A Lunascope. Screw wasting our time with piddling Terrascopes that are subject to all sorts of crappy conditions, interference, etc. Just suck it up, make the capital outlay among a bunch of nations, and plant a sucker on the far side of the moon. You know we could do it remotely with rockets, etc. and have this thing kicking it in no time.
I submitted a story to Slashdot not a week ago talking about the state of home NAS in general, and requesting input from the Slashdot community. That story covered the Mirra AND a bunch of alternative solutions, discussed the pros and cons of them briefly, etc.
But instead we get an article talking about the dead on arrival Mirra... in detail... which we've had before. I guess Slashdot doesn't like stories that don't sell product. You guys selling a lot of Mirra units Taco? How much Mirra stock does the article poster have?
It's an NAS Back-up system. The Mirra can't be used as a network drop or accessed directly by the owner. Its only function is as a backup system working with the client software installed by the user.
Very limited, very stupid, and it is also horribly slow.
My thoughts exactly. The concept is nice, but there is no way you're going to get joe consumer or joe "tech-savvy" consumer to plop down $400 for a back-up that:
1) Takes a glacial amount of time to run (first run is apparently horrendous, but even the incremental back-ups are supposedly laughably slow)
2) Can ONLY take software driven HD back-ups, and cannot serve as a file server/network drop (yeah, that's right, sucks doesn't it?)
I saw a more critical review of the product that discussed testing, etc.
I've been dealing with this now since I really need back-up for my FLAC collection, want it on my network, and need flexibility. You would think that this would be easy... but it seems like no one can figure out how to make a stripped down hard drive with a bare OS for $200.
However, of all the ones I've looked at I will say that the Tritton 120gb NAS hard drive come's REAAAAALLLy close. You can read about it here:
And in other news: Pakistan is planning a Venus landing by 2009! And last I heard Cambodia is bouncing back from Pol Pot and is planning to resettle all the former Khmer Rouge on Mars byt 2010!
I mean seriously, WTF is the deal with all these HUUUUUGE announcements? These countries (China, India, et al) have larger problems than the lack of a space program, don't have the resources to actually fund OR launch these programs (over half of india can't READ!), etc.
We may have to see this kind of never gonna happen tripe in the normal media, but can't we at least keep it off places like Slashdot?
I mean come ON, how many free rides does Apple get? I like Apple, they have great designers, but don't you think it's kind of retarded to give best invention/product to a product that is, in essence, just a rip off on numerous products already made? Not only that, but don't you think its a sad statement on Apple AND The industry if we give props to a program that is neither original nor all that great?
I mean let's see here. First you have the annoying fact that iTunes is sooooooo horribly limited from a technology perspective. AIFF is the testicle sweat of codecs, AAC is just Apple's way of invading your womb, mp3 is a blind man's bluff, and (jump back) IT HAS WAV CAPABILITY. Hold the phones, get Sony circa 1982 on the phone, WE CAN RECORD A CD IN A 20 YEAR OLD FORMAT! Point is I don't consider a measly four options for codecs very good, especially when adding in the rest is literally point and click.
But, you say, I have the iTunes store! You sure do partner, but its kind of a one way trip since AAC files are a pain to convert out of AAC (see capturing audio) and you can't shop anywhere else with iTunes. Yeah, nothing like the glorious method of using one product to force use of a second product, eh? Wait a second, that sounds like a similar plot I saw someone in Redmond try!;)
From just a format perspective, how about the fact that winamp5 has like 10 codecs (haven't looked, but it supports everything I've trried including WAV, MP3, OGG, FLAC, etc.). True, I like the iTunes interface a lot more, but the program itself is more robust in winamp than iTunes.
So basically the grand point here is that unless you use an iPod iTunes isn't required reading, and while the program is snazzy it isn't necessarily the best and is definitely not original.
I'm not misinformed at all. Assuming that the iPod doesn't have an equal amount of flash media to write the whole damned drive to memory at some point the arm moves to read data to play. When it moves it is a HAIRS breadth from the platter, a platter that is moving at high speed as well I might add.
ANyway, it isn't a stretch to imagine a knock or bump causing the arm to move/snap/hit the platter, totally fragging the drive and making your player a paperweight.
Of course if you don't believe me just copy 2gb of data on your computer and hit the hard drive a few times with your fist while its writing the data.
Just seems stupid to risk destroying a $500 device like that. Hard drives are sensitive devices prone to damage. Once we have holographic media the point will be moot, but until then...
