Tech R.I.P. - My mp3 player

It’s been a long time. Thank you for coming; or coming back. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you hadn’t. In order to keep this going, and a little regular, I plan on started a host of new types of post for WTTG. “Tech R.I.P.” is one of them. In it, I’ll talk about technology that has died, or that needs to. It will be both about actually products that I use, and product lines or technologies I think need to go. I will introduce the other new post types as I go along.

It seems fitting for the rebirth of my tech blog to be about the death of one of my favorite, and most loyal, pieces of technology. I come here to praise my flash based mp3 player, not to bury it.

In fact, I just can’t bring myself to throw it away. I’ve had my trusty SanDisk Sansa m260 4 GB mp3 player since May of 2006. I had a larger mp3 player with almost all of my music on it, but it was tough to use in the gym. My girlfriend at the time (now "Mrs. WTTG") didn’t own an mp3 player at all, and her birthday was coming up. I saw my chance, and brought a matching pair of Sansa mp3 players. My wife got a grey 2GB model, and I got the blue 4GB model.

There were a lot of things that made the Sansa m260 great. It was a small but sturdy player, and at the time 4 GB seemed like a lot of space for a flash player. Instead of a rechargeable, it ran off of a regular AAA battery, which meant no waiting to recharge, and lasted a good long while off of one alkaline. It was simple to put music and podcasts onto it, especially for a computer control freak like myself. It had a super easy-to-use menu system. Almost daily I would load up the latest Mike O’Meara Show or Tony Kornheiser show podcasts. The little guy put out great sound, even when used through the AUX jack in my car stereo. Plus it was small and light enough to spend all day in my pocket, even on the treadmill. Best of all, it’d take a licking and keep on ticking.

At least, it did keep on ticking for a long while. I’d occasionally drop it out of my pocket, but it never seemed any worse for the wear, other than some of the blue rubbing off to the white plastic. It came with a plastic wrapper, but it eventually discolored and tore. This spring, I started to notice some strange behavior. The player would reboot unexpected. It would freeze after I put new music on it. I knew it didn’t have long to live. When I was in line at Subway and it paused in the middle of re-listening to “Raw”, it was over.

I went through the typical stages of the grief cycle, and of a music addict. I was mad I had to listen to the radio. Good God, no wonder I loved mp3s. I was sad that my buddy wasn’t putting out music. I even tore it apart and attempted to fix it. I even got it to turn on again, and listened for a solid hour before it froze for the final time. I even, out of desperation, used the TERRIBLE mp3 player built into my cell phone. It's given me my 'fix' but isn't adequate as a replacement.

So now, it’s one of my most bittersweet times; sorry to say goodbye to my old technology, but excited, cause I’m getting something shiny and new. Till next time.