Re: Jostling? Jostle this!

["r. gockley" <rgockley@andrew.cmu.edu>]

On Thu, 18 Dec 2003, Temmesfeld, Daniel wrote:
> um... it's a digital source and not on a spinning CD.
> i don't think there ever *could* be problems with
> skipping tracks or the like while running... unless
> you had electrical wiring issues...

Except that it *is* a standard hard drive, with spinning platters and all.
Personally, i'd be a little nervous taking an iPod out for a jog every
day; it might be a better idea to get a smaller-capacity flash-based mp3
player in that case.

Exerpt from this article:
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6450_7-5102324-1.html?tag=fs

"The iPod and other high-capacity MP3 players use hard drives to store
music. In order to extend battery life and avoid skipping, the hard drives
turn on only every once in a while to fill up a flash-memory buffer, which
itself has no potentially skipping, moving parts. The flash buffer, in
turn, plays the music. If something jars a hard drive-based player at the
precise moment when the hard drive is spinning to load the flash buffer,
the player could skip. Some experts say that it's impossible to damage the
drive in this way, but I'm not buying that--hard drives spin thousands of
times per minute, and they have tiny, fragile parts. Instead, use a small
flash player, such as something from the iRiver iFP-3xx line. They won't
skip, the batteries last longer, and they're much lighter than the iPod."

HTH, HAND,

Rachel
---------------
Unsubscribe by going to http://www.actwin.com/OtR/