-rt
I think you've been bamboozled. So your audio collection comprises a grand total of 2.4 Compact Discs? A normal album with WAV files comes to about 675mb, and that works out to about 2.4 CDs. Or did you mean lossy mp3s ripped at a crappy rate to squeeze them down, totally undermining the music quality (which is pronounced when played on anything but crappy headphones)?
Point being that yes, I could squeeze my 175-200 CDs down pretty well too, but at the bit rate I'd have to use they would suck. Why on earth would you want to listen to music you paid good money for in such a horrible format and sound?
If you rip your music in mp3 at CD quality (192kbps) you come to about 70mb per CD. At that rate the mini-iPod will hold about 20 CDs. I'm assuming you have more than that in your collection? If so you'll need to go with a lower rate that undermines the sound quality.
Point being that I think you'll find that once you have your music highly compressed and listen to the music of others at better formats you'll find yourself wanting more room for bigger files. I think you'll also find that you run out of space faster than you can possibly imagine, and that the 1.5 gb indicated isn't nearly enough if you plan on making this player your central music repository.
But then again I'm an audiophile with sensitive hearing, so maybe I'm just more sensitive than you are.
-rt
I think it really depends on what you want your player for. I know for a fact that the line in feature of the iRiver is much better, and that it is the preferred choice of most serious musicians who need a budget device.
However, having reviewed all these products pretty thoroughly it is my personal opinion that the Rio is better (hence the reason I bought one). The reasons?
1) POWER: Real world battery of 13 hours vs. 7 hours (lab tested)
2) CODECS: Support for ALL media formats (yes, FLAC and OGG aren't everywhere, but they are superior and likely eventually will be, so why would I rip to less now and have more work later?)
3) PRICE: The Rio can be had for $299 (or less), while the iPod is $100 more.
4) WEIGHT: The Rio is 1oz lighter than a comparable iPod. Doesn't seem like much till you remember that's like 1/6 the total weight.
5) SMALLER: Rio is square and a bit thicker, but overall smaller with the same size screen.
6) DHCP SUPPORT: Rio base station is ethernet ready (plug and play, literally) while the iPod isn't.
7) SOFTWARE OPTIONS: iTunes is good, but again no support beyond basic formats. Your also locked into Apple entirely.
I'm STILL not happy about things like the Rio having a fixed battery like the iPod. I'm also not happy that it doesn't have a line-out port; I mean WTH can it cost to tack on a simple line-out port so I don't have to deal with volume discrepancies?!?
However, all told the number of gains with teh Rio over the Ipod was pretty substantial, and enough to make it a clear winner for me. True, the iPod is slick and in keeping with the art deco resurection that seems to be everywhere (goes well with a motorola v60), but design alone doesn't outweigh all the other stuff and the Rio is pretty snazzy too.
My Rio Karma has 20gb, cost the same as your iRiver iGP-100, and is both smaller and lighter. Oh, and did I mention its not only OGG but FLAC compatible?
-rt
Having just reviewed this tech space I'm kind of amazed at this device. Why on earth would Apple make it, and who the hell do they expect to bu it?
The strength of the HD player market is that it allows people to digitize whole catalogs of music to take anywhere in a small form factor. it offers both physical and non-physical value. However, the wealness is the durability of the media, as I recollect each time i see some moron jogging or working out with a HD based player (can you say platter + arm = sensitive?).
The strength of smaller flash based mp3 players is exactly the opposite. While they have much smaller storage capacities their media is WAAAAAY more durable, easier to power, and instant on lightning response.
My honest opinion is that, assuming Apple is using an HD in this micro-player since flash would be way more than $111, they are making a classic boondoggle yet again (I seem to remember this one before in their laptop division). They are attacking the middle with a device that partially meets the needs of two groups. The problem is that those two groups are already well served by the products in the other segments, so they will see no reason to buy this player.
The folks who don't care about size but want something small, fast, and durable will pick up an mp3 player for half what apple sells this thing for.
The people who want to take their music everywhere but don't want to pay Apple's laughable prices (I mean really, I could buy a new machine for the price of that stupid little thing) will buy a Rio Karma or something (which has more features, is smaller, is lighter, and costs less).
And the folks who need to show their artistic individuality and hipster status will buy the same $500 iPod as the all the other hipster posers.
Now give me an 80gb media server for that price and then we'll talk.
