Cubapod

As many of you may know I loves the auld technology, from the tiny camera I have planted in the toilet bowl of the Malafornia Senior Ladies Beach Volleyball Teams changing room to the tiny camera I have planted in the top of my shoe for those discreet upskirt shots. But I recently came into a piece of technology that even I would struggle to use for sexual ends. That piece of techology is the Apple Ipod.

I received the Ipod in the form of a gift as I am too cheap to even continence the thought of spending upwards of 250 euro for anything. But what a fantastic piece of kit it is. It has 30 gigs of memory and has video capability. Even though I have yet to watch an entire movie end to end on the Ipod the resolution is fantastic. And the memory!! After three weeks (mostly of cataloguing) I've finally managed to get my entire music collection (1049 mp3 files) onto the Ipod. I've also placed a fully feature length movie (The Prestige) on (for illustration purposes only) and still have only used 4 gigs of space!! I'm using varying pieces of software to capture mp3 files but my favourite at the moment is the audio ripper in Nero Premium 7. I've also come across Xilisoft Premium package which could possibly be THE best bit of software I've ever used. I mainly use the Xilisoft for converting DVD to .mp4 format.

This is a long way of course form my original digital music player. The Jwin Jukem@n was also a gift and posses ed and magnificent 256mb of memory. I could get roughly 30 mp3 files onto the thing which did me perfectly well in shorter journeys. However the one fantastic thing about the Jukem@an was the fact that you could record wav files off the included FM radio. Now I know what your thinking, "the quality must me shit!!". Well interestingly if you get a good signal you can get close to stereo quality sound. I've used this function to build up an extensive collection of Gift Grub sketches, including ones never released on cd. I previously used such software as Audacity to edit and convert the wav files to mp3 format but am currently using the by far superior Nero Premium 7 Wave Editor.

I've also purchased a Belkin "Tunebase For Ipod" car kit for my Ipod. While initially excited with my purchase I was quickly brought down to earth with a bang. The Tunebase is plugged into your cigarette lighter and works by beaming a signal to a free FM frequency on your car radio. Now this would work fantastically well if you never drove anywhere, it would make your car slightly redundant but you'd get perfect quality sound!!! Let me illustrate the problem thusly.....2fm transmits throughout Ireland on 90-92fm. In one place it might be 90.1 in another it might be 91.8, basically if you set your Tunebase to a free frequency at the start of your journey it may not be free by the end and you have to put up with the likes of Gerry Ryan in your lug when you wanted the soothing sounds of Ladle Of Filth. However I've persevered and as I usually only go from points A to B during the normal course of my work day it's a simple matter of testing what frequencies suit your particular area best (for me it's 93.1fm).

I suppose the only real way to get uninterrupted high quality music from Ipod to radio is to have a wire going directly to the back of the car radio an option which I may look into down the line. For the moment however I'll make do with the limited Belkin Tunebase.