Mikes' Techno Blog

Thomson Lyra PDP-2756X - MP3/Player recorder

2006-07-30T09:59:00.000+02:00

For a while I've been wanting an MP3 player which can take external cards. I've also wanted something capable of recording in quality over line in.

I recently came across this little bijoux from Thomson which I bought from RueDuCommerce for just 47 euros here. Oops, seems I was too slow they don't have any left!
I ordered it 25th (late evening), it arrived on 27th and now 30th their all gone.

Anyway, I wanted to say something about why I ordered this and my first impressions.

I'd seen comments on the rueducommerce site from people who'd tried it with a 1GBy SD card (Thomson support upto 512MBy apparently).
I also ordered a 2GBy SD card (actually a Transcend mini-SD card with adaptor) so eagerly filled it up with MP3s to see if the Lyra could read it. Success!

I'm really pleased with this as a player. Nice user interface with clear menus. A little slow to browse my (2GBy!!) SD card but that's normal I guess. Coloured back-lit LCD display.
I like the layout of the display showing filename (scrolls), artist and track info as well as time and track time information. However the font is small. I like that though I've found that when I'm at the Gym I can't pedal and read at the same time!

I intend to use the line in to record old cassette tapes.
I expect I'll get better quality going straight to a PC but this shouldn't matter too much for these 20 year old tapes. I'll test and see. Will update here ....

Verdict: 9/10 - for the price it's excellent
+ I guess 47 euros was a sale price
+ takes 2GBy SD cards (will try 4Gby later ...)
+ has internal 256MBy (good as emergency)
+ records from line in
+ nice Display and menus - but you have to like small characters
+ Takes standard AA battery (autonomy untested but seems fine so far on NiMh rechargeable)
+ Complete with USB cable, behind the ear headphones, 3.5mm male-male cable, neckstrap

Should have a look at what's on the CD which came with it.
I might read the manual when I'm on holiday, then again who reads manuals ...

Thank-you Thomson,
Thank-you Rue du Commerce.

Pori Jazz video portal using HP OpenCall

2006-07-20T22:26:00.000+02:00

Well I haven't talked much about my work.

Here's an informal video portal which we setup for the Pori Jazz Festival in Finland.
The number to call with a 3G capable phone is
+33 438022705
It'll be disabled very soon, probably Monday 25th July.

Anyway, the service which you see is written in VoiceXML allowing to select the video to be seen based upon DTMFs entered. This was just a quick mockup with a few voiceXML and 3gp files but could have been much more sophisticated. The server used is an HP OpenCall Media Platform (OCMP-Video 1.0).

The platform enables rapid service development in VoiceXML, CCXML or through java APIs for using traditional Telephony ISUP protocols or SIP for Voice/Video over IP.
If you're interested look here:
HP OpenCall Media Platform (OCMP)

Tele2 Mobile - when they say minutes they mean minutes

2006-07-20T22:17:00.000+02:00

It may seem obvious that a mobile phone contract offering X minutes covers voice calls only, but to me it wasn't. Maybe it's because I've worked in Telecom prepaid for too long and understand the way the billing systems (can) work.

I took out a contract with Tele2 Mobile with the intention of using it as an SMS Gateway. For me a 30 minutes contract costing 10 euros/month with SMSes at 9cents meant that I could send about 100 SMS a month if I didn't make any voice calls. Wrong, be aware that you'll pay any SMS on top. It's not expensive, unless you weren't planning on any voice calls (OK, I'm not yer average user ....).

Would be nice if Tele2 could show a little more flexibility, but given their incompetency at billing me and providing correct phone numbers to call them on their unlikely to offer me something suitable. I got a nice letter threatening me for non-payment today (they already have my bank details and I had selected automated payment).

Don't you just love companies who threaten their customers (when it's due to the companies' own incompetence!)?

Google calendar reliability - where did my calendars go

2006-07-20T22:07:00.000+02:00

Only fools and horses rush in ... I logged into my Google Calendar account yesterday for the first time in a month or so. I was shocked to see that all my Calendars had vanished! I searched in their forums and saw similar cases with Google suggesting to try again in 10 minutes or restoring data quickly from backup. Well it's been more than 24 hours now and I'm hoping to get that data back.

It was a little foolish to transfer all that stuff from Outlook to GCalendar.
I assume Google will still restore my data (or is it their data ;-) but realise that I should have backed it all up!

Famous last words "I'll look into backing up my data once it's been restored".