-rt
Slashdot Mirror
A Lunascope. Screw wasting our time with piddling Terrascopes that are subject to all sorts of crappy conditions, interference, etc. Just suck it up, make the capital outlay among a bunch of nations, and plant a sucker on the far side of the moon. You know we could do it remotely with rockets, etc. and have this thing kicking it in no time.
-rt
I submitted a story to Slashdot not a week ago talking about the state of home NAS in general, and requesting input from the Slashdot community. That story covered the Mirra AND a bunch of alternative solutions, discussed the pros and cons of them briefly, etc.
But instead we get an article talking about the dead on arrival Mirra... in detail... which we've had before. I guess Slashdot doesn't like stories that don't sell product. You guys selling a lot of Mirra units Taco? How much Mirra stock does the article poster have?
-rt
It's an NAS Back-up system. The Mirra can't be used as a network drop or accessed directly by the owner. Its only function is as a backup system working with the client software installed by the user.
Very limited, very stupid, and it is also horribly slow.
-rt
My thoughts exactly. The concept is nice, but there is no way you're going to get joe consumer or joe "tech-savvy" consumer to plop down $400 for a back-up that:
9 60 &loc=10995
1) Takes a glacial amount of time to run (first run is apparently horrendous, but even the incremental back-ups are supposedly laughably slow)
2) Can ONLY take software driven HD back-ups, and cannot serve as a file server/network drop (yeah, that's right, sucks doesn't it?)
I saw a more critical review of the product that discussed testing, etc.
I've been dealing with this now since I really need back-up for my FLAC collection, want it on my network, and need flexibility. You would think that this would be easy... but it seems like no one can figure out how to make a stripped down hard drive with a bare OS for $200.
However, of all the ones I've looked at I will say that the Tritton 120gb NAS hard drive come's REAAAAALLLy close. You can read about it here:
http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=10351
(their web site is apparently down)
-rt
And in other news: Pakistan is planning a Venus landing by 2009! And last I heard Cambodia is bouncing back from Pol Pot and is planning to resettle all the former Khmer Rouge on Mars byt 2010!
I mean seriously, WTF is the deal with all these HUUUUUGE announcements? These countries (China, India, et al) have larger problems than the lack of a space program, don't have the resources to actually fund OR launch these programs (over half of india can't READ!), etc.
We may have to see this kind of never gonna happen tripe in the normal media, but can't we at least keep it off places like Slashdot?
-rt
I mean come ON, how many free rides does Apple get? I like Apple, they have great designers, but don't you think it's kind of retarded to give best invention/product to a product that is, in essence, just a rip off on numerous products already made? Not only that, but don't you think its a sad statement on Apple AND The industry if we give props to a program that is neither original nor all that great?
I mean let's see here. First you have the annoying fact that iTunes is sooooooo horribly limited from a technology perspective. AIFF is the testicle sweat of codecs, AAC is just Apple's way of invading your womb, mp3 is a blind man's bluff, and (jump back) IT HAS WAV CAPABILITY. Hold the phones, get Sony circa 1982 on the phone, WE CAN RECORD A CD IN A 20 YEAR OLD FORMAT! Point is I don't consider a measly four options for codecs very good, especially when adding in the rest is literally point and click.
But, you say, I have the iTunes store! You sure do partner, but its kind of a one way trip since AAC files are a pain to convert out of AAC (see capturing audio) and you can't shop anywhere else with iTunes. Yeah, nothing like the glorious method of using one product to force use of a second product, eh? Wait a second, that sounds like a similar plot I saw someone in Redmond try!
From just a format perspective, how about the fact that winamp5 has like 10 codecs (haven't looked, but it supports everything I've trried including WAV, MP3, OGG, FLAC, etc.). True, I like the iTunes interface a lot more, but the program itself is more robust in winamp than iTunes.
So basically the grand point here is that unless you use an iPod iTunes isn't required reading, and while the program is snazzy it isn't necessarily the best and is definitely not original.
