A co-worker who read about my quest for an iPod competitor (which I followed up on and subsequently bought an iPod this week) stopped by today to show me his Archos Gmini 400. Oddly I didn't find it in my quest for a new player and I wish I had considered it as not only does it have the same form factor as the iPod 40 GB photo but it also has lots of additional features such as works with Windows, video playback, radio, music recorder, compact flash transfer,... And it's only $357 from Amazon.

While I only played with it for a few minutes I did see some drawbacks. You have to use two hands to use it which means that it won't work in the car which is a high priority scenario for me. The UI also could use some polish. Both of these issues frustrate me because Archos has been building compelling portable players for a number of years now but have been hampered by a poor user experience and a lack of marketing. They're so close but until they can get their devices to cross over from early adopters and geeks to the mass consumer market they aren't going to get the attention and sales that they rightly deserve.

I'm also hearing rumors about some new iPod killer being released but we've been hearing about iPod killers from years know so I won't believe until I see it.

And then Engadget has an article on, Next iPod to get a big boost in battery life?:

Supposedly the PPC5022 would make it possible to make a hard drive-based digital audio player with triple the battery life of a player using the PP5020, which could conceivably mean an iPod photo that could last as long as 45 hours before it needed recharging

2:49:21 PM   []

I bought my first TiVo in 2000, when the company was only a year old. I was a charter member of the Cult of TiVo. But these days, I don’t miss it. The Media Center interface is every bit as usable, with some clear technical advantages as well. If the 2006 upgrade delivers on the promise of HDTV through a cable card, I’ll finally be back to one box that does it all.

Update: I found some time to read the article and here are some comments. Ed mentions our reaction compensation which is configurable in the version of TweakMCE that shipped with the Winter Fun Pack. I actually could never get that key to work and don't believe that it actually does so I pulled it from the standalone release of TweakMCE so I would say that no, we do not have (configurable) reaction compensation.

I actually hate that stopped menu with options that Ed has a screenshot of and lobbied (unsuccessfully) to get it removed from Media Center 2005. Maybe I'll post about that design decision later.

Once I get some more time I'll read the comments left by all the /.'ers :).
9:59:57 AM   []

Geez, why is it that I'm stuck toiling away in Redmond while everyone else is having a blast down in San Fran? Grrrrrrrrrr.

Sean has some notes on the MCE announcements:

Joe Belfiore, GM of Windows eHome Group talked about collaboration and importance of partnership on device interoperability. Call to action was to participate in the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA)

12:24:24 AM   []

Ever found yourself using Media Center Edition with the remote control and finding the need to control the mouse pointer but the mouse is nowhere in reach? Now with MyRemoteMouse your remote control can move your mouse pointer, click the left and right mouse buttons and even drag and drop.

I need to try this out.
12:22:10 AM   []