My wife and I have had iPod Shuffles for a while now, but the other day we caved and picked up an iPod Touch. We drive a 2008 Mazda 5, and unlike most newer vehicles, it does not have an MP3 compatible stereo. I won’t write a rant about this at the moment, but I will say I think its incredibly stupid. The stereo does however have, an auxiliary input, perfect for plugging in the ol’ iPod.

Changing CD’s is a pain in the next, so we started using our Shuffle’s in the car, and while this works well, the lack of a visual display and inability to create separate playlists etc, make finding the song you want nearly impossible. This is why we decided to go all out and pick up a touch.

The 8 GB version is more than enough for us, considering that we only have about 300 MP3’s in our current library, we can’t even come close to filling this thing up – if we were to put all we had into the player we would still only fill up about 12% of its capacity (assuming I am doing my math right). Considering this, spending the extra $80 to jump up to a 16GB model doesn’t make much sense for us.

When we first started using iTunes a few years back, I have to say I hated it. It made no sense to me, and I simply gave up trying. A few months back I decided to sit down and actually learn how it works. I have to admit, it isn’t rocket science, but when you are used to using WinAmp, and then dragging MP3’s onto an MP3 Player within Windows Explorer, iTunes does represent a bit of a learning curve. It didn’t take long to figure out, and now I find it incredibly easy, but it did make me wonder how intuitive the iPod Touch would be.

Well, I have quickly learnt that the most difficult part about the iPod touch was getting it out of the packaging. I struggled with this for at least 5 minutes. Perhaps I should have given it to my 1 year old, she would have had it open in seconds.

Next I had to wait 15 minutes to upgrade my version of iTunes and then reboot the stupid computer. They can put a man on the moon but they can’t seem to make an operating system that allows for updates without a reboot. Man Vista takes forever to re-boot.

Once I finally had the iPod unpackaged and installed, I dragged my playlist over to it within iTunes and threw on a few photos before playing with the interface etc. I was VERY surprised to discover just how easy it was/is to use. It is incredibly intuitive. Everything I tried to do I could figure out in just a few simple steps, and navigating from one menu to the next is instantaneous.

Once I had a bit of a grasp on things, I decided to take a look at the apps. A quick search for “free” uncovered a number of little games and various tools. Nothing too exciting, but somewhat fun never the less – really the games are only any good if you are waiting at a doctors office or something – I can’t imagine ever sitting on my couch playing away on them, but still cool never the less.

So while I have only played with this iPod for a couple days, So far I have nothing but good things to say about it. Way to go Apple – while I still have no desire to purchase one of your computers, you have managed to change my opinion of your MP3 Players, at least for now.

It isn’t often that I post reviews in my Blog, but it is something I think I will start doing more of, as I am finding people seem to like reading reviews.

In the past I have reviewed our 2008 Mazda 5, the new Monopoly City Streets game, and today I am writing to review Memory America, an online Computer Memory shop. (Stay Tuned, I will also be reviewing my new DeWalt 18V Hammer Drill – but I haven’t had time to play with it just yet).

About a year ago I replaced my old boat anchor 17” Dell laptop with a more manageable 15” Toshiba Satellite. (It literally weighs about 8lbs less). This new replacement also brought with it my first experiences with Windows Vista. Equipped with 2 Gigs of ram I quickly realized this was just not enough for Vista.

Today I took the plunge and ordered 2 new chips, 2GB each, from Memory America to bring the computer up to 4 Gigs. My hope and assumption is that this will significantly speed up the machine. I hesitated ordering online, but their prices make it more affordable then what I can find locally, so I decided to go for it. Typically I have never had any problems with online orders, but because the ram is something I am not 100% knowledgeable of I was a bit hesitant.

I am a bit of a novice when it comes to computer upgrades etc – sure I know more ram is good and I know how to swap it out but had no idea what type etc to order – following the easy navigation on this site made it a breeze to find what I was looking for. If they didn’t make it so easy to find the right ram, I would have probably spent a few more dollars and bought locally.

I found their shopping cart system a breeze and ordering was easy – now I just have to wait for the memory to arrive! Ram should be here next week some time.

I’ll also add I must have been having an off day because only after I ordered the ram did I think to pop the cover off the bottom of the laptop to see exactly what memory was in there – thankfully I had ordered the right stuff.