I have never bothered to protect my iPod with loads of covers and stuff. I have the device because I want to use it and it is just too much of a hassle if I have to remove covers and stuff from the iPod every time I want to dock it in the car or at home.

So it ends up with a lot of scratches. No big deal. They’re very visible in certain kinds of light but not really a problem when using the iPod. Still, when I found a product called Displex Display Polish in my local gadget store I just had to try it out on my seriously damaged iPod.

The process is simple. Cover the parts that you don’t want to polish. Add some white polishing paste and start polishing.

Before

After

As you can see. The stuff did not remove all scratches, but my iPod is absolutely better! If I spent the evening polishing I guess I would get an even better result. You can get the display polish on Amazon, or if you happen to live in Norway your best friend would (as always) be Clas Ohlson.

Just a quick update on the story about the not-so-important-typo in an ad for the iPod Nano. In their latest ad Lefdal simply state the amount of memory for all iPods. No harddrive or flash memory. Only memory. A good idea. After all, the average customer won’t care about the type of memory. They care about how many songs they’ll be able to store.

Here’s the update on the original story. And, I don’t know if they changed the text because of my insignificant rant…

VideoSync from the same guys seems like a promising product. It supports DVR-MS files from Windows Media Center Edition (in addition to a bunch of other formats).

The most interesting feature is the possibility to set up a watch folder. Meaning that you can tell the software to constantly watch a folder on your computer and immediately start transcoding and publishing to your favourite mobile device if a new file arrives in this folder.

Update:
You find a very detailed list of alternative methods of transfering video to your iPod here. And a related post on eirikso.com here

I have written about the long plane ride and the iPod. In our car we have used a ridiculously cheap little LCD that I bought on eBay connected to my video iPod to show movies. Now the youngest one is old enough to understand what’s going on and we needed a second screen. I don’t want anything very expensive lying around in my car, so I went completely against my own rules of buying quality goods and bought a cheap portable DVD player as the second monitor. I haven’t put it on any hard tests yet, but it seems to fit in perfectly well in our media system in the car.

Quick specs:
- 7 inch widescreen
- DVD Player
- Supports DivX, Xvid, MP3, WMA
- Composite video out
- Stereo audio out
- Digital audio out
- Composite video in
- Stereo audio in
- Two headphone connectors
- A three hour battery

It connected to the old Eddie Bauer LCD with no problems. The old screen is NTSC only, but you can choose what signal the DTH620 will transmit on the video output.

So, pop in a DVD in the Thomson player, connect it to another screen as well, and you have the movie on both of them.

Connect it to the video output on your video iPod and you suddenly have a 7 inch portable screen for your iPod. The battery life of the screen is three hours. Probably longer when you use it as a screen only (as long as your iPod provides the video the built in DVD player in the DTH 620 is at rest).

The fact that it plays DivX and Xvid is very nice. I encode my DVDs using AutoGK and end up with between 5 and 10 complete movies on one data DVD (450-700 mb pr. movie is more than enough for this little screen). The DTH620 shows a list of what’s on the DVD and let you choose movie. And I can fit in enough MP3 music and audio books for a veeeery long trip on one DVD as well.

The only problem I have found so far is that I can’t figure out how to get the right aspect on DivX movies that is encoded in true 16/9. It seems like the player only support anamorphic 16/9. Using AutoGK to encode I fix this by hitting Ctrl-F9 to bring up the “hidden options” and check off “.aspect” – Override input AR – Original. Then AutoGK will make a nice anamorphic 16/9-movie that plays fine on the DTH620.

I also miss a loop-through possibility that would let me input video from my iPod and loop it further on to the next screen. To feed both screens with one iPod I need to split the signal (not good) or buy an active video splitter. Anyway, right now the youngest boy wants to look at Teletubbies while the older one watch Nemo or Madagascar. One from a DVD and one from one of our iPods.

It came with a bag and a strap to mount it on the headrest. As well as a charger and connector for the car. I bought mine in Norway at the sometimes horribly expensive and sometimes very cheap Elkjøp for NOK 1295,- (about $200).

