No it's not. USB2 has a fast burst speed, but cannot sustain that speed the way Firewire can. And that's with Firewire 400. Firewire 800 is much faster than USB2.

Try editing some video or audio using USB2 and see for yourself!

I agree with you. I sort my iTunes Library by artist, so it's easy to find who I want to listen to. Or alternately type a name in the search field, or use the browser.

When I have some new CDs I make a playlist, so that finding them is easy, and of course the playlist is on my iPod too.

Why would people want to make a playlist and listen to the same songs over and over? I often make a playlist of artist I like, with just the songs I want. Or my wife has her "kickin' driving music" playlist when we use the iPod in the car, and one for dinner parties when we use the iPod attached to our home sound system.

If you really want to know where the song file is, control (right) click and select show song file! I think it's great the way iTunes organizes the files, with folders for artist, album, etc. What could be easier to find?

I see new Mac users complaining about this, I guess because they are so used to spending a lot of time looking for files, that it seems the normal way to use a computer. It isn't.

I also have my iTunes Library on a separate hard drive.

Huh? The big round thing on the top right of my iTunes window says "Burn Disc" on mine. When you click it, it opens (looks like a camera shutter) to reveal the typical burn button. I'd never seen the browse feature either.

As far as organizing songs...I don't listen to MP3 files any more, just internet radio, unless I'm away from internet coverage (on a plane is about the only place). I've never used playlists, they don't make sense to me. But I certainly can't understand why you'd want playlists that disappear automatically!

As far as the file organization, I want to be able to burn data CDs holding the music, in the logical arrangement that I use, so I can play them on the motorcycle and in the car. When I let iTunes do it, it made a mess. Sure, they looked fine in iTunes, but it was a mess when playing them in the car/bike players.

It says "Browse" if you have the main Library selected, "Burn Disc" if you have a playlist selected, and "Refresh" if you have a Radio list selected.

I use the iTunes window like the Finder to find things fast (you know how you can type the file name while in a directory and be taken to that file). Click on the top of a column (Artists, for instance), and now start typing who/what you are looking for (Eagles, for instance), and you'll be taken to the first song relevant to what you typed. Click on the 'Song Name' column heading and type 'Layla' and you'll be taken to Layla, etc. [Not all of my music is that dated (listening to 'Dream On' (Aerosmith) while typing this), really!] I only wish I could navigate betwen columns via the keyboard.

I also let iTunes organize them however it wants.

You said it well, RacerX. It is the same if you are migrating from OS 9. There was no looking back once I let OS X suggest to me how to do things through the natural course of using it. It is not like it is dictating to me how to do things, but an OS, like a person, cannot be useful if it tries to be everything to everyone.

Who said that his wife wasn't working out. :)

With two Macs to her credit, I'd say she was working out just fine! :)

Hey! Continuing the Finder similarities, I just figured out (perhaps the last one to do so) that holding down on the shift key and pressing the down or up arrow selects (consecutive) songs until you release the arrow key. Before, I'd always been annoyed by having to select them one at a time (to make a playlist, for instance)...holding down on the command key and dragging the mouse over them never worked.

it was a good quote. but, it was RacerX's, not mine.

Apologies, everyone. I fixed it above.

You remind me of what happens every time I work on an OS 9 machine now and hit CMD-N to open a new Finder window.

Get to trash a lot of 'untitled folders' afterwards. Intuitive still equals "what you've become used to." :D

I beg to differ. You don't have to accept the default behavior or appearance of your Mac. I would never use MacOS X without Default Folder, XRay, FruitMenu, QuicKeys, Duality4, X-Assist, WeatherPop, a few plist modifications to do things like make Command-N create a new folder not a new window in the Finder, and the forcible removal and exile of the Dock.

I've got something that looks and feels like MacOS 9 but with protected memory, preemptive multitasking, and a robust Unix kernel running the show, and that's exactly what I want.

(Of course I don't run MacOS 9 in plain-vanilla unmodified form either. Ugh. Can't imagine MacOS 9 without Default Folder, Escapade, QuicKeys, FinderPop, Open With App, OtherMenu, Snitch, etc.)

Well, it's unlikely that I would want to make my customers' working environment adopt my modifications, any more than I would care to adopt theirs (or yours, for that matter). ;)

You're right! I was incomplete in my post. I didn't mean to suggest that one had to live with what they got out of the box...they can adapt it any way they want (as you have) because it is theirs and they know how they can be most productive. What I meant was not to ditch an OS because it doesn't work the way you are used to. I suggested letting it show you its own flow, but unfortunately I wasn't complete enough to mention add-ons to adapt its flow to your individual tastes as needed.

I myself use LaunchBar and VirtualDesktop. LaunchBar is my replacement for the venerable FinderPop (twice I bought Turly some Beamish, I appreciated it so much). I hardly use Expose because of VirtualDesktop. Now and then I dust off DragThing out of loyalty, but I don't find that I use it except for keyboard shortcuts to an array of AppleScripts.

[Apologies to the OP and the mods for further dragging this thread off topic.]

Agreed! Considering the wide range of individual user preferences and tastes, the out-of-the-box MacOS is a pretty good starting point.

Dude, just how many free CPU cycles does your machine have? ;)

I have two of these and wouldn't give them up for a lot more than $216. I'm so stuck on it that I keep the second one as a spare. I think it came with an SE/30 or something else back in the '80s. The best keyboard I use, and unfortunately, I use a lot of them. Word of caution: you can't hot plug (or unplug) them without some risk.

++

i've still got 2 spares and a parts keyboard (for broken keys, etc.). anyone got the disposable income to try one of these yet?

Thanks for the Audion suggestion, I think that is my answer to my MP3 playing blues. As for the rest, I'm trying not to get too frustrated by it. As many of you mentioned, I'm just going to give it some more time and see what happens. This may be the best machine in the world, but it may also be more trouble than its worth.

:)
Toney.