O.K. Confession time for me. Keep in mind I only own three pairs of shoes and one purse....I own over 2,000 CDs. Last year for Christmas I bought my sister an Ipod Classic 160 GB and planned to put my entire CD collection on it. But on I-tunes, I only had enough room to put 1,200 CDs. So now I have to get either a larger hard drive, or an external hard drive. I'm a moron when it comes to computers, so have to depend on the Best Buy computer geeks, who seem to have little patience with someone like me. Any suggestions? If I put all the music on the external drive, would it be protected if something should happen to the computer? If I had enough room, my sister could also add her CD collection to my computer and then I can re-load her Ipod. Win/win for both of us. Eventually, I'd like an Ipod for myself, but what kind? Is the Touch a better product than the Classic?

Import the songs into iTunes: Insert the CD, and wait for iTunes to show the songs in the CD, and then click on "Import." The songs will automatically create a Library of songs within iTunes. Once a library is created, if you now connect the iPod to your computer, iTunes will automatically transfer the songs to the iPod. Of course, you can also download music from the Internet with iTunes. There is a PC as well as a Mac version of iTunes. The CD that comes with the iPod has both versions, but it's a good idea to update the application every now and then. For iTunes to do all that, you must set its "Preferences." There is something else about the iPod, and soon other products: Some car stereos (look at the Crutchfield catalog) are iPod ready, while others require an optional electronic box. If you use one of these radios and have an iPod, you no longer need a CD changer. All you have to do is to connect the iPod to the radio, or to the control box, and the radio's display show the songs being played. You can scroll to whatever song you have in the iPod from the radio display. If you have 10,000 songs in your iPod, you can drive across the US listening to your music. The control box, keeps the iPod's battery fully charged. Other companies should jump on this technology any time now.

Ipod Shuffles are pretty much just another "memory stick" based MP3 player. I have several that I use for exercise, etc. I bought the shuffle on a whim becuase I had heard good thing about them. Basically on a scale of 1-10 I would give it a 5 or 6. I found the sounds quality so-so, it was higher priced than other devices of the same capacity and the ear buds were of a pretty poor quality. You do need to use Itunes to load the device. For some that is a positive, for others (like me) a negative. If I had to do it over again, I would not buy an Ipod shuffle Diane

I didn't have Block Tool but now I do! Thanks! What a great way to alter the size of blocks. I've never seen so many size options. I have quiltfab and quiltref and use them all the time. When I was doing the hand quilting on my wallhanging before the holidays I used the stitch length diagram constantly to compare against and keep consistent. I just upgraded from the Touch (w/out camera) to the Phone - it was an early birthday present. It was a refurb purchased from at&t and very reasonably priced. It looks brand new and like it's never been out of the box before I got it. Even more than the camera, I like the map feature. When I was quilt shop hopping yesterday, we had trouble finding one of the new stores. I was able to look them up, click on the location link, and POP! There was a map, with a little moving dot for me and a dot for the store. I didn't even have to call them for directions. I guess I should have known it had that ability but I hadn't used it before. So cool! Kate (aka Techno-Twinkie)