Roadstar autoradios - why are cheap car radios the best? (Roadstar 852 USMP/FM excellent value for ~ 85 euros)

2006-07-20T21:40:00.000+02:00

Well, I've no problem with cheap car radios being the best, but it is a bit surprising.
Thought I'd mention my new Roadstar 852USMP/FM which cost me ~ 85 euros.

Late 2004 I bought a Roadstar 650UMP car radio for 180 euros. I chose this model because at the time it was the only CD/MP3 player I'd seen which could read USB keys.

Unfortunately, the USB key functionality didn't work very well even with the supplied 64MBy USB key - very frustrating, so I quickly stopped using it. I contacted Roadstar to see if firmware updates were available/possible for the USB problems but got no reply. Not good.

Nevertheless, the CD/MP3 functionality was very good and the sound quality was fine.
I had a few niggles with the user interface, having separate play/stop/ff/rew controls for USB and CD player for example but I could live with those. Also, I'd much rather have a smaller display which shows lots of info rather than scrolling a few characters (especially as they don't show full names - id3 tag length limitation?).

I also read a lot of reviews on the web of people who were very happy with very similar Roadstar models.
So I figured I just bought too early - bleeding edge and all that and so I hoped to replace it someday.

Recently I had an excuse to put the old radio in a camping car leaving me free to order a new one. I looked around a bit and still felt that Roadstar was the best to go with (assuming USB would be OK this time!).

So I went for a Roadstar 852 which I ordered from clust.com here in France.
I'd give this model 9/10.
It's not perfect but it's extremely good value at 85 euros!

Below I've put in bold what to me are the more important good/bad points.

The pros:
- Now has USB key and SD/MMC card functionality
A 1GBy USB key (unknown manufacturer) and a Kingston 512MBy 3.3v SD card each played the MP3s on them without a problem. Both had a FAT32 partition on them, though I hadn't prepared them particularly (the SD card had also an ext2 partition and both keys had executeable files as well as MP3s) but they still played fine. This is excellent.
- No longer a USB key included - I don't care, I'd rather that any USB key works, so far so good. - Plays CD/MP3 perfectly as before.
- No longer (useless!) duplication of play/stop/ff/rew controls
- Different layout fascia black and silver (prettier maybe?)
- Has RCA audio inputs to connect some other player
(would have been nice to have an RCA to 3.5mm lead in the box).

Cons:
- Still the constant scrolling of few characters on the display
- removable fascia is a little delicate because of the arguably nice spring loaded/damped opening. I prefer the old removable fascia.
- the plastic covering on the USB input is a bit of a pain but I guess you need to protect it.
- As before, the user manual is terrible, very basic with a minimum of information and definitely not written by a native english speaker.
- As before, unfortunate that skipping between folders isn't simpler (it's possible, but I'd have to read that manual!)

Anyway, the most important point was that USB+SD card item and the price.
This is an excellent car radio.
I'll probably use SD cards now as I like the way they sink into the device rather than a USB key which sticks out like a sore thumb from the radio.

I'm now wondering what size/make/speed SD card to buy to use daily. I'd like to go for something large but not too expensive but unfortunately here Roadstar are extremely cowardly giving no indication of tested products, recommended max., speed, max. size etc.
So I'll have to buy with fingers crossed. Come on Roadstar, make a little effort !

So I think I'm renting car radios now ... I'll buy another one in a couple of years when the features are right ...

antivirus malware

2006-07-15T00:54:00.000+02:00

My wife recently "accidentally" installed and paid for an antivirus software called "Win Antivirus 2006 Pro". I say accidentally as a "trial" version of the software installs itself from visiting some rogue websites, then it seems to cause a lot of junk popups which it promptly fixes once you buy the product.

Apart from the aggressive/dishonest sales tactics, which don't exactly give me a good impression of the product! it's unclear to me if this software is any good, or if it's more spyware/malware as many websites seem to suggest.
What does seem very clear from the websites I visited is that this software is very difficult to uninstall **cleanly**.

In any case I'd recommend staying well away from software which (very cleverly) pops up suggesting you buy it.

PanicButton

2006-07-15T00:44:00.000+02:00

This isn't good, it's been 3 weeks or so again since I posted, but I've been busy (wife horse jumping competitions, me going to Montreux Jazz Festival, work - video generation, video conferencing, voiceXML, SVG stuff).

