Hogan's Heroes - The Complete Third Season (1965)

Hogan's Heroes Plot Summary

Plot Outline: The inmates of a German World War II prisoner of war camp conduct an espionage and sabotage campaign right under the noses of their warders.

Plot Synopsis: Colonel Hogan leads a ragtag band of POW's caught behind German lines in this popular television comedy. The bumbling Germans give Hogan and his crew plenty of opportunities to sabotage their war efforts. Colonel Klink is more concerned with having everything run smoothly and avoiding any trouble with his superiors (especially anything that might result in his being reassigned and sent to the front) than with being tough on Hogan and his fellow prisoners.





Review of Hogan's Heroes

Season 3 of Hogan's Heroes has some of the top ranked episodes, including War Takes A Holiday when Hogan tricks Colonel Klink and Gestapo Major Hochstetter (Whooo eeez theese mahn?) that the war is over so prisoners can escape. In The Ultimate Weapon Colonel Hogan convinces Schultz he has ESP, with the predictable outcome of disaster for the Nazis. Colonel Crittendon shows up in The Crittendon Plan, which only endangers Hogan's smooth running operation. I've been a fan of Hogan's Heroes for 40 years, and can't wait to get each DVD set.

63: The Crittendon Plan 9/9/1967
64: Some of Their Planes Are Missing 9/16/1967
65: D-Day at Stalag 13 9/23/1967
66: Sergeant Schultz Meets Mata Hari 10/7/1967
67: Funny Thing Happened on the Way to London 10/7/1967
68: Casanova Klink 10/14/1967
69: How to Win Friends and Influence Nazis 10/21/1967
70: Nights in Shining Armor 10/28/1967
71: Hot Money 11/4/1967
72: One in Every Crowd 11/11/1967
73: Is General Hammerschlag Burning? 11/18/1967
74: A Russian is Coming 11/25/1967
75: An Evening of Generals (a.k.a. Evening of the Generals)12/2/1967
76: Everybody Loves a Snowman 12/9/1967
77: The Hostage 12/16/1967
78: Carter Turns Traitor 12/23/1967
79: Two Nazis for the Price of One 12/30/1967
80: Is There a Doctor in the House? 1/6/1968
81: Hogan, Go Home 1/13/1968
82: Sticky Wicket Newkirk 1/20/1968
83: War Takes a Holiday 1/27/1968
84: Duel of Honor 2/3/1968
85: Axis Annie 2/10/1968
86: What Time Does the Balloon Go Up? 2/17/1968
87: LeBeau and the Little Old Lady 2/24/1968
88: How to Escape From Prison Camp Without Really Trying 3/2/1968
89: The Collector General 3/9/1968
90: The Ultimate Weapon 3/16/1968
91: Monkey Business 3/23/1968
92: Drums Along the Dusseldorf 3/30/1968

Apple 512 MB iPod Shuffle M9724LL/A

Apple 512 MB iPod Shuffle Product Features

512 MB model holds up to 120 songs; supports MP3, MP3 VBR, AAC, Protected AAC (from iTunes Music Store, M4A, M4B, M4P), and WAV
Up to 12 hours of battery life, with approximately 4 hour charge time
USB 1.1 and 2.0 compatibility through integrated USB connector
Compatible with Mac OS X v10.2.8 or later (Mac OS X 10.3.4 or later recommended for use with low-power USB ports) and Windows 2000 with SP 4 or Windows XP Home or Professional with SP 2
Earbud headphones, lanyard, and USB cap included




Apple 512 MB iPod Shuffle Review


Pros:

1. Price - The iPod Shuffle is cheaper than most flash-based MP3 players having the same amount of memory.

2. The famous iPod elegance and simplicity - all iPods are designed so well, are easy to learn and a joy to use.

3. Size/weight - even compared to other flash-based players, the iPod shuffle is small and very, very light.

4. Plays AAC files - This is the real selling point for people who already own iPods and have a substantial library of music already in AAC format. You might not feel too comfortable bringing your $300, 6-ounce iPod to the gym, with its delicate hard drive and other moving parts. Now you can load 6 or more workouts' worth of tunes onto a device that weighs less than 1 ounce and has no moving parts. While there are many such flash-based players on the market, the iPod shuffle is the only one that can play tunes from your existing collection of iPod-friendly AAC files.

5. Amazing sound quality for such a tiny device - I've done careful A/B comparisons between my iPod shuffle and my "big" iPod (which has awesome sound quality), and it's extremely hard to detect any difference in sound quality.

Cons:

1. No LCD display to help you navigate among the songs on the player. In my view, this will be the deal-killer for many people who would otherwise buy an iPod shuffle in a heart-beat. Say you load 100 songs on your iPod shuffle. Once you unplug it from your computer, the only way you have to navigate to a specific song is to keep forwarding to the next song until you find the one you want. What a pain! Those clever Apple marketing folks have tried to put a positive spin on this, saying "Random is the new order" and calling the player "the iPod shuffle." But people aren't stupid. Anyone familiar with flash-based players knows that almost all of them have displays to help people quickly navigate among the tunes on their player.

2. No FM tuner or voice recorder. Many other flash-based MP3 players have these features (though none as inexpensive as the iPod shuffle).

