Incidentally for a decent alternative to an Ipod as a portable player look at the tiny SANDISK SANSA clip+ or ZIP -- both REALLY CHEAP and can play FLAC straight out of the box as well as OGG VORBIS and all the other "usual suspects".
What I like about these hardware players too are is the fact you can insert a micro SD card (like those used in smart phones) as an extra storage device giving you up to an extra 32 GB as well so don't worry if the FLAC music takes more space than mp3.
Format the card as FAT32 however or the computer might not recognize it -- then simply drag 'n drop your flac files on to the device -- either the 8GB internal memory or the external micro sd card -- I'm using a 32 GB one --works fine.
Battery life is good too and Windows has no probs recognising the device
System Manufacturer/Model Number Custom built OS W7 X-64 RTM,SUSE 11.1, XP PRO SP3 as a VM, VMware ESXi CPU Q9400 QUAD Motherboard P5QL-CM Memory 8GB Graphics Card On Motherborad Sound Card Realtek HD audio Monitor(s) Displays Apple Cinema display
Mouse Toshiba wireless laser Hard Drives 4 X 1TB SATA Internet Speed > 20MB up
System Manufacturer/Model Number mickey megabyte 1234 OS ultimate 64 sp1 CPU i5 2500K 3.3@4.2GHz Motherboard MSI P67A-GD53 Memory 8 gigs GSkill Ripjaws 1600 Graphics Card amd hd6950 Sound Card creative x-fi gamer Monitor(s) Displays samsung 24" Screen Resolution 1920x1080
Keyboard saitek eclipse ii Mouse logitech g3 PSU antec 550 Case antec three hundred Cooling i'm a cooling fan Hard Drives ocz vertex 2e 60 gig, samsung f3 1tb, buffalo 2tb ext Internet Speed about 4 Mbps Other Info i love win7