Weekly iTunes awards show (is back!)

When I started walking on the treadmill every night about 5 weeks ago, I found that time passed faster if I could distract myself. My iPod was one obvious solution. I also found that (quite impressively!) I can walk and read at the same time, so a book works too.

Even better, I started bringing my PSP and playing NCAA Football 2007 while I walked (in case you cared, a full game takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes). I was so hooked on my PSP that I stopped listening to my iPod for a while, and thus haven't published any recent versions of my "Weekly iTunes awards show."

In the past week or so I've moved from walking to running on the treadmill, and a book or the PSP doesn't work too well! So it's back to the iPod. Here are the "Top 5" songs I have listened into the ground over the past week (in no particular order):

1. "Far Away" Nickelback
2. "White and Nerdy" Weird Al Yankovic
3. "You're Pitiful" Weird Al Yankovic
4. "Up!" Shania Twain
5. "All My Roads" Collin Raye

Weekly iTunes awards show

The "Top 5" songs I have listened into the ground over the past week (in no particular order):

1. "Main Theme from Chariots of Fire" Vangelis
2. "Now You're a Man" DVDA
3. "Coming to Your City" Big & Rich
4. "What Hurts the Most" Rascal Flatts
5. "Who Says You Can't Go Home" Bon Jovi and Jennifer Nettles

Weekly iTunes awards show

The "Top 5" songs I have listened into the ground over the past week (in no particular order):

1. "For Unto Us" Glad
2. "Tribute" Tenacious D.
3. "Speed of Sound" Coldplay
4. "Start of Something New" High School Musical
5. "Something To Be Proud Of" Montgomery Gentry

Weekly iTunes awards show

The "Top 5" songs I have listened into the ground over the past week (in no particular order):

1. "Starlight" Glad
2. "Photograph" Nickelback
3. "When I Get Where I'm Going" Brad Paisley with Dolly Parton
4. "Breaking Free" High School Musical
5. "Only Time" Enya

Weekly iTunes awards show

The "Top 5" songs I have listened into the ground over the past week (in no particular order):

1. "Boondocks" Little Big Town
2. "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" Trace Adkins
3. "Little Moments Like That" Brad Paisley
4. "The Reason" Hoobastank
5. "The Taliban Song" Toby Keith

Weekly iTunes awards show

The "Top 5" songs I have listened into the ground over the past week (in no particular order):

1. "The World" Brad Paisley
2. "Wonderboy" Tenacious D.
3. "Lightning Does The Work" Chad Brock
4. "What I've Been Looking For (Reprise)" High School Musical
5. "Runnin' Block" Toby Keith

IPodLinux update

A while back (here, I posted my experiment with running Linux on my IPod. Here is what I wrote:

Here are some problems I encountered:

1. Playback was a different story. I chose a few songs at random: some played ok, others played too fast, some played with significant delays and static, some didn't play at all. Seems like none of my "Purchased" music plays correctly. I either get a "malloc failed" or the song tries to play in mono and all I get is static.

Are playback issues related to the overall quality of the MP3? I have no idea.

2. Also, I haven't had luck using the rewind/fast-forward buttons while a song is playing, i.e., you can't use the fast-forward button to skip ahead or goto the next song.

3. Further, when one song ends, it just returns to the song selection list rather than playing the next song.

4. The power meter showed full in Linux despite the fact that the battery was nearly dead. Rebooting to Apple showed correctly, an almost dead battery.

I didn't go too much further, but I was hoping I could perhaps find solutions to these issues. Alas, I did not. So I updated the Apple firmware which restored the original configuration.

IPodLinux

My IPod now dual-boots both the original Apple firmware and IPodLinux.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipodlinuxinst/

http://forum.defcon.org/showthread.php?p=58864#post58864

I have a third generation IPod, a 15GB model and I figured what the heck so I installed IPodLinux on it.

I first connected my IPod and waited until it updated. After that was complete, I downloaded the (Windows) installer program, unzipped to a temp directory, and ran ipodlinux-installer.exe.

It searched for and downloaded the updated kernel. I chose linux as the default boot (it leaves the original apple firmware intact and can be uninstalled without problems).

At this point it will prompt you to close ITunes or whatever else is connected to the IPod. It then installs Linux and took all of about 15 seconds or so on my computer.

When it's finished, it asks you to disconnect your IPod, upon which it should (and did) reboot. If it doesn't, holding menu and play for 5 seconds will manually reboot.

Upon the reboot, the familiar apple logo shows, followed by the familiar Penguin logo. After that, the screen scrolls quickly as Linux boots up. A few seconds later, your new Podzilla menu is loaded. To load the non-default, reboot and hold the rewind button. The apple logo will appear, followed by the Penguin, and then instead of scrolling through the Linux boot-up, the "normal" Apple firmware loads.

Here are some problems I encountered:

1. Playback was a different story. I chose a few songs at random: some played ok, others played too fast, some played with significant delays and static, some didn't play at all. Seems like none of my "Purchased" music plays correctly. I either get a "malloc failed" or the song tries to play in mono and all I get is static.

Are playback issues related to the overall quality of the MP3? I have no idea.

2. Also, I haven't had luck using the rewind/fast-forward buttons while a song is playing, i.e., you can't use the fast-forward button to skip ahead or goto the next song.

3. Further, when one song ends, it just returns to the song selection list rather than playing the next song.

4. The power meter showed full in Linux despite the fact that the battery was nearly dead. Rebooting to Apple showed correctly, an almost dead battery.

My initial verdict is that IPodLinux is fun to play around with and test out, but if you want to be able to play all of your songs without problems, boot to the Apple firmware. I plan to keep playing around with it to hopefully discover what might be causing the playback problems...stay tuned.

Feel free to email me or ask any questions.