If you want to cancel the volume window, hit '*' (or the top button on the unit). This cancels the window immediately, and then you can use the track skip buttons.

This is a bug though, and will be fixed in future versions.

The unit can self-flash from disk, yes. Someone would have to write code to do it in the player boot sequence though - remember to open the /dev/flashxxxx file with O_SYNC and call sync() after you close it to ensure the write completes though.

Hugo