I have the Griffin iTrip because, when I was looking into them, I didn't have a cassette in the car I was using. Tape adapters offer much better / clearer sound quality, especially when the FM stations are already so crowded like they are in So. Cal. I am thinking of buying one now that my car has a tape deck.

That said, I like the iTrip for radio use.

I use the casette adapter, because luckily, my car plays them. But with all the travel I do, I sometimes wish I'd gotten the FM adapter, so I could use my iPod in the rental cars (which never have tape players). OTOH, one more thing to distract me while I"m lost in a strange city, so perhaps just as well.

My dvd player has given up the ghost (or, more accurately, refused to open up its mouth so I guess more of a hunger strike) and my vcr is now dead too.

I was looking for a new DVD player and was enamored of this: [link]

Has anyone here used a combo deck? Also the idea of being able to write dvds from Replyed shows on the same box thrills me to no end -- if it works.

I have a backup vcr so if it's not a good thing to include, I can work around it.

There was some talk a while back of the FCC selling the use on the even numbered points on the FM band. I wonder what happened with that? I have noticed some nicer systems actually being able to list , say 91.2, but have not heard any further information.

If they do go through with it, it means the FM stations using the odd-numbered bands would have to police their signals more, letting the things like the iTrip get in edgewise.

I seem to recall, at one point, a comment that it was unworkable until Analog TV channels disappear, so it may be a long time coming.

SLR/compact hybrid from Sony.

Well, on the FM band since the audio is created by modulating the frequency, a big part of the reason we only use the odd numbered bands is because the modulation used is large enough to bleed into the even numbered bands. As it is, stations that are adjacent on the odd numbered bands can wreak havoc and are rarely liscensed in the same geographic area.

Too bad AM stereo never caught on.

(Although I really have no idea if it was technically better than FM stereo.)

Anyone recommend a good news/rss reader for firefox?

I use the web-based bloglines.com, tommyrot, and I love it.

I use bloglines.com myself too. It's good. Although I need to break myself of the habit of refreshing the screen before I've finished reading the panel -- it's a bitch to get back to stuff you haven't read yet. I could also do with a search function, for when I can't remember which feed in my tech folder mentioned iPods (okay, that's probably all of them--people are obsessed). It may be there --- haven't found it yet.