The New Sony Mylo

I got news from the web that Sony will be releasing a new gadget called Mylo. Mylo is short for My Life Online. The device is capable of Instant Messaging (Yahoo Messenger and Yahoo Mail, Gmail and Googletalk, Skype and JiWire), web browsing, music listening (MP3, ATRAC, WMA), photo viewing and video watching (MPEG-4 30fps at QVGA resolution).

It is an all-in-one personal gadget that you can bring anywhere and be able to go online whenever there are open wifi hotspots. Now just imagine yourself having this cool gadget when you are in Starbucks!

Learn more about Sony Mylo.

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How To Buy An MP3 Player

by Gary Hendricks

Are you looking for an MP3 player but am not sure which type and model to buy? There is a wide variety of MP3 players out there, from flash memory based players to hard drive based players. Choosing a good player from the market is no easy task. What features should you look for? What are the key considerations? This article aims to answer those questions and more. Now, let’s see how we can pick the perfect MP3 player.

Types of MP3 player

There are essentially four types of MP3 players in the market today. These include flash-based players, hard-drive based players and MP3 CD players. Let’s look at them in turn.

Flash-based MP3 players

Flash-based MP3 players have a flash memory chip built-in. They tend to be very tiny, ultra-portable and have no moving parts. As a user, you can do all your sports activities without worrying about your music skipping a beat. The downside to flash players is their high cost per megabyte. These players range from 32MB to 2GB, and the most popular models tend to be those from the Creative Muvo line, the iRiver iFP series and more recently, the Apple iPod Shuffle.

Hard-drive based MP3 players

Hard-drive based MP3 players use a 1.8-inch hard disk drive to store your music. The hard disk can hold large amounts of music – we’re talking about 10GB and above. If you have a large music library and want to store tons of music, a hard-drive based MP3 player is the way to go. The cost per megabyte is very low. The downside? Well, due to the hard disk drive, which has moving parts, these players are not suited for rough physical activity or extreme sports. One of the most popular MP3 players in this category is the Apple iPod, which is selling like hot cakes out there.

Micro hard-drive based MP3 players

More recently, manufacturers have come up with micro hard-drive based MP3 players like the Apple iPod Mini, Creative Zen Micro and Rio Carbon. Featuring a smaller hard drive (which still gives ample storage space of about 4 to 5 GB), they have a much more compact design compared to full fledged hard disk players. The few models mentioned above are selling like crazy too.

MP3 CD players

MP3 CD players are another type of MP3 player. These units look and feel like regular CD players. You can burn up to 150 MP3 songs to fill one CD-R disc, then play it on the unit. The disadvantage of such players is their large size and their tendency to skip if jostled.

Key Features of MP3 Players

Having looked at the different types of MP3 players, let’s look at the key features of an MP3 player.

Size and weight: If you’re looking to bring your MP3 player on trips or on sporting activities, a small compact design is very important. In such cases, you should go for a small flash based player or one of the micro hard drive players.

Storage capacity: This is an important factor too. If you need to store your whole music library into the MP3 player, then you probably need a hard drive based player with 10GB of storage or above. If you only want a few select songs to listen to on the subway, then a flash based player would suffice. Do take note that some players offer expansion slots in the form of CompactFlash or SD cards.

Battery Life: This is often overlooked. Battery life is a very important consideration, especially if you’re out with your player and have no way to recharge. Hard disk players tend to have lithium-ion rechargeable batteries while some flash players offer AAA battery support. I personally own a Creative MuVo Micro N200 which uses AAA batteries. This is great for me because once it runs out, I can just pop in a new one – no hassles about finding some electrical socket to recharge.

Connectivity Options: The way the MP3 player connects to your computer is also an important factor. The latest models tend to support high-speed USB 2.0 transfers. The better ones like the Apple iPod also give Firewire support.
File Format Support: You will most likely be wanting to play MP3 songs on your player. However, if you want to listen to a wider variety of music files, like WMA or OGG Vorbis, then make sure you see it in the player specs.

Other Considerations

Many of the latest players also include features I’ve not covered in the above. For example, some players come with a built-in FM tuner, which is very useful if you get tired of your MP3 music. Other have a built-in voice recorder which allows you to record audio as WAV files.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are many considerations to think about when purchasing an MP3 player. To get the most suitable player, you want to think about how you will use the player. Usage should drive your purchase decision. The other thing to take note of is to shop around, both online and offline – compare prices before shelling out the cash. Good luck hunting for that MP3 player!

Gary Hendricks runs a hobby site on digital photography. Visit his website at http://www.digital-music-guide.com/ for tips and tricks on selecting MP3 players, music services and music software.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gary_Hendricks

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MPIO FY600 Unbiased Review

A few months ago, I have purchased a MPIO FY600 with 1Gig of storage capacity. I got it for about $154.

