Some things sorted

Yesterday I had two emails which were the bearers of good news. The first was confirming that we had a hotel booked for Sydney over New Year's. Thankfully I looked into a hotel for that already because the pickings are already pretty slim. I've never really gone anywhere for New Year's (well, once, but I didn't arrange it myself), let alone go to a city that is known for its celebrations, so I wasn't totally prepared for the lack of good accommodation already. But I found a site that had specific rates for over the holiday for many hotels and I was able to get a reasonable deal there at a hotel that is quite central.

The other email was to let me know that an mp3 player had been shipped to me Wednesday night, so it was all set to arrive at my work yesterday afternoon. This was the second shipment after the first Vibez I got had to be returned because it kept crashing. But I didn't really know if they were going to send me a new player or try to fix the one I first got. I didn't get any emails from them about what they had done, just that a package was sent to me. Fortunately it was a completely new player because I just don't think the other one I had was fixable, so I hoped they weren't going to send it back to me.

I opened the player at work and charged it so I was able to play around with it a bit before going home. It didn't crash and I was able to view the background options fine (this was another weird quirk with the first one, the background kept going blank), so it was ok so far. I got home and plonked some music on it and played some songs for a bit while playing with the menu still... No crashes! This one seems to be ok! I still feel wary of it, worried it might break on me later, but I think I'm just a bit wounded by the first one not working.

Now I've been able to use the Vibez without disappointment and I do quite like it. It's not perfect, but the things that have bothered me are pretty minor. Putting the music on it is so easy, no stupid music system needed (though it does come with an mp3 program that you can install, but if you have your own music programs already it's not needed). I connect the player via USB, Linux instantly pops up my file manager, and I can just drag the mp3s into the Vibez's folder. An average album takes no more than 10-15 seconds to transfer.

When I first had the Vibez, I realized how important the ID3 tags are for sorting the music properly on the player because it pretty much ignores the folders and file info that you are used to on a computer. So while I was waiting for the replacement, I decided I'd better fix the tags on albums and songs I knew I'd want to put on the Vibez. I downloaded a program called EasyTag that made it so much easier to edit the tags. It was pretty self explanatory and saved me a lot of time in fixing the mp3s, so I recommend it. I'll put more songs on the Vibez tonight, and pretty soon I should be all set for taking it with me to the US.