Lunatic Weblog

My previous trip to Yogyakarta was a perfect opportunity to test out the performance of my iPod Shuffle. Now I can happily say there’s no regret buying it.

The battery life is awesome, 10 hours+! To compare, my previous iPod Touch could only last 8 hours playing music with screen off and my w910i could do about the same. Ten fricking hours! It managed to entertain me from Denpasar to East Java (died when I almost reached Klaten or something like that).

Turns our that having a walkman phone is not such a good idea after all if we’re talking about battery life. Sure my phone could survive the 16 hours bus ride from Denpasar to Yogyakarta on standby mode, but it won’t last that long playing music. The next phone I’m getting is a camera phone or a smart phone, definitely not a walkman phone.

And oh, I finally figured out that the Shuffle can’t read Korean characters (yet?).

Last night I bought a third generation iPod Shuffle just for the heck of it. Yes that one with the VoiceOver feature, it’s pretty cool. First thing I noticed was the tiny size, not even half of the previous generation.

In the package: iPod Shuffle, headset with remote controller, USB adapter. See that short and sweet USB adapter? It’s about bloody time Apple made it that way. The previous one I had (2nd generation Shuffle) has a ginormous dock and long-ass cable. Good job.

The headset somehow feels smoother than the previous one (compared to iPod Nano’s headset too) and the remote controller is easy to click. The clip is strong, I’ve clipped the Shuffle to my jacket’s side pocket for a 30+ minutes ride (approximately 70kmh) and it grips firmly. Nice.

This 3rd generation iPod Shuffle is the first Shuffle supporting multiple playlist, the previous ones were just put-em-all-in-and-shuffle type. The remote controller functions are:

• Single click to play/pause.
• Double click to skip track aka next.
• Triple click to go back to previous track.
• Press and hold briefly to announce the now playing track. We’ll talk about this a bit later.
• Press until you hear a tone (it’s a mild beep) and then release to announce the playlist list. When you hear the desired playlist name, single click to play it.

Sounds complicated? Wait until you get a hands-on on this thing. Very easy to get used to.

VoiceOver is most highlighted feature and it is, indeed, very cool. When first connecting the iPod to the computer, the VoiceOver is not activated. You need to download the VoiceOver Kit to make Shuffle talks properly, iTunes will prompt you to download this from inside iTunes. Worry not my friends, it’s very easy and infact, automated. However if you decide to turn the feature off, or simply not connected to internet at the moment, the VoiceOver will still run but the voice library is limited to “playlist one, playlist two and so on”. That happened to me last night.

After downloading the VoiceOver Kit, Shuffle will be able to announce the tracks and playlist names properly. I was wondering if the VoiceOver was able to announce foreign characters so I built this playlist to test it out.

1. Insomnia by Wheesung, Shuffle announced it as “Insomnia”. Not sure why it skips announcing the korean characters, perhaps it can’t read it?
2. Simple and Clean by Utada Hikaru,  Shuffle announced it as “Simple and clean, Utada Hikaru”, the voice is different with the main voice, it was a voice of a Japanese woman.
3. Domenica by Shimatani Hitomi. Shuffle also got this one right with the Japanese woman voice.
4. Why by Ayaka, also announced correctly.
5. Do’i by Kangen Band, (don’t ask where I got it), announced weirdly as expected. Imagine a bule saying that :p

All in all, this third generation iPod Shuffle is a work of art. Small, easy to use, serves exactly as it should (as an mp3 player, not a fully functional personal assistant like the iPod Touch) and it comes with just the right capacity: 4GB.

The only downsides are:

• No control on the Shuffle itself is very cool, but it’s a friggin pain in the ass knowing that I can’t use other headphones for it. Well technically you can, but you can’t skip tracks, switch playlist and so on, shucks. The headphones cost IDR 369.900 at the moment on Apple Store.
• It is expensive. If you wanted to buy just a usual mp3 player with 4 gigs capacity you can get one from IDR 500K (5 gigs, sorry.)

Even though it’s expensive I’d say if you want one then go for it. You might will be broke after, but the joy of having the coolest tiniest mp3 player around is worth it :p

I need recommendation.

You see, my desktop is a bit dull. I was so used to seeing Leopard’s Grass Blades but now I’m sick of it, I need something new. This whole day I’ve been trying to use every single image in my DeviantArt collection to no avail, nothing seems to look good enough :(

What’s your desktop wallpaper, guys? Care to share?

BTW this is bening’s wallpaper. Um.. meh :))

Just a quick rant about Apple.

The MacBook, it’s a book

If using Mac OSX is as easy as they say, why the heck do we need a thick book to learn how to use it? And if it’s so invulnerable to whatsoeverish, then why does this site exist?

On the MacBook Air..

The MacBook Air, anorexic notebook

Sure it has tons of features, installing things and lots of others can be done wirelessly. But enlight me, please, how on earth can we install the operating system in it? External hard drive? Meaning extra stuffs to carry, not so mobile to me.

If I had an extra $1,799 I’d buy some other things. Like.. a small island of salt near Madura.

Apple fans, no offense, I’m just envying you guys. Perhaps it’s because the lack of successful rate on me installing Leopard on  C 3430. My 80 Gigs just can’t stand the Time Machine :(