About an Ipod – Sid Sells Out!

I was very lucky to be given an Ipod Shuffle last Xmas by work. Out of all Xmas gifts I've ever received I'd say it's had the most use and I reckon it's been used on average every day since I've had it. The only exception being in Spain where I thought it'd be a bit dangerous to cycle round with their crazy driveing over there!

However, if you’re into biking or walking or running the trusty ipod shuffle is the very thing you need. It's a constant companion when I’m riding in the UK and they give you an opportunity to catch up on all the latest rock or if you’re a semi-dinosaur like myself to revisit the days of your youth when proper Rock ruled the world!

The iPod shuffle itself is a cracking piece of kit with a gigabyte of memory which in terms of how much music you can have, I’ve got 14 albums on mine at the moment (includes a couple of best ofs that are double albums so really we’re talking 16-20 normal size albums). The shuffle itself is a robust little beggar that you clip onto your clothes (this is why it’s so good for running/cycling etc.) and the battery life is just awesome. I used to have one off those mp3 players that you run off an AAA battery which was great for a start (much better than a walkman cassette player in terms of portability) but the difference in battery life on the shuffle is just staggering (I think it’s quoted as being 12 hours).

Loading music onto the shuffle is simplicity itself. You use Apple’s Itunes software (provided with the Ipod if memory serves or easy to download if I’m wrong) which will convert your CDs into digital music, you then select which music you want to put on the shuffle and it copies it down a USB connection via the little dinky cradle that the shuffle sits in and into the Shuffles memory so you can listen to it when you’re out on your bike. The cool thing about the little cradle is that it charges up the shuffle’s batteries even if you’re not running the Itunes software.


The Ipod Shuffle - simplicity itself, a design masterpiece!


Be warned the shuffle is not like the bigger versions of the ipod such as the Nano or the newer video beasts – the user interface is as simple as you can get – you have play/pause by pressing the middle of the round control, you have volume up or down by pressing + or – on the control, and finally you can go forward or back a track by pressing <<>> and that’s it! Simplicity itself. The only connections on the shuffle is the 3.5mm jack socket there’s nothing else like it’s bigger brothers – the 3.5mm socket takes the headphones when you’re on the move and is also makes the connection when it sits in it’s cradle – awesomely simple but the best thing since sliced bread in my view!

Why Sid Sells Out, you ask? Am trying out Amazon’s affiliate program to see how that all works. Seems like a brilliant sort of viral marketing thing Amazon has got going and I wanted to see how that worked (does that make any sense? Thought not). It works by the advertiser (mesen, sort of) getting a payback if someone goes from my site to Amazon's site and buys something I think is good. And rest assured, dear reader, that anything I put on here will be dang good (and infrequent too so don't expect much in terms of ads here!!).



And after all that you can even have them engraved/laser-etched with a message if you want to give one as a gift – mine says “Love from Slimming World 2006”. A great present from a great Company of great people (Paul is current holder of world record for getting most uses of word great into a sentence).