The Evil Empire™ Strikes Again!
Posted by: tony on 02/15/2007 07:57 PM
Updated by: tony on 02/16/2007 05:25 PM
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Expires: 03/18/2007 12:00 AM
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 As an unapologetic geek, I'm a fan of neat technology and one of the neatest technologies I've found is the iRiver brand of ultra compact music players. One of the things that drew me to them was the fact that:
- They support OGG Vorbis encoded music1
- Their units are upgradable, meaning that if new technology comes out, they can (and do) support it without forcing you to buy the next generation of player.
- They support UMS (make the unit look like a little hard drive to the computer).
- They are really reasonably priced.
I have owned an iRiver FP-170 for a while, this is a unit not much bigger than a thumb drive that has 128M of memory on board, and can play MP3s and WMAs. When DRM music was developed, iRiver made an upgrade available that I could install in my unit to allow me to play it. I bought that one for about $42 shipped.
I recently wanted to upgrade, so I found an iRiver T30 on eBay which I bought for $26 shipped. This one has 512M on it, and no FM player, but that's ok. I had done some research, and discovered that this unit also supported UMS. When I received the unit (with the original packaging, though opened) I saw that there was a requirement for software distributed by the Evil Empire™ (in other words, Micro$oft), namely Media Player 10.
Hmm... I said. If I have UMS capability, I can drag and drop music onto the unit from any operating system that supports UMS. My operating system of choice is Linux, namely Fedora Core 5.
Now the fun started. I went to the iRiverAmerica website to download the upgrade program. That having been done, I ran it. It sent me through a few steps, and on the last step, I'm supposed to unhook the USB cable, and the .HEX file that was placed on my unit will automatically upgrade it.
Silly me.
I waited and waited and waited for the upgrade to start. I then plugged it into the USB port again, and saw the device appear. It was recognized (not as USB), but not upgraded. The .HEX file was still on the unit (it is supposed to be deleted automatically after a successful upgrade).
So on to tech support. I call the long distance iRiver support number, and after waiting on hold for about 45 minutes, I get connected to a really nice and competent tech support guy named Chris T. Chris explained to me that the problem was with Windows Media Player version 11. It seems that this evil aberration makes my device look like it's formatted FAT 16, and the upgrade program doesn't place the right upgrade code on the unit.
He recommended that I roll back Media Player to version 10, upgrade the device, then upgrade Media Player again. Sounded like a lot of work to me, so I asked him if he could simply send me the appropriate upgrade file, I could move it to the unit and then when I pulled out the USB cable, voila, it would upgrade. He said that would appear to work, so he sent me links to both the "pure" software (that requires Media Player or some other supported Windows player to work) and the UMS software (that is interoperable with any supprted Operating System, which is probably all of them).
I pulled down both files, and when I went to open the UMS zip file, it was empty or corrupted or something. I asked Chris about it and he said that it was a problem with engineering. He said keep on the lookout, or he would notify me when it was available.
Meanwhile, when I was searching for how to solve the problem, I ran across a particular conspiracy theory that postulated that iRiver had made a deal with the Evil Empire™ to not distribute the UMS software in the United States. This would keep the money funneling through Darth Gates. I am usually not a fan of conspiracy theories, but I didn't notice UMS support on the packaging that I read, and when I got the idea to simply go to the European iRiver site and download the software for the UK, it worked just fine. I now have a music player that supports UMS.
So I plugged it into my Linux machine, and have been moving music back and forth ever since, enjoying my new purchase. A neat side effect is if I go on my Wintendo2, Windows Media Player recognizes my UMS music device, and treats it just like it did before the upgrade. The only thing is doesn't support in UMS mode is subscription music, but since I'm not a subscriber, and I purchase all of my DRM-"protected" music, it doesn't affect me much.
So when people tell you that Microsoft is just a successful company, tell them so is the Mafia.
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