voxox First look

as of this writing VoxOx is in beta release and most have not heard about it yet. I was curious to figure out what it is and if it anything like what i understood when i read about it on Cnet. So here are my expectations:
- it is a program that will allow me to sign in to my MSN, Yahoo, Google messengers all at the same time.
- in doing so it will automatically import all the contacts from each of the messengers to it and organize them somehow
- it will also allow me to connect to my skype or it has a feature that is like skype (phone/video)
as you see my expectations are very reasonable after reading the Cnet article :


So I went to the download link from cnet which is

and downloaded VoxOx then installed it on my Vista operating system.. this was straight forward.
Then when you run VoxOx for the first time the wizard comes up (you can initiate the wizard later on if you forgot something or wanted to change something).

here are my first look fast thought and observations:
- the program still crashes every once in while when you do something like try to sign in with your live messenger.
- I have not figured it out yet but some contacts will show a picture next to them and others not.. it might have to do with the version of live messenger/ yahoo messenger they are using etc.
- the pictures for the contact area are not adjustable in size (it would be much nicer if they were)
I am still evaluating this .. so please wait for further updates in the next hours

Sharepod wont play m4a music files floola

I would say this is a problem with floola as well, I searched the web and found almost nothing.. many people with this problem yet no real answers.. By the way M4a are aac non protected files so there is no issue with protection. I noticed that the problem is Windows media player which both Floola and sharepod use to play music.. so the problem is Windows Media Player does not as shipped play m4a files, yet there is a way to make it work, and that is by installing something called a codec for Windows media player. here are the steps:
1- download the codec from Orban at http://www.orban.com/plugin/ it is called aacPlus Player Plugin™
2- install the files you just downloaded by double clicking on it.
3- the instilation should be quite simple and straight forward.
4- once done floola or sharepod will be able to play any m4a file.

Copying Files from Ipod to itunes using Floola

I am thinking of moving this to website instead of a blog since I don’t see much comments happening and that would defeat the idea of a blog (I guess)…. Anyways many people have been asking me about ipods again and how to transfer music from one place to another so I decided to write a step by step way of doing it. There are different ways of doing this by the way, and what I am showing is only one of them but I think it is a simple way of doing it especially for people who don’t have there ipod music in their PC/Mac anymore for whatever reason (bought a new computer/ had a hard drive failure etc.. ) also it is especially beneficial for people who have two different Computers (PC/MAC or combination of both) and don’t want the two libraries to be the same on both computers .
I will be writing a long introduction with information that might be useful but can be skipped all the way to the instruction section as long as you read the following paragraph:
This procedure is not intended to be used to make illegal compies of any music, also I am not held responsible for anything that might happen to your ipod or computer for following these instructions –proceed on your own risk.
One thing I will start off with is the syncing of ipods with itunes and what it means. Apple made ipods to sync to itunes once they are connected, yet this syncing is limited to one ipod per computer, and one computer per ipod .. meaning if you have synced your ipod to computer 1 and then tried to sunc it to computer 2 even if both computers have same music in their itunes, itunes will tell you that the ipod is synced with another library and you get an option for yes or no to sync with this library.

Once you press yes the ipod is erased of all music and then the music that is in the itunes of the computer you connected to will be transferred to your ipod. The same will happen if you try to connect the ipod to a computer that has an empty itunes library the ipod will be erased but then since there is no music in the itunes no music will be transferred to your ipod and you will have an empty ipod.
This is pretty bad unless you are using one computer and all the music in your ipod is already in the itunes, yet if this is not the case you should press the NO button and then itunes will not do anything – meaning it will not update your ipod but will show your ipod on the left side of itunes- I prefer this method because it gives you more control of what you can have in your ipod and also enables you to connect your ipod to a different computer.

Well this is how it starts but then you do want to make this way of action a permanent way and you do that by going to the left side of itunes and selecting your ipod and then checking the box that says manage music manually.

Once you do that it will save that setting on your ipod and thereafter whenever you connect your ipod to any computer it will not try to sync instead it will know that you are doing things manually. Once the ipod is setup this way you should follow the

following stepts to disconnect your ipod:


1- Go to itunes.


2- Find your ipod on the left side.


3- Right click on it.



4- Choose eject ipod


5- The ipod disappears and now you can remove your ipod


If you don’t see the ipod on your itunes disconnect your ipod just as you would any flash drive/ external hard drive using the folloing steps:

1- Open your computer in Windows, Finder in Mac

2- You will see your ipod as an external device in Windows, a mounted drive on MAC


3- Right click on it and choose eject.













Instructions for Copying Files from Your ipod to your itunes library (two step process):

STEP 1: Copying the files from your ipod to your computer

1- Make sure your ipod is set to manulay manage music (read the section above if you want to know how to do this)

2- Go to http://www.floola.com/modules/wiwimod/index.php?page=download and download Floola Program for ur operating system (mac/ Windows)

3- Connect ur ipod to ur computer

I have noticed a very interesting thing in ipods… ipods that have been first setup on Macintosh cannot be connected to PC computers… Windows and itunes will not let you use the ipod unless it has been formatted (and thus erased)

whereas ipods initially setup on windows can be used on both PCs and MACs !!!

Anyways...

4- Make sure your itunes did not open when you connected your ipod, if it did cancel any warning or updates it asks you if you want to download and quit itunes for now

5- go to where you downloaded Floola on your PC (it might be in a zip file that you have to extract first.... u can email me if you need help with this) and double click on floola.exe or floola that has an icon like the picture.

6- Floola will now open and most probably will give you some kind of error, on of them is the scarry one of that the ipod was not setup correctly and weather you want floola to set up your ipod automatically .... you should press yes if you want to continue with these instructions. It might also ask you about what generation or type your ipod is... you should either know or try to guess to your best knowledge and if you have problems you uninstall floola and then reinstall it again, but I never had to do that.

7- once floola is open you will see a window of floola as the one shown (be patient floola is a slow program and sometimes takes 1-4 minutes to update the database of all your songs.

8- now you choose the files you would like to download to your itunes (eventually) you can select more than one file by holding the CTRL button while clicking on the files you want to download... all files you have selected will be highlighted in blue. ** if you want to select all files in that list press CTRL + A **


9- now after you selected the files let go of the CTRL button if you used it and RIGHT click the mouse on any of the highlighted files

10- choose copy to















11- a new window will open.. you can keep everything the same and click on the destination button










12- a new window will open showing you your computer folders ...choose a folder where you want the files to be downloaded to i am choosing c:/floola for this example














13- press Copy and the files will start getting copied to your computer

THIS COMPLETES STEP ONE OF THE PROCESS

STEP 2 : Adding the files to the itunes library

to be continued ..........