okay,  that let out a bit of frustration. maybe i can actually type sense  now... maybe...


anyways, I'm going on holiday on friday to the frech  alps. were driving from south wales,  4 hours driving  to  london, 2 hours driving to dover, 1 hour of ferry from dover to calais, then 9 hours driving from calais to where wee are staying. that adds up to around 16 hours of sitting on my donkey listening to my mp3 player (Walkman NWZ-A818).  most of the time  i  absolutely adore my mp3 player, it sounds absolutely sublime  with  sony fontopia headphones (old,  but still awesome) and it can do 33 hours of non stop mosh on a full charge. but, 33 hours isn't going to be enough to last 32  hours of driving (There and back) and various other moshing sessions during the 2 weeks I'm  there, away from my computer.

you see, what enticed me to buy this mp3 player was sony's legendary build  quality and reliability, the reviews i had  read raving about its sound and the price. only £79 at the time!!!! but what i didn't consider  was charging. i thought  a mains adapter  was  included, but oh no... in recent  years sony have been paying more attention to their bank balance than their customer satisfaction (have a try at thei customer  'support' to get an idea).

so, a few weeks ago i decided to try and make one. i used the mains adapter for my old mp3 player  (a creative zen microphoto) as a base and simply put a new connector on the end. the specs for the creative charger  and the official sony  charger  are  identical so i assumed it would work. nope, no can do. the walkman acted as  if  i  hadn't plugged anything  in, so i checked my wiring and tested it with other usb-chargeable-portable-electronics and they all worked. so i did a bit of googling and it turns  out that  sony have designed their  player only to charge if the current provided by the charger is just perfect and can communicate  with whatever is giving it  juice. it can communicate with a computer so it charges with  it, but it can't communicate with a wall-wart so it won't charge. but, the  sony charger has other witchcraft built in to tell the player that it is allowed to charge! AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!! WHY YOU STUPID BASTARDS, SONY!!! WHY!!!!


the official charger costs £20, quarter what i payed for the walkman. i have  approx £7 on hand and arnet due anymore money until i am on holiday, so that rules out buying one from the local electronics store in town. I've had  a look online for a charger but the cheapest  i can find it  is  £15 not including delivery. its unlikely it  would  be with me on time anyway.

so I've been begging my parents for jobs i can do around the house that will earn me some cash but  they're not prepared  to give me any dough because they think I'll just waste it on spoon.

MOTHERFUKINGchocolateTYFUCKETTYFUCKBASTARD!!! I NEED MUSIC!!! MY PARENTS Don't UNDERSTAND!!! WHYYYYYYYY!!!!!! AAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!111!!!1!1!!!!


</rant>

i could lend you my old ipod nano if my mother was willing (she has it now)..... it's only 4 gigs but it does the job perfectly..... went through a lot with me...... oh, wait.... you hate ipods.... oh well..........

     and stop lying rob.... you don't have a mosh line-up.... not compared to mine anyway......

amzter Wrote:buy a ipod charger the ones that take the usb wire. and just plug it in they only cost like fiver

it will only charge with the pfficial sony charger. the sony one contains electronic jiggerypokery that more than just provides power, it actually talks to the player over the usb cable. I've tried countless cheapo ipod chargers and  none of them work because they only provide power and  don't communicate with the player at all. Argos hate me by now for returning everything I've bought there in the past month.

in other news, i may be able to cobble enough money together to buy one. if i can convince my parents to give me my pocket money a few days early i can use that  plus the money i get from returning a cheapo charger that i bought yesterday, plus a load of coppers that i dug up from inside the sofa i may  get away with buying an official sony charger.

maybe...

yeah, i liked creative but they have an alarming tendancy to  die on me.  the only thing made by creative that i own, that isn't dead is my soundcard in my computer. then again, i have had to replace most of the capacitors and 2 of the op-amps to resurrect it after one of my 'experiments' went wrong. my sound setup used to be an old hifi amplifier and a set of surprisingly good £20 hifi speakers. the amp blew up one day so i decided, as a stopgap until i could get hold of  a new amplifier, to see  if  i could run the speakers directly from the soundcard. i knew it would be quiet and not very good for the soundcard, but i continued anyway. needless to say, the impedance of the speakers was waaaay to low for the op-amps on the soundcard, so  i was welcomed to a thin white plume of smoke come from the soundcard. i replaced the op amps a few days  later and all was fine again. by this point i had found a hifi amp being thrown out on the street, and its still going strong.


in other news: i went down to town this morning to  buy a charger but guess what. out of stock there and every other store within 60 miles. so i go and find an internet  cafe, do some quick googling to see if any other stores nearby stock it, and found that official apple ipod chargers  work with my mp3 player! they may cost more but there was no other alternative.

so i went against my anti-apple predjudices and went and bought an apple charger. got home, tried it, and HUSSAH!!!! IT WORKS!!! while i  was in town i also stopped off at the local produce market and bought some bread.

so, a productive trip into town. i overcame my predjudices, i found a way to chrge my mp3 player away from a computer, i bought some 'healthy' food, and I'm supporting local businesses in doing so. its all good....

XFD. Bread...

Congrats on sorting the problem, though, you getz music nao

extra bonus, the charger comes with a french adapter and it will charge my phone. WOOT! now i need one less travel adapter.