Since I run Linux, I have somewhat special requirements. I didn’t want something that would be bound to iTunes or Windows Media Player. After careful Googling, I got a Sandisk, Sansa View. It holds 8 GB (and there is a 16GB version out as well.) It’s possible to mount the device as a USB drive, and to drag and drop files, so no special software is needed. A nice device, well designed, well built, easy to use.

What I learned. Media players communicate in several ways. There is a protocol or mode called Media Transfer Protocol and another called, I believe, MSC, where the device appears as a drive. Windows Media Player uses MTP to communicate. This allows transfer of playlists and other data besides simple song files. I was interested in standards based stuff, so I wanted to put the device into MSC mode and mount it as a drive.

The undocumented feature on the Sansa View is accessed as follows:

1. Turn on the Sansa View by pressing the slide switch UP.
2. Now put the player in Hold mode by moving slide switch DOWN.
3. When the Lock icon appears, hold the left button (left part of the thunbwheel) down until the padlock blinks off then on again.
4. Now plug in the USB cord to the player.

If you are running Gnome, or KDE, you should automount the player on /media/Sansa Disk. If not, you’ll have to locate it’s /dev/sdX device node and mount it somewhere. Note that this will also work on a Macintosh, since it’s really a Unix box underneath. Shhhh. Don’t tell!

Once I had the player mounted, I just used rsync to syncronize my music directory with the player:
$ rsync -rvp /path/to/music/* /media/Sansa Disk/MUSIC
This assumes that under /path/to/music, you have a directory structure full of MP3s.

When the rsync or other copy is complete, UNMOUNT the player (right click on the player icon, or use the umount command at the command line) Then unplug the player. A window will open on the player that says “Refresh Database.” There may be a long pause where you think that the player is crashed, but stay with it. You’ll be listening to music soon enough.

Remember to unlock the Hold switch, or you won’t be able to do anything with the beast.

Enjoy.

[Update: About three months later, I ditched the Sansa and bought an iPod.]

The app is still very basic, but it now handles the different way that Starband and Hughes display the skew parameter. It also will show the true vs magnetic heading, and has a menu choice to show the magnetic variation.

I’ve been working on the building blocks for the following additional functionality:

• Save the last params, and the Starband/Hughes choice in the saved prefs for next time.
• Accept lat/lon as both decimal degrees and as degrees, minutes and possibly seconds. In other words, all reasonable input formats.
• A zipcode to city to lat/lon database.
• A dropdown list of satellites
• additional dataabases, such as are found on the cginfo collection. Thousand Trails, C2C, AOR, RPI, Elks and Moose Lodges, LTVA sites, could all be offered as quick selections.

I think I’ll be pinging the beta testers and then restarting development over the next few weeks.

This is a “controlled beta” which means that the app is not available for downloading, but will be mailed upon request. The final release will be downloadable.

[Update 2/28/2010: Since I (a) abandoned satellite Internet,  (b) abandoned the Treo, and (c) never got feedback, I gave this up.]