01.25.07
New Toy Thursday: RadioShark
After an aborted Xmas purchase of the RadioShark because ClubMac didn’t cancel the order when they ran out of stock, I ordered one of the new, black, sleek Sharks direct from Griffin and have installed it and have been listening to my favorite station (KNRK). There’s not much to it, 5 pieces to note: 1) The Black Fin is metal and really feels solid, 2) the base is mirror-polished and looks great, 3) the blue lights that show it’s powered on give off that whole ‘we’re so cool we use Blue LEDs in our device, which is a bit over played, 4) a longish permanently affixed USB cord and 5) an antenna-cum-headphone jack seems as simple as I expected. It has a little loop at the end that I’m sure would make it easier to pin to the wall, but we’ll see. Right now it just limply hangs behind the rest of the entertainment center.
(Seven Nation Army, White Stripes on KRNK – Go Timbers!)
Looking around the web, some people have been having huge cows over the interface, but really it’s not that bad. But not having dealt with 1.0, perhaps that’s the difference. It’s not the best UI, in fact I wish it would just fall straight in line with iTunes. (Not because iTunes is the height of UI design, but because it’s the most familiar music player for anyone who likes to listen to MP3s.)
It will be interesting to see how it deals with the DST issue, that does seem like a no-brainer bug that should have been fixed.
I really wish I could set up the RadioShark to be a stream that iTunes could pick up. It would mostly bypass the RS software during live broadcasts, only leaving out the ability to rewind.
(I Feel You, Depeche Mode now.)
I wonder…has anyone used their RS to try and win radio station contests? If there are somewhat predictable times for ‘winner announcements’ or ‘secret word’ broadcasts, then the Shark could be a big boon.
I do hope that support for RDS might come along at some point, which would enable a huge number of really cool applications.
Anyway, as of day 1, I’m quite happy with the purchase (even in spite of the horrible plastic blister packaging), and look forward to many hours of listening.
(Sure Shot, Beastie Boys.)
The Home Entertainment Project: Connecting All Transmissions (HEP:CAT) has almost come to completion. The last bit is an NAS hard drive that can handle gigs and gigs of music and video. Look for an overview article coming out about it some time this summer perhaps.