See note at the bottom for info on camera flash ratios (***).

Well Abby finally got her own MP3 player today. I talked her into getting this iRiver instead of the iPod Mini or the iPod Shuffle. For what Abby wants an MP3 player for I think the Mini is to risky cause it would likely get droped and then it's internal hard drive would be jacked up.

The iRiver is a flash based player at can withstand many drops from shoulder height and not be damaged where a single impact from a iPod hittng the ground droped at chest height would produce enough internal g-force to damage the delicate micro harddrive. Plus the iPod Shuffle does not have a screen and Abby's admits that she like to read the screen when she is searching thru folders to find a certain song.

Don't get me wrong I think the iPod Shuffle is going to be a steal at $99 for a 512MB flash player. And its lack of screen would be fine for folks that just like to fill their flash drive up with music and hit play and not care about which song is going to play next. Another good thing about the iRiver that I have not heard if the Shuffle will be able to do is the iRiver can do folders. If you wanted to put a whole CD in one folder and then make a different folder of several single songs from many CDs you can do that with the iRiver and you can even have it "shuffle" between folders as well as within a single folder. Pretty cool that iRiver is.

I have one too, I have to have it if I am going to do any extended cardio work at the gym.

(***) I finally got flash ratios to work with my G5 and 550 and 420EX today!

It turns out that the reason I could not get the 550EX to control flash ratios with the 420 is because I had the Canon Powershot G5 in "M" Manual mode on the camera dial. Flash ratios and Manual mode is not a compatiable option with the G5. Ratios will however work in AV (aperture priority mode), and TV (shutter priority mode) with the G5 but not in Manual where you set the Shutter Speed and Aperture settings on your own.

Too bad I had to figure this out on my own with the help from several folks at the www.dpreview.com forums and not thru the three calls to Canon's technical help support that I placed over the course of 3 weeks!