My Morrissey experience is with older songs. I think his best are: Late Night Maudlin Street, Every Day is Like Sunday, Suedehead, Trouble Loves Me, Will Never Marry, and his remake of Moon River. Of course, there are lots of songs from his days with the Smiths, but my favorites are: There is a Light That Never Goes Out; Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me; Half a Person; This Night Has Opened My Eyes; and Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want. Those last three I learned on guitar a long time ago and I still enjoy singing them. My kids, of course, think that's a little weird!

The big differences are: - what formats the player can play. Only the iPod will play music from the iTunes Music Store -- which does about 80% of the industry's business in legal music downloads. In addition, the iPod will play MP3s. Many iPods also can play video in specific formats (including TV show episodes, music videos, etc.). - what accessories are available: cases, add-ons like FM transmitters and cables for car use, clock radios which can play music from an iPod, etc. The iPod is by far the most popular MP3 player out there, so there is a much larger accessory market. I dare say there's next to nothing out there for the RCA now and there will be absolutely nothing in a couple of years when that particular model is out of production. MP3s can come from numerous sources. Millions of people download MP3s illegally. Many download from digital-music services like Rhapsody (but be careful: on many sites like that you only subscribe to the music and never own it -- quit paying for the subscription or watch the company pull the plug on it and your music library goes *poof*). Some Web sites (like NPR's and those of popular bands) offer MP3 files you can download and listen to. You also can play your own CDs/cassettes/LPs into your computer and send them to your MP3 player. There are some other nice MP3 players out there. Creative's Zen is fairly nice. But many big companies, like Sony, Microsoft, and Wal-Mart, have tried to kill the iPod and have failed utterly. You may save some money by buying something other than an iPod, but you're gambling on the player being fixable when the battery dies or needs service. As far as I know, there are no other MP3 players which can play video. Frankly, considering the capabilities of most iPods relative to the competition, they are fairly priced and they work very well, with Apple's usual attention to how you interact with the device. I don't see much point in buying anything else. Something else will be cheaper, but you'll be reminded of that in a dozen ways. Besides, iPods have that essential element of "cool" that RCA and other brands just don't have. There's someone else posting in this thread who bought Dell's player (another company which could not compete with Apple) last year and ended up buying an iPod this year anyway. Good luck!

Jess, I would make sure the mapping software you want to use will work on the Zire31. The screen on that model is 160x160 -- not high-resolution -- which either will make maps harder to view or may make it impossible to install the software. You may not know that Pa1mOne just introduced a Tungsten E2. The key improvement over the E is Bluetooth networking built-in. The E2 also can use a Palm card to connect to Wi-Fi networks (the E cannot), but the price of an E2 and the Wi-Fi card is really close to other, better Palms. That aside, unless you know you're ready to use the Bluetooth, I think you'll be happier with a Tungsten E. The E was one of the most popular PDAs Pa1mOne ever made, so there are likely to be numerically-higher numbers of unhappy customers. While the E does not have the Tungsten "universal" connector, it is decently supported with peripherals like keyboards and all kinds of cases and sync cables and such. Finally, one way to try out a Palm without paying top dollar is to look at the Factory Outlet on their Web site. I purchased my Tungsten C open-box and I was hard-pressed to find out why it wasn't considered "new in box" -- at a much lower price than a regular C would cost. Might want to check that out. The link is below. Here is a link that might be useful: Palm Factory Outlet

We wired our house for speakers during the early part of the construction phase. Our kitchen and family room have round, paintable speakers in the ceiling. I was told they'd be flush, but they protrude a little. I'm hoping they'll not bug me at some point, maybe when the lights are in and they're not the only thing on the ceiling. We did this in our dining room, but on the wall because I have an ornamental ceiling in there. I'm not sure of the name of the system as my husband chose it, but it will all be controlled in one area, or by an iPhone/ipad apparently. We love music and are hoping this will allow us to easily enjoy it.