Anyway, I came across a really simple idea today which I thought was pretty good. PanicButton
is a piece of free (OpenSource?) software which sits in a windows SystemTray, when you click on it it sends a screendump of the current desktop to a preconfigured e-mail address. The intended use if for IT support - install it on your Mums' computer for example - for all those times they tell you there was this popup but I don't remember what it said.

Funny that, I was just saying to the wife yesterday how annoying it is that most windows popups don't allow you to copy/paste it's contents, and today I stumble across a solution.

The software is a very early version so far but I hope future versions will live up to the potential of this simple tool. I can see it being used for man purposes other than "Panicking".

Robbie Williams in Paris

2006-06-22T22:24:00.000+02:00

Last November I signed up to the Robbie Williams fan club just to be sure of having tickets for his current tour. Probably didn't need to do this in the end as at the Paris gig there were plenty of touts selling tickets and it seemed they were going at face value.

Anyway, it was an excellent concert. I don't like stadium concerts too much but there was a great atmosphere and on a hot day like that was glad not to be indoors. The concert started off with Basement Jaxx. I'm not a great fan but really appreciated them as they did a great job of warming us up.

Robbie came on at about 21h20 and played for about 1h45. Not incredibly long but I was happy that I'd heard all my favourites (as far as I know as I can't remember the names of lots of his songs). RockDJ which I don't like that much, I really enjoyed live. My favourites were Feel and Millenium and of course the first encore .... Angels. Once he'd sung Angels I was satisfied I could go home ....

Thanks LDLC!

2006-06-22T22:16:00.000+02:00

Well, having bought a Panasonic NV-GS21 camcorder from Pixmania last year for my birthday, just before we got burgled, this year I decided to buy exactly the same model .... but not from Pixmania!
I ordered from ldlc (apparently about my 22nd order), I was really glad to see that they had a good choice of camcorders.

Unfortunately, the thing arrived broken. I hesitated a little while wondering what to do (exchange the camcorder, refund the camcorder, refund the camcorder+accessories). After some useful exchanges with ldlc by e-mail - yes they allowed me to communicate by e-mail, they're great - I decided to get a refund and buy from a local store. Despite ldlc's test department claiming the camcorder wasn't broken there was no problem getting refunded, I even got the check about 4 days later. Amazing!! I'm so impressed with ldlc, I've never had any problem with them.

So I finally, bought a camcorder from Boulanger, and decided to fork out a but more for another Panasonic model (NV GS-75). Very pleased with it, it gives excellent quality video with beautiful colours (as it should being a 3-CCD model).

2006-05-28T22:06:00.000+02:00

OK, to get started let's look at a subject dear to my heart. One of the last gadgets I bought and in this case sent back and then spent some time trying to get refunded.

Now please don't take this as a recommendation but here's a link to the product concerned. I just want you not to make the mistake I made.

http://www.pixmania.com/fr/fr/182659/art/irandom/radio-reveil-mp3-dsc2b-po.html?tag=mail_fr_fr_2006-02-01_7839&srcid=316

The product itself is OK if you know what you're buying, or in the case of Pixmania if they knew what they were selling. When you receive this baby one of the first things you see on the box is "Not an MP3 Player". Nice to see that the manufacturer of this interesting gadget is clued up.

So what's my point?

My point is that Pixmania UK sell this as an "IRANDOM DSC2B radio alarm MP3 player - USB 2.0 port" - notice that they say MP3 Player and both UK and French sites propose this item optionally bundled with a USB key (upto 2006-05-28 at least .. hopefully this will change).

Now, this is not an MP3 player, but could be described as a docking station for an MP3 player with USB port. It lets' you recharge your MP3 player via the USB port and listen to music from the player using a 3.5mm jack plug which dangles out of the box.

I've no problem with this concept, although it's not what I personally want to order. I have a problem with this being sold as an MP3 player, or it being bundled with an USB key which is totally useless (whence misleading) in this case!!

My take is that Pixmania have not understood what they're selling (and I see the price is dropping and there are no customer comments .... so I think they're not selling).
I have informed them on numerous occasions until I got tired of fighting with their web interface for sending them messages.

On a more constructive note if anyone knows of any radio-alarm MP3 players I'd be very interested to know about it.

2006-05-28T22:03:00.000+02:00

OK, time I got the ball rolling on this blog.
I'm not quite sure what to promise you yet but subjects will likely include:
- VoiceXML, Video streaming, IMS and related technologies
- Gadgets: what's good and bad in my (good and bad) experience
- Developments in technology
- Music
- Life