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I mentioned over a year ago that I had started using Audacious as my media player. It was based on classic Winamp, wasn’t too bloated and generally did everything I wanted it to.

Unfortunately a while back I ran into an issue with it and playlist size: it seemed to choke on playlists above a certain size (around 2,000 songs – my playlist is just over that). In other words, it would be working fine but then when you loaded up Audacious the next time round, the playlist would be empty. Strange.

Anyway, I have since been using Rhythmbox to play my MP3s (and FLACs, and OGGs… but mostly MP3s). It’s a bit quirky (one strange feature is that there is no ’stop’ button – only a play / pause button) but so far I have found it to be pretty reliable. I like the fact that it can watch your music collection folder and automatically import any new files it finds there.

It also has iPod support. I’ve found that it doesn’t seem to like copying files over to my iPod (well, dragging and dropping doesn’t seem to work anyway – maybe you’re supposed to do it some other way) so I use GtkPod for that. One thing it does do, though, is sync the iPod with last.fm. If you have last.fm configured in Rhythmbox, and you connect up your iPod, then it seems Rhythmbox will automatically upload the list of songs played since the last time to last.fm. That is actually pretty cool, as I’ve been thinking about doing that for ages!

It just does it silently, without any prompting. Nice.

Anyway, Rhythmbox gets a cautious “thumbs up” from me! So here concludes the review :p

I mentioned a while back that I was on the lookout for a new iPod. I was specifically thinking about an iPod Touch, but on reflection I don’t think I would use it much. What I wanted instead was an iPod with plenty of space to store all my music, and maybe even some space to use as a backup for my computer.

So what I went for instead was a 120GB iPod Classic. It arrived yesterday, so I spent a while yesterday evening setting it all up. I like what Apple have done with the iPod UI! They’ve added a few things like Cover Flow, and have generally added in some more eye-candy. Seems to be a real improvement on the old version.

I gave it a quick test last night – I bought some new earphones to go with it (Sennheiser, nice ones) and it sounded good. I’ve also bought a car adapter, so this should hopefully put an end to me taking CDs every day.

So in general, I’m happy! All that remains for me to do now is to sell on my old broken iPod. I’m sure there will be someone on eBay who wants to buy and repair it!

I’m getting itchy for a new iPod. I already have an iPod, however it is broken. And it’s been broken for a while now – but I think this is partially my fault: I have a feeling I messed up when I installed Rockbox. What I will probably do is sell it on eBay as a broken item – I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who are able to fix it and would probably get themselves a bargain.

Aaaanyway. This has all meant that I’ve been without a working iPod for well over a year, and I do miss it – particularly on the occasional train journey we have to make. So, I’ve been thinking about buying a new one. The problem is, I really like the look of the new iPod Touches – they’re brilliant little things.

But I am unsure whether I’ll be able to use it with Linux! I could simply buy another model of MP3 player, but … the iPod Touches are so shiiiiiny…. I might just get one. If the worst comes to the worst, I can install Windows running under VirtualBox and set it up that way. Hmmm….

I took my iPod into work on Monday, as per usual, and got it out ready to listen to some music. I usually listen via WinAmp, with my headphones plugged into the computer, but playing the music straight off the iPod. Unfortunately, this time something was wrong. My iPod was displaying an icon something like this:

After a bit of Googling, I found out that it was the iPod’s “Low Battery” indicator (well, it was obviously a battery-related problem…) and the recommendation was to plug the iPod in to a computer or charger and charge it up for about half an hour.

This I duly did. I charged it for at least two hours, in fact, but all that kept happening was that the iPod kept alternating between the “Low Battery” icon and the “Apple” icon. Very strange. I tried resetting the iPod, but that didn’t work – it just goes back to the same old cycle.

After a bit more Googling, there are a number of things that could be wrong with it. It seems that this is mostly my fault – I should have followed Apple’s Battery Recommendations, but it is still annoying.

Anyway, what I think I’m going to do is try a wall (power socket) charger, to see if that makes any difference (by the way: if anyone has one of those I can borrow, let me know…) and if that fails, try leaving the iPod for a few days to see if it will completely lose its charge and trigger a hard reboot.

If THAT doesn’t work, I might have to pay stupid money to have Apple repair it – it does seem a little ridiculous though, given that I’m sure the battery is perfectly serviceable and probably would last another year or two.

If anyone has any bright ideas, let me know…