Time will show how long this player will last…

“In this whole new digital music revolution, there is no market leader.”

Steve Jobs introducing the iPod – 2001

Link to video on YouTube and embedded player:

Edit:
Link to other classic Apple events on YouTube.

(Via Presentation Zen)

Erling Sivertsen points me to Talkr. A service that can give you a computer generated audio version of RSS-feeds. From now on you will find a nice little button in my side bar that says “Talkr”. Copy the link from that button into your podcacher (iTunes or Juice or whatever), and you can start listening to eirikso.com. I don’t think eirikso.com is the best blog to listen to because I try my best to include visuals in addition to the text. Photos and illustrations. Still this is a cool service and could be very valuable for people with limited vision etc.

You will also find a little link at the end of all articles saying “Listen to this podcast”. Click it, and your browser will start reading the post for you.
And if you want to listen to a blog that has no “Talkr”-button, you can sign up for a free account with Talkr and add up to three RSS-feeds for your own. They also have a paid service that let you add more feeds. Quickly clicking around at the help pages did not give me any information about what languages they support. My guess is that the service at this point only support English feeds.

…and a small note about the name – “Talkr”. Please guys! Just because Flickr spelled their name in a cool way that is impossible to pronounce you don’t have to do the same. Throwing in an “r” in the end of your name does not mean that VCs will run for the money.

You find the brief introduction on how to connect an iPod to your car here. This is the short roundup:

1. Bought a Dension iceLink to connect the iPod to the factory mounted stereo in my 2001 Toyota Rav4.

2. 30 minutes of work to dismount the stereo and connect the iceLink

3. Bought a ProClip mounting bracket from brodit.se

For Norwegians, find the bracket you want on brodit.se and call MobilData and order it. For a piece of plastic it is horribly expensive: NOK 299,-

For the people that have no clue about Norwegian Kroner – that’s about $44 for the mounting bracket(!)

That said, the bracket was easy to mount, fits well and holds my iPod in place. Unfortunately it has a very ugly kind of leather imitation surface. (Click the images for more detail).

4. Mounting the iceLink dock on the bracket. About 20 minutes of work.

5. Mounting the bracket in the car. Also about 20 minutes of work.

It looks like this:

It’s IR. It’s one way. It has no screen. It has no scroll wheel.

Throw this away. Apple has already designed the ultimate remote. They only have to change some parts inside the iPod Nano.

In other words, the ultimate remote looks like this:

Remove all the memory. Remove the audio part. Throw in a bluetooth chip. Make a two way communication with Front Row Experience.

Voila. The coolest remote ever built. For listening to music from your Apple media box in your living room you don’t have to turn on the big screen. Just navigate with the remote and music plays from Front Row. When watching movies etc. you turn on the big screen. The LCD on the remote still gives you navigation info etc…

Then Apple makes an add on for the existing iPods. An accessory like the photo connector. A little something that you clip onto the bottom of your iPod Video or iPod Nano that turns it into a bluethooth remote for Front Row.

Dream on…

Apple, please! Giving us an FM radio for the iPod in 2006 is an insult. Why? Why can’t you understand that it’s not the “iPod Radio Remote” we want. We want the “iPod Cellular Remote“. This product should have been a cellular attachment for the iPod. Same idea. Use the screen and the battery in the iPod. Just add a little external box with some keys, a cellular chip and preferably also wifi.

Wired had lots of coverage on what people want and why they don’t get it in issue 13.11. Seems like the biggest problem is the download service that should let you buy music directly through the cellular network. Crap.

This is what I want:
The 30 GB iPod is slightly thinner than the 60 GB. So, give me a device that is the size of a 60 GB iPod but with a 30 GB disk and use the available space to fit in a 3G cellular and wifi. Let me update my podcasts and buy music from iTunes music store when on a WiFi network or through my computer and let me use it like I use my cellular today when on a mobile network.

The main point here is not to be able to buy music on the go. It is the possibility to bring only one device and one set of headphones. And to own the most sexy cellular ever built.

