Problem: My wife's iPod mini is filled with a lot of music that she doesn't listen to (mostly mine). The problem is she doesn't like using iTunes (or ephPod) and relies on me to get music onto her iPod. Both of us generally use our mp3 players in shuffle-all mode but find ourselves hitting "next" frequently (I guess this also says something about our music collection?). It's more of a problem for full albums we buy and rip rather than singles downloaded from iTMS.

Desired Solution: What we really want is an easy way to trash a song on the iPod... or at least mark it so it won't be played again and automatically removed during the next sync. You would probably need to hold the button down for three or four seconds so you don't accidentally delete tracks.

Current Workaround: We can rate the songs we don't like with one star and then remove them during the next sync. This is too many clicks for my wife and more work for me.

Ideas?

By the way, the new SanDisk Sansa e260 looks pretty slick.

First, some background. I’ve been a TiVo subscriber for over 6 years but I left it with my parents after they became hooked to it, thinking I would get a TiVo Series3 when (if?) it comes out later this year. My wife and I only watch two or three shows a week now, so I figured the Comcast DVR would do the job until this fall.

So last week I ordered the Comcast DVR (a Motorola 6412 device), hoping I would be able to use it to record a few HD shows and maybe a some movies occasionally. Boy was I wrong. What a complete piece of garbage!

The unit itself makes a constant chirping noise and is louder than a TiVo. The device gets so hot I had to remove it from the TV stand because it was generating so much heat. I wasn’t expecting much in terms of the user experience, but with so many devices doing UI right these days, there’s no excuse for a crummy experience like this. The people who designed and engineered this thing should be ashamed of themselves.

As soon as I got the device, I used the clumsy interface to setup recordings for “24” and “Lost”. As I did this, the unit would frequently stutter or freeze up and become unresponsive to the remote control. I finally got the recordings setup and forgot about the whole thing for a few days.

On Wednesday, I decided to watch the latest episode of “24” in HD. I hit the “My DVR” button on the remote and it took me to a list of recordings. It actually listed the same “24” episode twice -- one in HD and the other regular. Curiously, it said the device was 13% full. I assume the HD content takes up a lot more disk space.

I hit “Play” on the HD version of “24” and it started up perfectly. The quality was excellent and I was able to enjoy the first 15 minutes of the show. Once the commercials started, I hit the fast forward button a few times. This is when the unit completely locked up and I started getting errors on the screen. “We cannot process your request…” I even tried hitting Stop, Play, etc but it didn’t do anything … I kept getting more errors until the screen went black and the unit became completely unresponsive. It then asked if I wanted to delete the recording. I selected not to delete it, but the unit remained unresponsive. I hit the power button on the remote but it didn’t do anything. After waiting a few minutes to see if anything would happen, I finally reached behind the unit to recycle the power.

Bad idea.

After the unit restarted, none of the menus were available for almost 5 minutes. There was no program guide data, and when I hit the Menu button, it said “One moment please… the service is being restored.”

I waited patiently, anxious to continue watching the rest of “24”.

Finally the menus became available, so I hit the “My DVR” button on the remote.

“No Listings Available”. 0% Full.

I go to “DVR Schedule” and find it completely empty. The recordings I setup earlier are completely gone. Are you kidding me? Isn’t there a hard drive in this thing? Wouldn’t it make sense to put scheduled recordings on the hard drive so they would it be there even after, say, a power outage?

What a waste of time. I am disappointed that Motorola would release such a crappy product. It’s time to return this piece of garbage and get another TiVo. I guess we can live without HD until Series3.