Home
In this issue
Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review April 20, 2007 / 2 Iyar, 5767

Getting More From Your iPod

By Mark Kellner

Printer Friendly Version
Email this article

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | When even the competition's cheerleaders endorse you, it's a good sign: the editors of "Maximum PC" magazine, one of the more passionate of Windows PC journals, voted in favor of Apple, Inc.'s iTunes music service over Microsoft Corp.'s Zune Live service, even though they said the music quality of both firm's recordings was a tad lacking.


But for iTunes music to be truly portable, you need an Apple, Inc. iPod , which is five and one-half years old and which, as of last week, has sold 100 million units. Not bad for any consumer device, and certainly not bad in such a relatively short period of time.


How can users get more from their iPods? A couple of add-on devices from a Miami, Florida, firm, Xtreme Accessories , online at www.xtrememac.com, can help.


One of the most sensible is the Airplay Boost , a $39.95 device for the newest iPod Nano devices, which transmits audio via FM to your car stereo. Two features distinguish the Airplay Boost from similar units: an "external" antenna, which increases transmission strength and audio quality, and no power adapter: it runs on the iPod's power, though you can add an optional, sold-separately $19.95 car power adapter if desired.


The Airplay Boost has built-in software that displays setup options on the iPod's screen; installation is quick and easy. I like both the concept and the execution. A version for the larger, video iPods is available for $10 more. Either is an excellent choice.


More valuable, to me at least, is the $59.95 MicroMemo , a plug-in voice recorder for the iPod. Clip it to your iPod (my test unit was a 2 Gigabyte Nano), and you're ready to record memos, lectures or interviews.


At the "low," or default, level setting, you can supposedly get 12 hours of recording from an iPod such as the one I used; go up to a 60 Gigabyte iPod with Video and that jumps to 348 hours. Use the software to record at "high" quality and you drop down to 3 hours on the Nano and 98 hours on the larger iPod.


However you decide to record, the sound quality is very, very good. I went through a couple of interviews using the MicroMemo, and the sound was good enough, in my opinion, to qualify for use in an audio podcast , even at the "low" setting. Purists may scoff - or suggest that an optional wired microphone be attached - but I was mightily impressed with the sound quality. Working from the iPod to transcribe my notes wasn't difficult; the iPod's "jog wheel" control made incremental "rewinds" easy.


I can't recommend the MicroMemo highly enough. Oh, and you can keep the sound base attached to the iPod and switch out the microphone for headphones, if you desire; just flip a switch on the bottom of the MicroMemo unit.


ONE LAST SHOUT-OUT TO APPLE: I had an experience with a Mac last week unlike anything I've experienced in roughly a quarter-century of microcomputer use. For reasons unknown, my copy of Apple's Safari Web browser vanished from the iMac I'm using. After a mild panic - Safari is part of the Mac OS X operating system and not available as a separate download - I merely reinstalled the OS, and Safari returned, WITH my settings and Web site "bookmarks" in place. The reinstallation made a backup of the old OS, which I could easily discard once all was back to normal.


This is about as close to a "self-healing" operating system as I've seen. Would that other OSes were as forgiving.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Mark Kellner has reported on technology for industry newspapers and magazines since 1983, and has been the computer columnist for The Washington Times since 1991.Comment by clicking here.

Archives

© 2007, News World Communications, Inc. Reprinted with permission of The Washington Times. Visit the paper at http://www.washingtontimes.com

Insight (Our Columnists)

 Arnold Ahlert
 Mitch Albom
 Michael Barone
  Dave Barry
 Tony Blankley
 Andy Borowitz
 David Broder
 Stratfor Briefing
 Mona Charen
 Linda Chavez
 Ann Coulter
 Greg Crosby
 Larry Elder
 Suzanne Fields
 John Fund
 Frank J. Gaffney
 Lloyd Garver
 Jonah Goldberg
 Julia Gorin
 Jonathan Gurwitz
 Paul Greenberg
 Lewis Grossberger
 Victor Davis Hanson
 Betsy Hart
 Nat Hentoff
 David Horowitz
 Laura Ingraham
 Cheri Jacobus
Jeff Jacoby
 Paul Johnson
 Jack Kelly
 Ed Koch
 Ch. Krauthammer
 Michael Ledeen
 John Leo
 David Limbaugh
 Kathryn Lopez
 Rich Lowry
 Michelle Malkin
 Jackie Mason
 Dick Morris
 Bill O'Reilly
 Jim Mullen
 Clarence Page
 Kathleen Parker
 Dennis Prager
 Wesley Pruden
 Tom Purcell
 Jonathan Rauch
 Celia Rivenbark
 Robert Robb
 Cokie & Steve Roberts
 Pat Sajak
 Debra J. Saunders
 Culture Shlock
 Roger Simon
 Michael Smerconish
 Thomas Sowell
 Mark Steyn
 John Stossel
 Cal Thomas
 Bob Tyrrell
 Diana West
 Dave Weinbaum
 George Will
 Walter Williams
 Byron York
 Mort Zuckerman

'Toons
 Robert Arial
 Chuck Asay
 Baloo
 Chip Bok
 Dry Bones
  Lisa Benson
 John Branch
 Gary Brookins
 John Cole
 J. D. Crowe
 John Deering
 Brian Duffy
 Everything's Relative
 Mallard Fillmore
 Jake Fuller
 Bob Gorrel
 Joe Heller
 David Hitch
 Jerry Holber
 Steve Kelley
 Jeff Koterba
 Dick Locher
 Chan Lowe
 Ranan R. Lurie
 Jimmy Margulies
 Rick McKee
 Michael Ramirez
 Kevin Siers
 Jeff Stahler
 Ed Stein
 Danna Summers
 John Trever
 Gary Varvel
 Kirk Walters

Lifestyles
 How 2
 Lori Borgman
 The Savvy Consumer
 Elder matters
 Fixit
 Dr. Peter Gott
 GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
 Richard Lederer
 Tech Maven
 Every Monday Matters
 Nutrition Myths
 Bookmark These
 Bruce Williams
 How Stuff Works