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Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Thursday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
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In computer news this week
September 26, 2006 New MP3 player blurs the line
between Data backup and entertainment
A review of the Sandisk C140 MP3
player For the
past couple years I’ve been telling you about the virtues of flash
drives – these tiny USB devices
the size of a stick of gum that you can backup your data to much faster
and efficiently than to cdrom or
zip drives. In the
past 2 years the technology has advanced faster than Moore’s law. I bought a Sandisk 128 Meg USB flash
drive at Costco 2 years ago for about $ 100. Today you can buy a 2 Gb one for $
79. I already
have 3 flash drives I use daily, so I really don’t need
another one, but I did decide to buy the new Sandisk MP3 player, which seemed
to have some interesting possibilities. The Sandisk C140 Mp3 Player is an amazing little
device, about 3” long, an inch wide, and about an inch thick. It has 1
Gb of storage, and sold for $ 55. According
to the brochure, it does these functions: Adjustable graphic equalizer – for audio fans to fine
tune Digital music player – either MP3 or Windows
Media Audio format – You can copy up to 250 MP3 music files to it,
based on an average file size. I copied four of my favorite cd albums to it,
and still had 400 Megs of storage left. FM Radio receiver – The FM tuner lets you
play or record any fm station you receive, and has a function to
automatically set stations in your listening area. Voice recorder – lets you record voice or
any room noises within range. Photo Display – color screen allows you
to download and view photos on it, or have a slideshow of photos display
while music plays in the background. For photos, you’re supposed to use
their supplied Photo conversion utility, which makes photos smaller, but you
can just drag and drop photos to it, and they display fine, - just take up
more storage space. Internal memory – A vague reference that
you can store data on it if you get tired of doing everything else. This actually was the part I was really
interested in. It comes
with earphones, a lanyard for carrying, and a usb
cable to connect to your computer. So I
bought it and took it back to my office, plugged in the supplied battery, ran
the cd installation software disk that comes with it, downloaded their full operation manual from their
website and started playing around with it. The software is designed for
Windows XP and Windows Media Player 10 or newer. Using
Windows Explorer, the MP3 player shows up as an Other device, but it works
the same as regular flash drives, in that you can drag and drop files to it. The
Internal memory reference which was glossed over in the manual – lets
you drag and drop any type of files to it for backup – and actually
open and run those files off the device also. Which
means you can use it
like a USB flash drive for data storage, but you can also have
fun and get jiggy with it. So what
is it ? An entertainment device,
or a storage device? Kind of
reminds me of the old Certs advertisement – Certs is a breath mint
– No it’s a candy mint... For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2006 MTA Micro
Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html PO Box 31522 Spokane, Wa 99223-1522 (509)624-7230 |
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