I’m no lover of Apple and I think I’ve made that clear before. None-the-less, I can’t escape the dominance that the iPod, in particular, has. Yes, you can buy other MP3 players, but just try buying an accessory. And it’s not a bad bit of kit – it’s really just Apple and the way that they cripple their products in the name of style or the kind of anti-competitive practise that regularly gets Microsoft into trouble (none-replaceable batteries, making it so that only iTunes will work with an iPod, etc).

Other than that non-replaceable battery, the rubbish headphones (easily resolved, that one!) and having to use iTunes, the iPod really isn’t at all bad. Damn it, even my TomTom will only work with an iPod.

Besides, my older daughter is approaching teenage and there’s bound to come a time when she wants one. Hell, my MP3 player recently broke and even I’ve considered it.

So, I’ve taken my first tentative steps towards it. I’ve installed and began to use iTunes <gulp>.

And, I have to say, it’s not as bad as I thought (I think I might have previously called it “terrible”!). When I installed it on my Netbook and it immediately picked up and started indexing from my wireless NAS drive, I was impressed¹. I wish the iTunes store was available online, if only to peruse, rather than buy, so you don’t have to install iTunes – they might get a few more users that way, who go to peruse and then download when they see something they like.

I was aware that Frankie Boyle had a Podcast on iTunes containing unbroadcastable material he’d recorded during warm-ups for Mock the Week. I was even more surprised to find it was free! That was a really nice find. In fact I was surprised to find free stuff on there at all – quite a revelation. I’ve even bought some iTunes top-up cards (they were on special offer at a particular retailer recently) – not that I’ve used them yet.

You never know, sometime in the future I might be offering a review of an iPod on here. God help us all!

Meantime, if you do want one, the recently announced new range of iPods is available at Dixons. Dixons also has a price matching policy with the usual big internet suppliers (Amazon, Play, eBuyer, etc) so it’s definitely worth checking out.

1. although if anybody knows how to limit where it looks, I’d be interested, as my NAS drive is also used for backups and it’s been indexing multiple copies of music from that as well [↩]

An HP digital photo frame that I bought last year from Dabs has recently broken. It’s backlight started flashing on and off – and what luck, it was doing this ONE DAY before the years warranty ran out!

Anyway, I contacted Dabs and they collected it and refunded my money. All credit to Dabs for excellent customer service.

So, the hunt was one for a replacement. I could, of course, go for the same one, but the backlight issue was a big disconcerting, so I thought I’d look out for something else. I’m not always a brand snob but when it comes to a product such as this I am. Digital photo frames are the kind of odd product that are rarely reviewed, so you often have to rely instead on blind buying and hoping.

I looked at the usual suspects – play.com, ebuyer, etc – but they mainly rely on unbranded makes. Dabs, however, continued to impress with a good range that were of interest. And one really stuck out – a Sony wireless photo frame.

It was launched late last year with a flurry of good reviews (yes, there are some for this!). It has the usual array of memory slots, an excellent quality screen (although only 7″, but that’s the size of the HP one that I had before), wireless capability (including the ability to download photos from Picasa Web Albums – something I use for my online photos!), even a browser and the ability to scroll news feeds across the top of the photos. The only down point of this whole product was its buggy browser (which is odd, as it’s the Opera browser), but then this wasn’t a capability that I was particularly interested in.

Play.com sell this photo frame for £230. Dabs have it for £84. Oh yes, that’s right. Just 84 of your finest English pounds. Both of those prices include VAT and P&P.

The reason is simple – it’s a discontinued line. Other retailers appear to be selling it cheap, it just appears that Play hasn’t caught up. None-the-less, considering this was the kind of price it was selling for when released less than a year ago, this is a truly excellent bargain.

It’s due sometime next week – once I have my mits on it, expect a thorough review.