Techie types: please 'splain to me

[Monkeyleg]

For almost 12 years, I've been forced to deal with computers. I had to learn Photoshop in and out, as well as other programs. I also needed to learn to troubleshoot software and hardware problems.

On top of that, I operate a couple of websites. One of them is a MS SQL-server based site. So, I needed to learn SQL and ASP.

But I'm baffled by the explosion of new tech gadgets. I think I understand what an iPod does, but I'm not entirely sure. Nor am I entirely sure that I need one.

I vaguely understood the reason for MP3 plug-ins, but don't know a dang thing about MP3 players.

On webmaster forums, I see references to RSS feeds, but I'm embarrassed to say that I don't even know what those are.

I do part-time search engine optimization work for a company in Michigan, and my boss has been riding my butt to install a router and a VOIP phone so that I can talk to his programmer in Inida. Excuse me, but there's at least a twelve-hour time difference between India and Wisconsin. I really don't feel like talking to someone at midnight, much less trying to understand what he's saying.

My father was involved in the advent of computer technology back in the 1950's and 1960's. However, if I had told him that, within a few years, people would be able to carry their telephones in their pockets, and take photographs with their telephones, and also send and receive mail with their telephones, he would have told me that I'd just done too much LSD.

So, could someone please explain to me what some of the new devices are for, and why people want them?

Deteriorating minds want to know.

[MechAg94]

I'll give the iPod a shot.  I originally bought mine when I was commuting a few hours a day.  You can only listen to so much talk radio. 

My iPod has 30 Gigs of storage in that little device and has the software to sort the music or just shuffle the entire database.  I can rip every CD I have to my computer, put every single song onto my iPod and and listen to my iPod for several days without hearing a song twice.  I have 2/3 of my CD's ripped to mp3 and it is only around 10 Gigs.  The program that rips my CD's pulls all the CD and song information off the internet.  The iPod has all that data and allows you to sort you music with specific play lists and such.  If I want to just listen to all my Hank Williams stuff, it is pretty easy to set up.  There are a lot of other iPods that are smaller and still hold quite a few songs. 

As far as I know, MP3 is just a compression protocol that allows the storage of reasonably good quality music in as little a computer file as possible.  I have started to rip my CD's into larger files with better sound quality.  When you hook the iPod up to your car stereo, you start to notice the sound quality.  My Dad doesn't have an iPod, but he has an MP3 player hooked up to his stereo in his truck and can put a hundred or more MP3 song files onto one CD and listen to the same CD for an entire road trip. 

An IPod to me is just a computer or XBox adapted to use as a stereo.  A small computer intended for use as an improved and portable stereo walkman with added capability from the software. 

[Bogie]

such a concept... My father was there too...
 
And he's an internet politics junkie...
 
MP3s are just another way of compressing the datastream so that the inflictee gets most of the signal. Think of it as tif to jpeg as to wav to mp3...

It's a lossy compression, and it sucks. But too many folks think it's normal. Because mummy and daddy bought bose...
 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Well, let's see...

Mp3 is cool because it allows you to compress audio into small files for storage and playback later.  If you're into Photoshop, I assume you understand the difference between lossy image file formats (.gif, .jpg, etc) and lossless image formats (.psd, .tif, etc).  The lossy compression schemes let you store your image in a conveniently small file, but at the expense of some loss of the original image.  Mp3 does for audio what the lossy image compression does for images - let's you store the music in a conveniently small file, but at the cost of some minor, nearly unnoticable audio quality.

Ipods and other mp3 players are portable gadgets that play music.  You hook 'em up to you computer and save .mp3 music files onto the memory inside the player.  Then you take the payer with you when you leave, and it reads the .mp3 files in memory and plays them back through a set of headphones.  They're just like the old walkmen and diskmen players we used to use, except instead of playing tapes and CDs, the iPods play .mp3 music files.

RSS feeds are a way of transmitting periodically updating informating over the internet.  Some source (say a blog or a newswire or a stock ticker, or some such) "broadcasts" the info over the internet, and various recipients receive it.  The recipients run a "feed reader" program on their PC, which taps into the RSS feed and displays the new content as soon as it's available.

I think there's an RSS feed associated with each thread here on APS.  Connect to the feed and it'll automatically dispay new posts as soon as they're posted.

[MechAg94]

Yeah, the sound quality on MP3 files is not great if you listen on the wrong system. 

What sucks about iPods is they are somewhat monopolistic.  If you try to use non-iPod accessories, they don't carry through the sound quality near as well.  I guess I should have expected that from Apple.  Also, you can upload mp3 files to an iPod, but it won't let you download from the iPod to another computer.