3. Battery life rated at "up to 12 hours" is low for flash-based MP3 players. Competitors typically achieve 15-20 hours. However, to be fair to the iPod shuffle, the competing models usually require you to use AA or AAA batteries, which adds to the weight of the device.


OTHER THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

Despite its name, the iPod shuffle does not force you to listen to your tunes in random order. Using the iTunes software on your computer, it's easy to create a playlist or download specific songs you choose to your iPod shuffle, and then listen to them in the order in which they were downloaded to the player.

If you're not familiar with the iTunes software, let me tell you - it is very well-designed and easy to use. (If you'd like, you can download it free from itunes.com and start using it now, before even buying an iPod, to see how you like it!) iTunes makes it easy to manage your library of MP3 and AAC files, and download and manage the music on your iPods. iTunes is also your portal to Apple's online music store, where you can download almost any song for 99 cents or almost any album for $9.99. However, the iTunes software does NOT push you to shop at Apple's online music store - you don't ever have to see if if you don't want to.

There are two ways to charge the iPod shuffle's battery - you can plug it into your computer's USB port, or you can buy a $30 adapter. If you plan on taking your iPod shuffle on a trip, but won't have a computer, then you'll probably need to factor the cost of the adapter into your purchase decision.

Now that I've lived with my iPod shuffle for a while, I've adapted to the lack of display, and really don't mind not having one. I also like the simplicity of the iPod shuffle. I have a flash MP3 player by iRiver, which has tons of features, but accessing many of those features is awkward, and I find I don't use them very much.

Apple 30 GB iPod with Video Playback Black

Apple 30 GB iPod with Video Playback Black Product Features

Stores up to 7,500 songs, 20,000 photos, or 75 hours of video playback
2.5-inch (diagonal) color LCD with LED backlight
Up to 14 hours of music playback; up to 3 hours of slideshows with music; up to 2 hours of video playback
Comes with earbud headphones and USB cable
Compatible with Mac OS X v10.3.9 or later, Windows 2000 with Service Pack 4 or later, or Windows XP Home or Professional with Service Pack 2 or later





Apple 30 GB iPod with Video Playback Black Review
As of this writing, no reviews are from someone who actually HAS one of the new iPods (10/19). That is about to change....

My 40GB iPod's hard disk had been deteriorating for a while, until it stopped working altogether. That happened to be the day before the iPod video announcement (last Tuesday).

On to what you really want to know, and what you can't get from Apple's website, or reviews regurgitating technical specifications:

1) Can you actually enjoy watching video on a screen that small? What about the video quality?

In short, if you're holding the iPod as close to your face as you would hold an older iPod to really read what song is playing, the video quality is actually quite nice. The screen is noticeably bigger (the height is about the size of the old iPod width). If you're wondering how the quality comes out on an iPod screen (which is normally fairly pixelated), when you load a video it toggles into a mode much akin to when a computer plays a graphics intensive video game. It takes about 10 seconds for a feature-length film to load (i.e., between clicking play, and when it starts playing).

With regard to movies, the iPod doesn't support chapters. My guess is that people will eventually want movies distributed as folders, witch chapters being the individual files. This will allow chapter skipping. That said, once a movie loads, fast forwarding works very well.

I loaded a fairly graphics-intensive movie on there, at about the highest quality the iPod would allow. The actions scenes come out fine...about what you would expect for an MPGE4.

2) What the heck does this thing actually look like in your hand?

It is about the size of older iPods. It is thinner (a lot thinner, if, like me you are upgrading from a non-photo Gen4 40gb). The front is a flat screen, much like the iPod nano, but bigger. The clickwheel is a bit smaller than it was on older iPods, but bigger than that of a nano.

3) The screen

I have to say, the bigger screen is nice in and of itself. If you have longer track names (if you have live music, etc.) a lot more of the name will appear. This is a very nice subtlety since in oder to read a song title you don't need to wait......for....it....to.....scroll....

4) Is it worth it?

Jobs called this a regular iPod with "video capability." I'd say the video capabilities are a little better than that gives it credit for. I don't yet have a composite adapter, so I can't see how this comes out on a TV...

With regard to exporting video to TV, there ARE the following options:
TV Out (on/off)
Video Signal (NTSC/PAL)
Widescreen (on/off)

If your iPod is breaking, or is pretty old, I'd definitely upgrade. If you travel a lot or have downtime where you could hold the device pretty close to your face (train, airplane, etc.), I'd definitely get it. If you don't have much time to enjoy the video capabilities, then it probably isn't worth it.

5) Firewire

The tech specs didn't say anything about firewire, so I had been wondering whether it is supported. It actually is not supported at all. In fact, I tried connecting via my old firewire cable, and the iPod brought up a screen that said something like, "firewire is not supported. Please use the supplied USB cable."

6) The "case"

I saw that a case was included on the Apple website...basically the case, as you might suspect, is pretty bad. I got a 60GB model, and it barely squeezes into the case. That said, cases that support the new screen will likely be unavailable for 3 weeks or so (if what happened with the nano repeats itself), and so it is ncie to have SOMETHING to prevent you from scratching your new screen (which is now more important because it plays video).

Anyway, I hope this answers any questions you might have. I've tried to stick to differences between this beauty and the iPod photo.

If you're still on the fence, let me say this...go for it. It is really quite nice.