I went back to my ex...

This is Strict_Machine, my iPod (6th gen)

The iPod debuted the year I graduated high school. Every single day of my school career from elementary school onward, I had headphones in my ears that connected to a Walkman (sometimes cassette, sometimes CD). The invention of MP3 players that can hold ALL of your music and playlists is still something of a jaw-dropping fantastical WONDER of the world to me. There is something magical to sit with a device in your lap that is the size of ONE cassette tape containing ALL of your music. ALL. of. it. That is still so cool to me, and I think I will always want a DAP (digital audio player) in my life. This is a device that doesn't connect to the internet, doesn't distract you with notifications of emails and social media messages. It simply plays sound. Though this device didn't always exist-- to me, it feels timeless.

I bought a Creative Nomad Zen Xtra in 2003. It had 60GB of storage. I digitized all my CDs in 128kbps because I didn't know any better yet. Luckily, I kept my CDs. In 2009 I got an orange iPod Nano. The 160GB beauty in the image to your left was acquired in January of 2011. In February, by some divine intervention (was it because I had more space on this new iPod?), I decided to re-digitized all my CDs in 320kbps. Less than three months later, most of my physical media was destroyed in the Great Wind of May 2011. I found the iPod under my dresser, wet and covered in insulation. But it still works to this day!

Despite our history, six months ago I left my iPod for a Fiio X3 II. I liked the Fiio, but that damn thing took hours and sometimes DAYS to sync. The initial sync with the Fiio, my iTunes, and a program called Dapper took 3-5 days. This one time, my iTunes deleted ALL the playlists I had put in a special folder for my Fiio to be able to recognize them. I had to recreate about 50 playlists in my iTunes. Thankfully, I have all my mixes written in a special mix journal, so that headache was more about time than anything. In the end, the Fiio was just too big of a pain in the ass. This week I wrenched my iPod back from my Michael and sold the Fiio. Hello, old friend.

Here's a list of things about my iPod that I really missed:

1. being able to use the many iPod docks in my house
2. volume control on headphones
3. on-the-go playlists
4. podcasts
5. audiobooks
6. lastFM stats
7. album shuffle
8. syncs that take less than five minutes instead of a few hours/days

If you want to see an even longer explanation of my iPod praises/Fiio woes, go to here.

Year of no new electronics...

Like most of my goals for the year of 2014, this one was kind of broken when I,

a) had to buy a new phone in March when my iPhone 5's screen went all hot and bothered with pixels misfiring and general glitchy strangeness. Jill says that doesn't count because I needed a phone. I did buy the exact phone I wanted though --a yellow iPhone 5C-- because I'm extravagant like that.

b) bought Michael's old 3DS. M says that doesn't count because it's not new.

Buuuut, something interesting has happened:

1) I'm really really happy with all of my current technology without any plans to upgrade.

I love my phone (though as SOON as I can leave Verizon for Virgin Mobile/a plan that's 50$ less each month, I'm doing it!) a lot. The battery life is spectacular on the 5C and it's so freaking cute with its canary yellowness. The camera in it is amazing and it does everything I'd ever want it to do.

I'm really enjoying the 3DS with Animal Crossing: New Leaf and Mario Kart 7. Totally worth the huge discount my husband gave me on a great gaming device.

I appreciate my iPad mini and don't see that there would be any reason to upgrade it anytime soon.

Even my computer is now approaching four years old and I'm considering buying more storage and memory for it, but I don't want to abandon it at all.

The previous statements are SERIOUS progress for me. I don't feel that I need ALL the new things! The last several years I've talked myself into buying each new iPhone, several iPads and other various devices.

2) I completely forgot about the huge Apple Event today announcing the new iPhone 6 until Michael mentioned it to me at 930 this evening. I completely FORGOT. Usually I am glued to cnet.com watching all the live coverage for Apple's events announcing new products and this year I FORGOT.

I'm officially considering my electronics addiction broken. There will be further temptations. When the new iPad mini comes out with a color-corrected screen (the current model has some issues with color accuracy...yes, I notice that shit) I'll want it. But I'll resist because I don't even need an iPad. Really, I don't. I have an ereader and I have a smartphone. Sometimes I go days without using my iPad. I prefer to read on my ereader and if my iPad isn't rightthere I use my phone instead.

