You can buy music from itunes.com for .99 each, or you can play any mp3's you currently have. You can also take you CD's and copy them over into the itunes program. The itunes program can be used with or without an Ipod. You might want to download itunes and play around with it. If and when you decide to get an ipod you then can easily transfer songs/playlist to the ipod for portable listening. There are other things you can do but that's the basic's.

Once you have the digital music on your computer's hard drive, you connect the iPod to it. The iTunes software that Apple supplies takes care of moving music to the iPod.

iPods also can be used as portable hard drives, to hold files that you move from computer to computer. But I'll guess that most iPod users have no idea they can be used for that, too.

My nephew's wife won an IPod and he says it is very easy to use. He bought an IRiver for his own use, because of the problem with IPod's batteries. He said it is not as easy to use, but the battery is suppose to last 5 years. He stores audio books on his, so he can listen to them on his many travels, a nice change from music. I read in the newspaper the battery problem with the IPods are suppose to be fixed with the IPod 5.

as a frisbee

You can use the iPod to download "podcasts," which are streamed programs and quite popular these days (do a google search and you'll find hundreds of shows and programs), to transfer photos from camera cards (easy with an adapter), for listening to audio books, and of course, for carrying thousands of pieces of music.

We have two ipods. One regular and one mini. I use the mini, since I travel a great deal and love the small size.

They are extremely easy to use and the best invention since Tivo. Cannot live without ours. We took our entire CD collection and loaded them on our computer--converting the file format to MP3. Once you do that, you move them to your itunes library (software that comes with your ipod). Once your library is set up, you connect your ipod to your computer's USB port and it automatically transfers everything from the library to your ipod. Hubby and I have two separate folders for our ipods, so that we each only get to the songs that we want.

Transferring songs to your ipod is like hotsyncing a Palm Pilot. Same concept.

The iPod is the first apple product we have ever owned and after enjoying them so much, we are even tempted to look at a Mac (Oh, no!)

Lynne

I also use mine to listen to books which i download from the web site www.audible.com It is excellent. Good Luck

Dok1bill:

Can you help me on the audio book issue? We bought a complete audio verson of HG Wells' the Time Machine. It came on 3 CDs. We transferred them (or tried to) into our itunes library. However, each chapter is labeled Track 1, Track 2, etc., so when you load disks 2 and 3, they write over the previous disk. Also, the tracks do not go down or stay in order. It might be track 2, 3, 27, etc. I manually re-ordered them sequentially, but they would not stay that way. And, when I tried transferring them to my iPod, the order was jumbled up again.

Can you tell me what might be happening and what is unique about audio books versus music that might call for us to do something different? Have you ever had this problem before?

Thanks!

Lynne

When you bring the CD into Itunes go to the "advanced" menu accross the top and select "get cd track names". Itunes will then go to the web and get the names of the cd songs/chapters. Hopefully for you it will come out in the correct order. If this doesn't work I would then try labeling the chapters as 01, 02, 03 instead of 1,2,3 and see if they stay in order. Good luck.

Thanks. I will give it a try. Can you clarify the order of the steps? Do I bring tunes into itunes first and if so, how then do I do the advanced function? Can I highlight the entire CD in itunes for this, or must I do it one track at a time?

I did try it just now for another CD and it indicated that "itunes cannot get CD track names for songs that were not imported using itunes." I think what hubby does for existing CD's is to rip them to the system using another software and then import them to itunes. I don't think that he is aware that you can rip directly to itunes, but it must be possible, correct?

Thanks again for the guidance.

Lynne

Here's how I do it. Open Itunes, insert cd, let Itunes read cd and then go to Adveanced, get cd track names. Itunes will look for the names. The names appear, highlight songs and drag to ipod or library. The technology is CCDB, I'm not sure what it means but I think it is available for every CD. I would check to see if your husband can use the ccdb when he imports from the cd's whether it is from itunes or not. I think he could then import the mp3's to the ipod.

You can also edit the names of the songs in itunes but that is a process. Good luck.

DJ

It's CDDB, not CCDB, and it's the Gracenote CD Database, which is licensed by a number of audio players, not just iTunes. Every audio CD has a particular signature, and the Gracenote CD Database recognizes that tag and assigns artist information, titles, credits and other information to the player's database.

You can also download an ActiveX applet to search the database.

Here is a link that might be useful: CD Data Base

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.

Now I remember why we have not been able to use the itunes software to rip the CD's from disk to the computer--the software is very flawed -- every time it gets to the last cut, it stalls and the system crashes. So hubby is using some other software (I think Musicmatch) to rip the CD's and once done, he imports them into the itunes library.

We downloaded the latest version of itunes, but it still does not work. I am surprised that apple would let something so flawed out on the market. It is frustrating, esp since we are both ipod junkies. If anyone has a suggestion as to how we can overcome this programming flaw, please let me know!

Lynne

How do you download internet radio music like AOL radio?

Lynne,

iTunes works for almost everybody. I'm afraid it must be your configuration setup or a problem with your machine. We've been burning CDs from iTunes since the first Windows version was released without problems.

Since it is not a programming flaw, I'd suggest looking at the iTunes Help menu for some troubleshooting tips, or doing a Google search on your problem.

Thanks for the suggestion, Spewey.

We are also considering purchasing the 1-year tech support option from Apple for $50. Did this from Palm a few years ago, and it was worth it.

Dok1bill - thanks a bunch for the audible suggestion. Great site and we are having good luck downloading books to our iPods and playing them. Most recently Wells' War of the Worlds, unabridged at 7 hours.

Lynne

I love my iPOD! You can also go to this link
which is a great forum with people who can help with any iPOD questions

Here is a link that might be useful: apple discussions

asa door stop..I think iPOD is overpriced, much better units on the market for less money.

i listen to audiobooks and i am having a problem, if i fall asleep and it goes further then i heard how do i rewind it back to that spot ? it always wants me to start the next chapter or i have to listen to all the same chapter again to get back to the spot i left off!! thanks

On an iPod, your best bet is to convert the audiobook MP3 file into an AAC file (if it isn't AAC already), sync it with the iPod, and then set iPod bookmarks periodically during a chapter.

Or take the cheap easy way out and just note the running time periodically. I listen to some long podcasts and sometimes get interrupted or doze off -- guess they're not interesting enough, huh? :-) If I know I've heard the first 18 minutes of the podcast, I can restart the podcast and fast forward quickly to about that spot and resume listening.

Janiebaby,

(assuming you have a 4g) just click the bottom of the wheel once and then scroll counterclockwise, like your reducing the volume. That will "rewind" second by second. You won't hear it but you just stop and listen for a few a few seconds. If you recall what you hear, you scroll forward; if not just go back further. Like everything, with practice you get pretty adept at it. I do wish there was a way to just drop back 30 seconds at one touch for a quick relisten.