SandDisk's Sansa e280, iPod Zune & other mp3 players

I am planning to get a music player of the iPod type. I want a very small thing, with lots of memory :). But also want to be able to add easily music which I have not bought (for example, have a cheap monthly subscription or just radio music). So for right now I have not found anything that fits that description - I like Yahoo Music, but it can not be listened to on an mp3 player as far as I understand.

Nevertheless, here is my first entry of a device of interest for the future, in addition to the Apple's iPod & Microsoft's Zune:


SanDisk's Sansa e280


August 30: New cool news:
Universal Music to Offer Free Downloads

What this means is, maybe by the time Zune comes out, this will be available & I'd be able to listen to the music exactly the way I'd like to? That would be soooo awesome.
Btw the article mentions that the SpiralFrog service will not be availabe to iPods. So one more reason against getting an iPod. This is some serious war between the music providers (& remember all these cars which will come equiped for iPod usage next year or so?)

[Technorati: free music, mp3 players, SanDisk, iPod, Zune, SpiralFrog]

Improving Windows (XP) performance (cutting on visual effects & optimizing memory management)

This post is mostly for my own future records.

When one starts to worry too much about improving Windows XP performance, maybe all this really means is that she needs a new laptop...
However, while this is not an option (as is my case right now), this information is very useful:

Steps You Can Take to Increase Windows XP’s Performance

In my case both the memory management (switching to "System managed size") as well as removing Visual Effects really made a difference.

[Technorati: Optimizing Windows XP]