Daily Archives: June 12, 2006

An iPod under Linux

Hardware, Music, Software, ,

I finally purchased my first iPod: a black 60GB iPod video model. I had been holding off for years. The iPod sounded nifty, but I just didn’t quite go there.

The thing that finally won me over was the camera connector. It lets you plug your iPod directly in to a digital camera. The iPod can download photos from the camera to its internal disk without the need for a PC. Very slick.

So anyway, we got the iPod and the camera adapter at the Apple store in Cambridge — a quick subway ride from Usenix. They were out of stock on the FM tuner, so I ordered that online.

The next step was to get the iPod working with Linux. I currently have it working with both music and video. Here’s how I did it.

Today’s Grammar Rant

General

I have read a lot of statements like this lately:

“CNN are reporting…”

“The Free Software Foundation are encouraging…”

Slashdot is a terrible offender, but I’ve been seeing it elsewhere as well.

So what’s wrong with this? CNN is an organization. Singular. The correct construction is “CNN is reporting…” Your subject is singular, so your verb should be singular as well.

“The employees of CNN are reporting” is also correct.

I are annoyed each time I read something like this. Is you annoyed too?