made 512mb and 1gb mp3 players. They all commence playback from where machine turned off. They all play mp3 and wma but not aac. BTW I have owned various versions of these little players for over 2 years now. I have a couple of earlier 256mb mp3 players too and they all came with grey/white earphones. These players were around before itunes.
April 7th, 2005 at 12:29 pm
Hi Mike
The question is. If you play an MP3 or WMA file, then go and play another MP3 or WMA file, can you go back to the first one from where you left off?
Richard
April 9th, 2005 at 3:11 pm
hey Rich I listened to #7 while cleaning the house today! Great interview, well done. I bought my 40G iPod last August before a month long trip to Europe. I knew I’d be taking my Canon 300D camera and taking loads of photos and I didn’t want to take a laptop with me, so I used the iPod with a smartmedia reader to transfer each day’s photos off of the CF cards and onto the iPod for long-term storage until we got back to Oz! Worked a charm. I hadn’t heard of Audio Scrobbler so I’m looking forward to checking it out too! Keep up the excellent work dude!
April 10th, 2005 at 9:38 pm
Thanks Cam!!
I could have done with the media reader when I went on month long Honeymoon a couple of years ago. In fact the camera shop where I bought my Canon was desperate for that type of technology, because they admitted they sell a shed load of iPods! We took way more than the 256MB card could handle, and the costs to burn them to CD were obscene. Now I’d be buying myself a reader before any major trip.
June 29th, 2005 at 11:46 am
[…] know if people would use the feature. Let me know in the comments. Kirk McElhearn, who I interviewed a few months back, has written a great article at iPodlounge. T […]