OFF: Music player advice, Return of...

[Keith Henderson]

FoFP offered...


>Hey, I can answer some of this. I broke my Galazy tab 7 inch (version 1) 

and borrowed a Galaxy Tab 7 inch (version 3) while I was fixing it.

>I used a 32Gb card with both. Never tried a 64Gb.

I guess you don't have the Galaxy 3.0 anymore, if you got your old one fixed and returned, right?  So you can't check to see whether it would read from a 64 GB (assuming you had access to one of those as well) then?  Oh well, I'll have to ask some idiot kid at Best Buy or something, what the deal is.  As if he would know why the discrepancy.  :)

>Connect your tab to a 'puter via USD and you can read/write as if it's 
an external drive. The SD card shows as a separate external drive to the 
tab main memory.

Ah, I wondered about that, if it would "read through" the device into the chip...that makes it simple.

> The manual also suggests it is compatible with AAC (MP4) audio, but then
> it says it depends on the op software, which is Android "4.1.2 Jelly Bean."  Anybody know if that is
> indeed the case?

>I believe that even on the version 1 tab that I've been playing MP4 
movies. Does that mean that MP4 audio works?

I would think it has to mean that it would.

>I like both Galaxy tabs, though my uses for the device possibly differ from yours:

* Reading the web on the move.
* Downloading web pages to read when I'm not able to get to the 
interwebs (using Pocket).
* Listening to those web pages while walking using bluetooth headphones 
and the text-to-speech widget.
* Getting stock prices.
* Getting the weather.
* Linking to hotel TVs to watch movies while travelling.
* Watching movies on the train
* Playing Backgammon/Scrabble/Go
* Downloading PDFs to read
* Reading e-books
* Monitoring my sleep patterns
* Making phone calls
* Sending text messages
* Updating my office diary
* Reading/sending emails
Oh yeah and:
* Listening to music through headphones or hifi.

I imagine that though we intend to use it primarily for "desktop music playback," the fact that it has so many other functionalities and the fact that it is almost certainly a much better computer than the one I'm writing on (XP-era) or my hand-me-down laptop (also XP-era with a non-functioning battery) means that we will use it for some of these other reasons as well.  (Not monitoring my sleep patterns though...I don't need to be reminded about how poor my sleep habits are.)

>> I need the home router to put my external drive(s) on this desktop computer into
>> use elsewhere in the house obviously...don't know how simple (and troublefree) that is until I try it.

>I'd look at connecting the 'puter to the router via an ethernet cable (better connectivity).

Which router?  Which computer?  I don't know how this sh*t works, as I said.  Wouldn't I still have my Linksys standard hardwire router in play?*  With the desktop PC plugged directly into that (non-WiFi)?  And then the WiFi router I buy plugged into the old Linksys box the same way (ethernet cable), and that broadcast out to the tablet in the living room (and my old Dell laptop in my room, which has an old clunky WiFi card).  What about the firewall box that is in line here?  I keep that in there too don't I?

*or do I toss that aside (as redundant) when I buy a WiFi router?  Do they have duel functionality (ie. plug-in as well)?

>> Anyway, it looks like I can get it done for the less-than-$400 I was budgeting for the project....that's good news.

>Stuff like this is getting much cheaper. The Chromecast device:
is going to be 35 Dollars.

$400 was for the ENTIRE project, including the tablet, dock, and SD microchip, as well as the wireless router.

>That means that other companies will bring out improved versions and pretty quickly
>folks will be able to access their own movie/music collections whether they're 
>stored on the web, or on the computer in the bedroom.

Yeah, I have been tried to surmise whether I want to try to either pay for (or finagle free) cloud storage of my music collection for security purposes.  At the moment, I'm just relying on backup (and partial double backup) of my music files on multiple external drives/thumb drives, in case one fails along the way.  At the moment, my situation is vulnerable to fire/theft, since they are both in the same edifice.  So I can either store one elsewhere, or upload it somewhere.  I don't see anyone offering 500GB free cloud storage as a bonus for anything we're in the process of signing up for (5-20 GB typical incentive), so I gather I would have to pay a monthly fee for this service right now.  I'm just hoping that flash-style (no moving parts) memory becomes cheaper than 40 cents/GB in the next two years (right now about 75 cents), and so I can put it there in addition and virtually carry it around in my pocket.

Thanks for sharing your experience...it's been helpful...
Keith