I want to beef up my computer. I want 500GB of hard drive and 8GB of memory...maybe while I've got Honeycrisp on the operating table I'll replace her battery as well. However, I have no desire to get one of the new Macbook Pros because they don't even have a disc drive and the cheapest model is 1300$.

In other news, the iPod classic (the last remaining iPod with the iconic click wheel) was quietly taken off the Apple website today. Sad. That click wheel made it just over ten years and is still one of the big reasons I became obsessed with Apple's design. I'll use my iPod classic I got in 2011 until the day it dies...probably even then I'll scour ebay for a new one.

Anyway, I'm taking a moment. It's a big deal for me to realize my 2014 goal of not buying new electronics has actually had the effect I wanted it to have. I don't check cNET every day anymore. I'm not up to date on all the new devices. I still follow Apple's new products, but I actually truly don't feel like I NEED to own all of them.

Yay me.

places your entire music library could live.

In a post-apocalyptic Joplin, I am of the personal opinion that one cannot have too many places to store their music collection within.  Perhaps I’m a little OVERprepared for disaster in this aspect, but if there’s one thing that I cannot possibly live without, it’s my music, so here are places where mine lives (5 in total, yes, I’m deranged), and perhaps one or two of these options will be useful for a normal human being as well:

1. COMPUTER-- At the very least, get all of your music ripped onto the hard drive of your computer.  Rip at higher bitrates for better audio quality (check the “preferences” or “settings” or “options” in your computer’s ripping software to tweak this.  I use 320kbps for all my ripping.).  You’ll need a disc drive to upload CDs, a tape deck, some cords, and some compatible software like Audacity to convert cassettes, and likewise a record player, Audacity, and more cords to convert records, though this process is a pain (here’s a good article on how to do this: http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-20076685-285/the-cheap-way-to-convert-lps-audio-cassettes-to-digital/) so only do for things you absolutely can’t get digitally or through CD.  If you need to recover music you lost in the Wretched 2011 Wind, search our illustrious library’s catalog at joplinpubliclibrary.org for CDs you can check out--you can take home 4 at a time and we have a pretty decent selection (Seriously, this one time I got to help pick out a bunch of stuff...that was AWESOME!).
2. EXTERNAL BACKUP DRIVE-- Once you have all your music stored digitally, this and the following 3 music storage options are available to you.  Having an external hard drive is a good idea to backup your computer in general anyway (I back-up my entire computer every 10 days), and these puppies can be had for less than a hundred bucks at RadioShack and BestBuy (Seagate is well-reviewed and has served me well--survived the year 2011, even!).  If you can, lock your backup-drive away in a weather-proof enclosure for extra paranoid protection.
3. iPOD CLASSIC or OTHER LARGE CAPACITY MP3 PLAYER-- This option is probably only for the really big music geeks, because this little dream-machine (the iPod classic) costs 250$ for 160GB of storage.  I have all my music, movies, and pictures on my Classic.  I always get a little geek-thrill stomping out of the house with only my iPod the size of a cassette tape shuffling my entire music collection.  Every music-dweeb should have this distinct post-millennium pleasure.
4. iTUNES MATCH or OTHER CLOUD MUSIC SERVICE: In the event that all of your earthly possessions are obliterated (the iPod, the backup drive, AND the computer) which is, unfortunately, no longer something far-fetched for a lot of us, you’ll need to also have your music backed up in the cloud, which is another way of saying uploaded to the internet.  There are several services that do this: I personally use both Google Music (play.google.com) and iTunes Match, but there’s also Grooveshark, Amazon, and many other services as well.  They all involve time to upload and can suck the life out of your internet connection (in the case of me uploading my 9,000 songs to Google, it took about three weeks, but it won’t be that time-consuming if you have less music or a better internet connection), but wayyy worth it if your music is the second thing you grabbed last May (I know your animals come first--or children, if you’re into that sort of thing.) before climbing out of the rubble.  Check out the following article for a detailed analysis on all the cloud music storage options out there (http://lifehacker.com/5812138/cloud-music-comparison-whats-the-best-service-for-streaming-your-library-everywhere).

Remember, you don’t have to be as paranoid as me, but if you choose only two of these options, your music will feel snug and safe pending any season’s weather apocalypses.  If you need tech support carrying out any of these options, email me at mixtressrae@yahoo.com and I’ll try my best to answer your questions.