Timothy Huber
10-17-2008, 07:06 PM
This morning, my wife called me at work because she decided to listen to her Zune 30 through the docking station on our living room stereo and she couldn't get it to work. The problem was the Zune 80 insert was in the dock instead of the Zune 30 insert. With a little instruction she swapped out the inserts and happily started listening.
While this may not seem like a momentous event, for me it marks a turning point. It's time to seriously go digital; completely digital. No more CDs, no DVDs, no videotapes. I've been thinking about this for a while, but the call from my wife shows that she's ready to head down this road. And, maybe more importantly, things have reached a point where I can put together a "spouse-friendly" solution.
"Spouse-friendly" is the key. I've bought my wife several MP3 players over the years, but she never took to them. The Zune v2 UI upgrade changed that. Straightforward, simple, and easy-to-read. Over the past year her use of the Zune has slowly increased. Until today, when she decided to dock it.
So what does "Going digital..." entail? Here are the highlights:
Single source for documents. Regardless of the computer I'm sitting at, I want to have access to the same set documents. If my wife writes a Christmas letter on the kitchen computer, I want to be able to pull it up on the downstairs computer or my laptop to edit.
Single source for media. One set of music, videos, and photos accessible from anywhere in the house.
No more CDs. I began re-ripping all my audio CDs last fall. I'm almost done. Then they'll be packed away and stored. We have a ZunePass subscription for most new music and various MP3 stores to buy non-DRM music not available via ZunePass. A last resort will be to buy a CD and rip it.
No more DVDs. I have a DVD collection that I'd like to make available to the whole house without having to carry discs up and down stairs. I'm not sure exactly how I'll do this one, but it's one my list. I also have a bunch of Laserdiscs that have never been released on DVD I'd like to convert to digital.
Accessible digital photos. I've had a digital camera since 1999, and we've been exclusively digital since 2002. I've been culling through boxes of photographs going back to 1992 and slowly scanning them. But I want to be able to easily show them and share them; or, more specifically want my wife to be able to show and share them.
Backup. I've been fortunate to date not to have had a catastrophic drive failure. But I've come close. I want to make sure all this digital media is backed up, preferably offsite.
The journey starts today... I just ordered a HP MediaSmart Windows Home Server. I expect this will never really be "finished." We'll see.
Anybody else going down this path? I'd appreciate your comments and feedback.
Best regards,
Timothy
While this may not seem like a momentous event, for me it marks a turning point. It's time to seriously go digital; completely digital. No more CDs, no DVDs, no videotapes. I've been thinking about this for a while, but the call from my wife shows that she's ready to head down this road. And, maybe more importantly, things have reached a point where I can put together a "spouse-friendly" solution.
"Spouse-friendly" is the key. I've bought my wife several MP3 players over the years, but she never took to them. The Zune v2 UI upgrade changed that. Straightforward, simple, and easy-to-read. Over the past year her use of the Zune has slowly increased. Until today, when she decided to dock it.
So what does "Going digital..." entail? Here are the highlights:
Single source for documents. Regardless of the computer I'm sitting at, I want to have access to the same set documents. If my wife writes a Christmas letter on the kitchen computer, I want to be able to pull it up on the downstairs computer or my laptop to edit.
Single source for media. One set of music, videos, and photos accessible from anywhere in the house.
No more CDs. I began re-ripping all my audio CDs last fall. I'm almost done. Then they'll be packed away and stored. We have a ZunePass subscription for most new music and various MP3 stores to buy non-DRM music not available via ZunePass. A last resort will be to buy a CD and rip it.
No more DVDs. I have a DVD collection that I'd like to make available to the whole house without having to carry discs up and down stairs. I'm not sure exactly how I'll do this one, but it's one my list. I also have a bunch of Laserdiscs that have never been released on DVD I'd like to convert to digital.
Accessible digital photos. I've had a digital camera since 1999, and we've been exclusively digital since 2002. I've been culling through boxes of photographs going back to 1992 and slowly scanning them. But I want to be able to easily show them and share them; or, more specifically want my wife to be able to show and share them.
Backup. I've been fortunate to date not to have had a catastrophic drive failure. But I've come close. I want to make sure all this digital media is backed up, preferably offsite.
The journey starts today... I just ordered a HP MediaSmart Windows Home Server. I expect this will never really be "finished." We'll see.
Anybody else going down this path? I'd appreciate your comments and feedback.
Best regards,
Timothy