My new Zen.

Over Christmas I bought a Zen Vision:M to replace my Zen Touch. I wrote an article on upgrading my MP3 player a few months ago and well the “ooh I want it bug” finally got me. This wasn’t my most prudent purchase when it came to my mothers feelings though. She had got one for Christmas and finally had something better and newer than me (she’s becoming a real geek). So when I bought it and she found out she wasn’t best pleased.

Anyway I digress, up until now I thought maybe I had wasted my money, the device was in my feeling not as intuitive to use as my old one, the battery only lasts 16 hours as opposed to the stellar 34 from my Touch and I had not used the video features at all barring once to see how well it worked. So needless to say I was feeling a bit let down. Until that was, I got on the train today. Before I left for London I put the entire 5th season of Scrubs on my player as I thought it might be good for passing the time. I got on at 10:15 and before I knew what was happening it was 12:50 and time to get off. I had been watching Scrubs all the way down and not even realised the time pass. It was great, the quality of the screen is amazing (242,000 colours) and it just works perfectly. I could even rip one of my DVD’s and have that on there. Also the removable disk feature works excellently too and allows me to have a 4GB pen drive in my pocket. This with my old device was very poor as you had install software to access it. So for those two reasons, along with the fact that I love the look and feel of the device and that it’s got a higher capacity than my Touch whilst being smaller I feel I have qualified my purchase of the device. I am though debating what to do when it comes to flights to the US or Canada. 16 hours of music is long enough for the flight and travel time to the hotel etc, but should I want to watch a video the battery won’t last the 7 hours crossing the fish pond. That is why I have kept my old Zen Touch. I am going to Canada this summer so it can be a good test of the Vision:M’s strengths and weaknesses. I will probably take my Touch as a backup to the Vision (whether I use the video function depends on the in flight movies and other entertainment so if the airline do a good job then the Vision will last me!) but only use it if I have too. Oh well it’s been a long day and I must get to bed soon as I need to be up early.

A

Evening all. I’m in London again, currently I’m sitting on a tube train heading south. Firstly let me apologise for not blogging much recently, my schedule of work has become very full the past week or so and that has cause me to put the blogging down the priority list just a tad. Anyway on with the show.                  Today I want to talk about the Oyster card system here in London, the system has been in place for a number of years now and boy is it wonderful. I got off the train this morning and walked from the station to the tube stop and on my way it occurred to me that I needed to put money on my oyster. Luckily I realised before getting to the swipe gate as I would have turned into one of those irritating people who get there and then have to turn around when it won’t let you through and fight through the stream of miffed commuters. So I found the nearest top up point and carried out the following steps.

There you have it, literally it takes about 18 – 25 seconds to top up the card and be on your way. It’s that quick and efficient and I love it. You can also top up online and then all you have to do is pass through a gate at the station you chose when you topped up. I have never had a problem with my card (though saying that I bet I do this weekend heh heh). This system works so flawlessly that as far as I can see there is no logical reason NOT to implement it nationally. It’s proven to work and if it is installed as the only way to travel then it would be impossible to dodge fairs without vaulting the barriers etc. Honestly if you have not been to London before and you get a chance to go, make sure you get an oyster card. It is not only faster and easier it is also a lot cheaper (bus fair is £2 paying by cash but £1 on oyster).