Uhm, okay.. After a 11-hour work day, worried about the ^&*#^&@ Remote VFD boards for the Empeg, I get home and am surprised to find that my Karma arrived today. Wasn't expecting to see it until late tomorrow. So I'm up at 2:30am playing with it.

I don't know what others have issues with. Really. Maybe it's 'cuz my last portable player was a RIO PMP300 (which, I'll add, had everything I needed, save for the amount of space.). Maybe it's cuz is 2:30am. (Tho that last reason may work both ways..)

Anyways, within 10 minutes I had the whole interface worked out. it's sweet. Extremely sweet. Thanks, guys. The sample music let me play with it before having to even worry about connecting it up. (Which I won't do until tomorrow. Really.)

So, in the 30 mintes, I'm heavilly impressed. Even is I can't type straight. Menu's work fine for me. No problems with the settings. Controls are fine (save for one isssue, below), in fact I find myself almost exclusively using the thumb-thingie. Not the wheel. Screen works well, I was afraid that visuals on LCD would look blurred. They don't. Granted, they're not as crisp as the Empeg's VFD, but they're not bad at all... Sound quality is great. Hate the earbuds tho. I got strange-shaped ears or somethin'. Never could use them.. Anyways, I called in sick tomorrow. Going to go out and use it in The Wild.

(I had one issue with the thumb control. The same issue someone else had brought up. Friggin' thing is too easy to push in, and not enough tactile responce to let you know when you hit a direction. I found myself hitting it down over and over, not quite feeling the 'click' of it, thinking I didn't hit it hard enough. It was too easy to hit it in and select something before I was ready. Maybe I just have a big thumb. What's interesting is I found myself continusouly using it, even with this user problem than move to the wheel.. I was also hoping I could make the Menu Button give me the Track Details on a push (either Long or Otherwise). Was kinda dissapointed to see that wasn't the case. Maybe in a future upgrade? Out of the box, firmware was running 1.25.)

Me. Listening to the patter of.. a small MP3 player.

If you press and hold in the stick it brings up track details.

Also if you look under settings - menu button there are some options to configure what the menu button does.

Upgrade your firmware!!! Not that there is anything really annoying with 1.25, but there are some enhancements you will like...

Uhm, okay.. After a 11-hour work day, worried about the ^&*#^&@ Remote VFD boards for the Empeg

Calm down, you only burned a square inch of my house down.

Ah, cool then. Thanks. (Not that I wouldn't have found out by reading the manual. Which I am doing today. Honest..)


Mike.

Huh! I thought 1.25 was the latest! I got the 1.41 tho, and it's installing right now. Is the whole beta-test thing still open to folks? (I'm a glutton for punishment..)

Me.

Calm down, you only burned a square inch of my house down.

Oh yeah, like THAT makes me feel any better.

Well, I thad three other boards here that I had assembled ahead of time, and none of them work. Same thing you described. Which really puzzles me, since all in all, it's an extremely simple circuit. (And on top of that, Da Job has been busier than a obsessive-compulksive in an M&M factory, I haven't had time to do any simple tests on it and find out WHERE it's failing.
When I got home and saw the Karmas, I called up my boss (at 1:45am) and told her I was going to call in sick today because I had hit something in the road on the way home (true!). So that should give me time today to get some of the stuff done.

Me.

Not that I wouldn't have found out by reading the manual

There's a manual?

Let's see...

...you only burned a square inch of my house down...

Hm... That sounds like an extremely interesting story...

Not that I wouldn't have found out by reading the manual. Which I am doing today. Honest..

RTFM happens to be the final fix on the "tech support sphere". Coincidence???

...hit something in the road on the way home (true!).

Another story?

There's a manual?

I bet there are some folks at Rio who would be crushed by that...

...you only burned a square inch of my house down..
Hm... That sounds like an extremely interesting story...

I'll be posting about it later in the VFD thread over in the Projects page.

Not that I wouldn't have found out by reading the manual. Which I am doing today. Honest..
RTFM happens to be the final fix on the "tech support sphere". Coincidence???

Haven't read the manual yet. I'm doing everything ELSE, first. Even took it on a hike to track down a benchmark! Beautiful!

...hit something in the road on the way home (true!).
Another story?

I hit a chain or soemthing in the road at 1:30Am this morning. (COMPLETELY forgot it's Friday the 13th!!) No damage, save for a huige hole in my Muffler. Now my little Mini sounds like I have a F150 Diesel Engine in it. Rather amusing at times, annoying at others. (Engine noise gets in the way of music!)

Uhm, in responce to the Manual thing.. I guess there's isn't. Looking around for it now, it must be an 'online manual'. Or you two are just having fun and I'm even slower than I thought.

Me.

Oh. And for the first time I connected to my Karma via the Web Interface.
The whole thing's in Japanese! How the hell did I do that?

Me.

The manual is a PDF on the CDROM, or on the website.

Oh. And for the first time I connected to my Karma via the Web Interface. The whole thing's in Japanese! How the hell did I do that?

Uh, good question... <pauses, waiting for an answer from someone who will know>

The whole thing's in Japanese! How the hell did I do that?

Karma's webserver actually implements the Prefer-Language header or whatever it's called in HTTP, that lets it select among translated versions of each page. Really very few websites actually support this, so your browser could be set to ask for Japanese and you probably wouldn't notice. http://www.google.com is one of the few useful test sites -- what language does that come up in for you?

Peter

Hm... That sounds like an extremely interesting story...

Mike sent me one of his kits to whip up some software to drive the VFD. I put the board on the floor and plugged it in. Then I got up to check how the display was supposed to be connected. A minute later it smells like burning plastic; Since I hadn't been cooking lately, this was not expected. The voltage regulator got burning hot, cooked all the way through the PCB and melted the carpet underneath.

http://www.google.com is one of the few useful test sites -- what language does that come up in for you?

Comes up in English. Always have.

Now, I'm using FireFox (the latest Mozilla release), and for the 'enabled' languages, I have English (US) ["en-us"], English ["en"], and Japanese ["ja"], in that order. Same thing for IE. While Japanes is in there, it's NOT at the top of the list (so therefore, shoudn't be listed first.. In theory.) I have JA listed mostly because, yeah, I do do alot of surfing on Japanese sites, and notice that that helps in displaying the correct character set..

Me.

For some reason the VR, or seomthgin downline of it, is shorted. Here's the issue I'm having, however..

V99 got *MY* prototype. The one I've been using since the very, very first test run. And NOW it's overheated. I checked two other boards that I had assembled that haven't shipped out, and they did the same thing. (I didn't leave them plugged in, of course..)

I tested the four orders that had gotten shipped, and THOSE worked allright. So I'm cornfuzzled at the moment. I don't want to ship any other orders out until I'm sure I won't be causing insurance premiums to rise rapidly.

Mike.