My current mobile is close, but it lacks the storage space and the software to make things easy enough. That will be fixed at some point.

Right now I carry this around:

Nokia 6630
- Excellent phone
- Excellent calendar and adress book
- Camera (but not very good)
- Music player (but not very good)
- Video player (but not very good)

iPod 60GB Video
- Excellent music player
- OK video player
- calendar and adress book

Sony CyberShot DSC-P150
- Excellent camera

When Nokia removes the three “but not very good” from camera, music player and video player it’s good bye iPod and CyberShot.

Or, if Apple makes the perfect iPod Phone:
Apple’s Trademark Applications Hint At IPod Phone. It’s good bye Nokia…

…or rather how to connect your iPod to your 2001 Toyota Rav4
So, time has come to find a soultion that gives me an ability to listen to my iPod in my car. It’s a 2001 Toyota Rav4 with a standard Toyota factory mounted stereo. And a 60GB Apple iPod Video.

Using one of the several FM Transmitters out there is not an option. That’s just not good enough. I want to connect the iPod to the car stereo through wires. I want the best sound quality possible with the combination of a car stereo and an iPod.

Someone out there would immediately say: “Then you have to start by getting rid of the factory mounted Toyota stereo.“. I know. It’s not very good. With the original speakers only it’s actually close to terrible. But after adding a subwoofer and an extra set of tweeters it’s much better.

The options
It cooked down to these two:

The iPod2Car
The Dension iceLink Plus

I found both of them at BestBuy for $199,- I could not find any reliable confirmations that a system bought in the US would work in my European Toyota Rav4. In addition to this I could not find any detailed description of how to install it in my particular car.

Before starting on this possibly complicated project I called an installation company in my hometown of Oslo and asked about the price of a complete system with installation. For starters, he could not confirm that he had a system for my Toyota. Secondly, it would set me back about $550,-

OK. I take the chance. I buy the Dension iceLink. Mainly because of the very nice docking cradle that is included with this solution. I want a system where I can simply dock my iPod in my car as easy as I dock it in the Apple docking cradle on my desk.

Back in Norway. I find a description of how to dismount the stereo in a Rav4. My stereo is not identical, but it was very easy. You need these tools:

All you need is to unscrew eight screws. Simple as that.

Pull the stereo towards you just enough to reveal the back of it. Several connections here. My iceLink package came with two cables, the small device that contains the electronics and the docking. I only had to use one of the cables.

It fits into the socket at the left in this picture. This socket is actually already taken, but you disconnect the plug that’s there from the factory and insert your iceLink cable. The iceLink cable comes with an extra connector where the original plug fits in as well:

Then you simply arrange the iceLink device and the cables so that you can put the stereo back in. Should not be difficult and you should not have to use any force.

At this point I connected it just to see if it worked. And it did. No problem at all. Loud and clear sound from the iPod to the stereo. Pressing “Next” on the stereo skips to the next song on the iPod. You can choose to do give all control to the iceLink and the Toyota stereo or keep the control locally on the iPod. The first option lets you switch between the first five playlists in your iPod with the CD-changer function on the stereo. The last one gives you complete control locally on the iPod in addition to be able to skip previous and next from the stereo. I prefer the last one.

The next step is to buy a backet to mount the Dension iceLink docking cradle on. I guess it would be possible to find a place on the dashboard and just mount it there using tape or screws, but I don’t want to destroy the dashboard and I want it to sit properly.

I am going to order one of the ProClip mounting options from a Swedish company called Brodit. Probably this one: 852841.

So I guess this post will be continued. With information on the final mounting of the docking and how it all will work together with the video output on my iPod.

Update:
Here’s the story on the final mounting.

An important possibility of having a video iPod in a car is of course to feed the kids screens in the back seat with cool movies…

A happy kid with a crappy screen. I bough it on eBay for $40. Works fine for now but has to be replaced at some point. And, as you can see from the picture I will soon need two screens back there.

For the people that actually have read all of this post, a quick competition: What movie is he watching? (You can click the picture for a bigger version).