[Monkeyleg]

"Think of it as tif to jpeg as to wav to mp3..."

Thanks, Bogie. That I can understand.

[Bogie]

Bogie be designer. And technogeek.
 

[charby]

rss feeds are an application that allows someone to share recent changes, new services and blog uses them, you can pick you favorite news sites and blogs and if they use one of the rss formats you can have them let you know when there is updates.

pick your choice of Instant Messanger with voice chat and you can do VOIP without a router.

-C

[Vodka7]

RSS is just a way to subscribe to a webpage, and it's built into the newest versions of the big three web browsers now (look for an orange icon to light up when you're on a page with a feed.)  Basically, depending on your browser (or third party reader, or website aggregator) settings, your program checks the RSS feed for updates on a given timeline.  If there is an update, the reader grabs it.  Some sites (LawDog, for example) give you the entire post, so you never actually need to go to the site itself.  A lot of other sites will give you a headline, or a headline and a short synopsis, and you'll still need to click the link in the feed to read the whole story.  (After all, the whole internet is run on ads, and if you're just reading the posts your browser downloads, they're not generating any revenue.  But, more and more feeds are starting to add in ads.)

Basically, remember back in 1995 when everyone said Push would be the next big technology, and that the Pull internet as we knew it was dead?   They eventually turned out to be kind of, sort of, right.  Unlike what a few other posters said, though, websites do not "announce" updates in the sense that they automatically send you information.  Your reader checks every X minutes/hours and reports what it finds back to you.  So if your reader is flaky or you have it set to check at a very large interval, updates will not be instant.

It's a nice technology, and it lets me stay up on a lot more sites than I used to be able to in the same amount of time.  (No more loading up Site X to see if it's been updated--if the feed title is bold, there are updates.)

For VOIP, depending on what you want to use it for, it can be as easy or difficult to set up as you want it to be.  Like charby said, most IM programs support voice chats, and chances are your colleague in India is already running MSN on his computer.  Get MSN, get a headset, and you're good to go.  The bonus for MSN is, if you can't understand the guy, tell him your headset is making a weird noise and you're going to have to do the rest of the conversation through regular text IM

My father uses Vonage for all his conference calls and is extremely happy with it--installation was pretty much as simple as plug the router in, plug his phone in, and start calling.  Their international rates are not as good as Skype or other smaller VOIP providers, but he doesn't care as anything international is expensed and paid for by his company.

[Eleven Mike]

If I want an mp3 player, is the iPod the way to go, or are there others?  What are prices like on these things?

I think there's an RSS feed associated with each thread here on APS.  Connect to the feed and it'll automatically dispay new posts as soon as they're posted.

Splain.

[Dannyboy]

What sucks about iPods is they are somewhat monopolistic.  If you try to use non-iPod accessories, they don't carry through the sound quality near as well.  I guess I should have expected that from Apple.  Also, you can upload mp3 files to an iPod, but it won't let you download from the iPod to another computer.

Sure you can.  I downloaded my entire library when my buddy got his iPod.  Granted, this is not an Apple program.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/IPOD-TOOLS/Other-IPOD-tools-Updates/SharePod.shtml

[Standing Wolf]

Much of what passes for "advances" in technology is change for the sake of change.

Let me give you an example, eh? I work in a combination shooting range and gun shop. We're required by federal law to keep an A & D book, which is to say in plain English: acquisition and disposition record of every firearm that enters and leaves the establishment. The book is a paper record of each firearm's make, model, serial number, barrel length, caliber, person or business acquired from, person or business who purchased it, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Several of the individuals involved in the enterprise are red hot for a digital A & D book. We bought our original business transaction software because it supposedly included an A & D book. The software was a ludicrous mess that couldn't even keep track of boxes and cases of ammunition. We finally cut the cord and started freshseveral manual inventories of the whole place laterwith another software package. It at least keeps track of ammunition, though the user interface is from the far end of hell's furnace room. We're now pouring several thousand additional dollars into a project that might result in a digital A & D book.

Cool, right?

No one has paused to consider the fact that we're still required to maintain the paper A & D book. Net result? We'll now have to maintain not one, but two A & D books. We'll have twice as much data entry work, 50% with pens on paper, 50% with keyboards on a "network" that's neither secure nor reliable.

Supposedly brilliant solutions to non-existent problems are the norm, not the exception.

[Jamisjockey]

You won't have to be up at Midnight to call India....they work graveyards to do our call center work.