-rt
I'm not misinformed at all. Assuming that the iPod doesn't have an equal amount of flash media to write the whole damned drive to memory at some point the arm moves to read data to play. When it moves it is a HAIRS breadth from the platter, a platter that is moving at high speed as well I might add. ANyway, it isn't a stretch to imagine a knock or bump causing the arm to move/snap/hit the platter, totally fragging the drive and making your player a paperweight. Of course if you don't believe me just copy 2gb of data on your computer and hit the hard drive a few times with your fist while its writing the data. Just seems stupid to risk destroying a $500 device like that. Hard drives are sensitive devices prone to damage. Once we have holographic media the point will be moot, but until then... -rt
I think you've been bamboozled. So your audio collection comprises a grand total of 2.4 Compact Discs? A normal album with WAV files comes to about 675mb, and that works out to about 2.4 CDs. Or did you mean lossy mp3s ripped at a crappy rate to squeeze them down, totally undermining the music quality (which is pronounced when played on anything but crappy headphones)? Point being that yes, I could squeeze my 175-200 CDs down pretty well too, but at the bit rate I'd have to use they would suck. Why on earth would you want to listen to music you paid good money for in such a horrible format and sound? If you rip your music in mp3 at CD quality (192kbps) you come to about 70mb per CD. At that rate the mini-iPod will hold about 20 CDs. I'm assuming you have more than that in your collection? If so you'll need to go with a lower rate that undermines the sound quality. Point being that I think you'll find that once you have your music highly compressed and listen to the music of others at better formats you'll find yourself wanting more room for bigger files. I think you'll also find that you run out of space faster than you can possibly imagine, and that the 1.5 gb indicated isn't nearly enough if you plan on making this player your central music repository. But then again I'm an audiophile with sensitive hearing, so maybe I'm just more sensitive than you are. -rt
I think it really depends on what you want your player for. I know for a fact that the line in feature of the iRiver is much better, and that it is the preferred choice of most serious musicians who need a budget device.
However, having reviewed all these products pretty thoroughly it is my personal opinion that the Rio is better (hence the reason I bought one). The reasons?
1) POWER: Real world battery of 13 hours vs. 7 hours (lab tested)
2) CODECS: Support for ALL media formats (yes, FLAC and OGG aren't everywhere, but they are superior and likely eventually will be, so why would I rip to less now and have more work later?)
3) PRICE: The Rio can be had for $299 (or less), while the iPod is $100 more.
4) WEIGHT: The Rio is 1oz lighter than a comparable iPod. Doesn't seem like much till you remember that's like 1/6 the total weight.
5) SMALLER: Rio is square and a bit thicker, but overall smaller with the same size screen.
6) DHCP SUPPORT: Rio base station is ethernet ready (plug and play, literally) while the iPod isn't.
7) SOFTWARE OPTIONS: iTunes is good, but again no support beyond basic formats. Your also locked into Apple entirely.
I'm STILL not happy about things like the Rio having a fixed battery like the iPod. I'm also not happy that it doesn't have a line-out port; I mean WTH can it cost to tack on a simple line-out port so I don't have to deal with volume discrepancies?!?
However, all told the number of gains with teh Rio over the Ipod was pretty substantial, and enough to make it a clear winner for me. True, the iPod is slick and in keeping with the art deco resurection that seems to be everywhere (goes well with a motorola v60), but design alone doesn't outweigh all the other stuff and the Rio is pretty snazzy too.
-rt
My Rio Karma has 20gb, cost the same as your iRiver iGP-100, and is both smaller and lighter. Oh, and did I mention its not only OGG but FLAC compatible? -rt
Having just reviewed this tech space I'm kind of amazed at this device. Why on earth would Apple make it, and who the hell do they expect to bu it? The strength of the HD player market is that it allows people to digitize whole catalogs of music to take anywhere in a small form factor. it offers both physical and non-physical value. However, the wealness is the durability of the media, as I recollect each time i see some moron jogging or working out with a HD based player (can you say platter + arm = sensitive?). The strength of smaller flash based mp3 players is exactly the opposite. While they have much smaller storage capacities their media is WAAAAAY more durable, easier to power, and instant on lightning response. My honest opinion is that, assuming Apple is using an HD in this micro-player since flash would be way more than $111, they are making a classic boondoggle yet again (I seem to remember this one before in their laptop division). They are attacking the middle with a device that partially meets the needs of two groups. The problem is that those two groups are already well served by the products in the other segments, so they will see no reason to buy this player. The folks who don't care about size but want something small, fast, and durable will pick up an mp3 player for half what apple sells this thing for. The people who want to take their music everywhere but don't want to pay Apple's laughable prices (I mean really, I could buy a new machine for the price of that stupid little thing) will buy a Rio Karma or something (which has more features, is smaller, is lighter, and costs less). And the folks who need to show their artistic individuality and hipster status will buy the same $500 iPod as the all the other hipster posers. Now give me an 80gb media server for that price and then we'll talk. -rt