Before deciding to buy, I have searched endlessly over the Internet for user reviews regarding this product and have found very little info, nevertheless, I have taken the plunge and bought it.
So, for you readers out there that’s wondering if the MPIO FY600 MP3 is worth your hard-earned money, read on.

Casing Construction

The FY600 I got was made in China, came in black color and the body is made of plastic. It is a good thing that the FY600 came with a plastic protector. Otherwise, it is sure to have a crack onced you accidentally dropped it.

Since it is very light (even with a battery installed), the supplied string strap comes in handy and lets you secure the FY600.

MP3 / WMA Playback Quality

We skip over the usual review wherein the package contents are usually being enumerated. I’m sure the most important aspect of an MP3 player is how good it sounds, right?

The FY600 comes with 5-preset equalizer settings and a user customizeable equalizer setting.

The preset settings seems to be working fine and I find the “normal” setting to be adequate. However, for music that needs further enhancement, you might consider customizing the sound according to your preference.

Upon setting the bass controls to high, you can actually discern the sampling process of the FY600. If you have the ears of an audiophile, you can hear the “stuterring” effect as the FY600 tries to decode the music and apply the equalization on it. This makes the music unpleasant to hear. So in my case, I end up using the “normal” mode.

FM Reception

Forget about good quality FM listening on this device. The reception is definitely crappy even when you are located within strong FM stations. Lots of static and the “stereo” display is not real-time. This basically means that the stereo indicator is fixed and dependent upon your menu settings and the player doesn’t really know if a particular FM station is really broadcasting in stereo.

Over-all impressions

Likes:

- Easy, plug and play operation, behaves as a USB thumbdrive.
- Very light.
- Nice and Bright Green Backlight.
- Comes with a protective plastic cover.
- Sturdy joystick control.
- Adequate music loudness (when using the Sony MDR-ED21LP earphone).

Dislikes:

- Moderate technical knowledge needed to maintain it (need firmware updates, etc.)
- Battery cover seems to break easily.
- Low-quality supplied earphone.
- Fast Battery drain especially when the display visualization is set to “level meter”.
- Hard to understand user manual.
- User controls are not friendly to use.
- Crappy FM reception.
- No sound equalization when using FM.
- Player defaults to “mp3 player” mode from a “fm mode” onced powered-off.

Recommendations:

If you want to have a longer battery life, use a 900mAh AAA Ni-MH rechargeable battery.

Also, to get a better sound out of the FY600, I recommend you go out and buy a Sony MDR-ED21LP earphone.
 

 

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How to Regain Control of a “Hacked” Yahoo Messenger Account

August 7, 2006 · Filed Under Media Players, Miscellaneous tips · 2 Comments 

This incident happened to my friends’ Yahoo Messenger (YM) account. She logged-on to her Yahoo Messenger account in an Internet café, typing her username and password they way that she were to use it at home.

Now, she casually logged-on to Yahoo messenger, not noticing that the “Remember My ID and Password” field and “Sign-in Automatically” was checked. She went on with her Instant Messaging session, then payed her bill and off she goes.

Nothing unsual, you may think. Wrong! What happens next is that the next customer, upon logging on the computer that you have used, is now automatically logged-in to your Yahoo Messenger account (remember that the remember my ID and password field was selected).

Now, the “stranger” who has now complete control of my friends’ Yahoo Messenger account is bothering everyone on her contacts, and that includes me.

I immediately notified my friend thru SMS that “someone” is using her account and got confirmation that the account was indeed “hacked”.

Since she is on the road and have no immediate access to a computer, she asked for my assistance to regain control of her Yahoo messenger account.

I wasted no time and immediately clicked on “My account info” tab (see picture on the right) on my Yahoo messenger. Upon clicking this tab, you will be bought to a page shown below:

Upon seeing the page shown above, enter your friends’ Yahoo ID and Password (of course, your friend has to give you her credentials since she is asking for your help, right?).

Now, you may be wondering why not just you log-out of your Yahoo Messenger account then log-in using your friends’ account? That would give you control of your friends’ account. Well, there’s a bit of truth value in that since you cannot log-on with the same credentials on different computers. That scenario would “kick-out” one user. However, since my friends’ credentials was saved in the other computer, we would end up in a never-ending cycle of account “gain and re-gain”.

Now back to Yahoo’s credential page, by now, I assume that you have entered your friends’ username and password. Did so? Great!

You should be seeing the window as shown below:

Immediately change the password to a different one. Then save your settings. After doing this, log-out of of Yahoo Messenger account and log-in to your friends’ account using the new password.

After doing this, you are assured that you will “boot-out” the stranger out of your friends’ Yahoo Messenger account.

 

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