iPod services; a good one

My home machine - an old TiBook – will only do an average disk every 6 minutes, excluding the time to check the Gracenote data and everything else. And I work around 45 hours/week which means I only have around 12 hours/week to spare for 'discretionary' hobbies, or my wife and children get sulky.

Wasn't willing to wait ten weeks to get this finished, so I've just been a pilot customer for a company called Encoda - http://www.encoda.co.uk/ – who did my 750 disk collection in five days from the time it was picked up to the time it was dropped back.

They also tested what they call their concierge service on me: came round, catalogued all of my disks, checked them for scratches, cleaned them, packed them into a protective container. And then, repacked them into the cases when they came back.

All for less than £1.60/disk. I learnt about them third or fourth hand, but I heard they're also going to be doing some package deals where they sell you the iPod, charge it and load it as well. I paid for it all on my new interest-free credit card, which means I barely have to worry about it until 2005. Loads of these services popping up - but wasn't willing to trust it to people who expect you to ship your collection on a spindle normally used for blank media, or in a box separated by pieces of tissue paper.

Also, heard something about vinyl - but didn't interest me as I never really developed a vinyl collection - too clumsy with the stylus arm