Controlling Your Music

Surrounding those panes are the controls you use to work with and get information about your music. At the top of the window, from left to right, you will see the following areas:

• Playback controls—Here, you can see the familiar Play/Stop, Fast Forward, and Rewind buttons along with the Volume Control slider. These work as you probably expect them to.
• Information window—In the center of the iTunes window is the Information window. In this area, you will see a variety of information about what you are doing at any point in time. For example, when you are playing music, you will see information about the music currently being played. When you import music, you will see information about the import process.
• Search tool—You use the Search tool to search for songs.
• Action button—The Action button changes depending on the context you are in. For example, if you have selected the Library, it becomes the Browse button, which you use to open or close the Browser. If you select a playlist, it becomes the Burn button, which enables you to burn a CD. When you move to the bottom of the iTunes window, you will see the following:
• Add Playlist button—You can use this button to create your own playlists.
• Shuffle and Repeat buttons—You use the Shuffle button to shuffle the music in the selected source so that it doesn’t play in the listed order. You can use the Repeat button to cause songs to repeat within a selected source.
• Show/Hide Album Art button—Songs can have album art associated with them. When you click this button, you will see the Art Album box at the bottom of the Source pane. In it will appear any art associated with the song that is currently selected.
• Source information—This information shows you the number of songs, total playing\ time, and disk space of the selected source. This becomes very useful at certain times, such as when you are burning a CD or building a playlist.
• Equalizer button—This button opens the Equalizer window, which provides you with a graphic equalizer.
• Visualizer button—Okay, this was one of the most promoted features of iTunes when it was initially released, but I didn’t get it then, and I still don’t today. When you click this, the iTunes window fills with a graphic display reminiscent of the 1960s.
• Eject button—When you have selected an ejectable source, such as an audio CD, you can click this button to eject it.

Seeing Through the iTunes Window

The iTunes window, like the windows on your house, consists of a number of panes (see Figure A). Let’s take a quick look at each of these. On the far left of the iTunes window is the Source List. On this list, as you might suspect from its name, are the sources of music with which you can work. To work with a source, such as a CD or the iTunes Music Store, you select it by clicking it. When you select a source, its contents will appear in the Content pane and Browser (if you have the Browser open for a selected source). In Figure A, I have selected the Library as the source; its contents are shown in the Browser at the top of the window while the list of individual songs that make up the Library is at the bottom of the window.
You will use many types of sources, including the Library, the Radio, the iTunes Music Store, audio CDs, playlists, and more. As we work though the rest of this part of the blog, you will get experience with all these kinds of sources.

The Browser presents the contents of the selected source at a summary level, by genre, artist, and album. You can view the contents of the selected source by clicking it in the appropriate column. For example, in Figure A, I have selected the Blues/R&B genre. The Artist column then shows all the artists whose music I have in the selected genre. The Album column shows all the albums for the selected artists. The Browser can be shown or hidden. For example, take a look at Figure B, which shows the iTunes window with the Browser hidden. At the bottom of the iTunes window (or filling it if the Browser is hidden) is the Content pane.
This area lists each song in the selected source. For each song, you will see a variety of information, such as Song Name, Track #, Time, Artist, and so on. You can even choose the information you see on this list. The order in which songs are listed in the Content pane is the order in which they will play when you play the selected source. Going back to Figure A, you can see that several songs by B.B. King and Dave McKenna are listed in the Content pane.

Downloading and installing iTunes on a Mac

The process for downloading and installing iTunes on a Mac is almost identical to what you use to download and install iTunes on a Windows computer. To save a few trees, I haven’t included the steps to do this on a Mac. The most important difference is that you should choose to download the version for Mac OS X (as if you couldn’t guess that!). After that, just follow the onscreen instructions.
You have a number of ways to open iTunes on a Mac, including the following:

• Click the iTunes icon on the Dock.
• Open the Applications folder and double-click the iTunes icon.
• Insert an audio CD into your Mac; by default, iTunes is set to launch whenever you mount an audio CD. The first time you open iTunes, you will need to work through a basic configuration of the application.

Following are the steps you need to perform:

1. Launch iTunes. You will see yet another License Agreement screen. (I guess Apple was kidding with the others.)
2. Click Agree. You will see the iTunes Setup Assistant, which will guide you through the rest of the process .
3. Click Next. You will see the Internet Audio Settings window. These settings control whether iTunes is the default application for audio content from the Internet and if iTunes should automatically connect to the Internet when it needs to.
4. Click both Yes radio buttons and then click Next. You’ll see the Find Music Files window.
5. If you want iTunes to search for music on your Mac and then add that music to the iTunes Library, click Yes. If you don’t want this to happen, click No. Click Next. You’ll see the iTunes Music Store window.
6. Because we will explore the iTunes Music Store in detail later, click the No radio button and then click Done. The iTunes window will open and you will be ready to tour the application in the next section.

Installing iTunes on a Macintosh

Because iTunes is developed by Apple, it is as integrated into the Macintosh operating system as much as any application can be. You have a number of ways to get iTunes installed on your Mac, including the following:

• Install Mac OS X. When you install Mac OS X, iTunes is also installed, unless you specifically tell the Installer not to install it. If you have installed OS X on your Mac, you don’t need to do any installation, but you should make sure you have the current version installed
• Buy a new Mac. Okay, this might be the most expensive option, but, hey, you get a free Mac with your copy of iTunes!
• Install iTunes from the iPod Software CD. The software installation CD included with an iPod also enables you to install iTunes.
• Buy a copy of the Apple iLife suite. In addition to iTunes, you’ll get iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, and Garage Band.
• Download and install iTunes from the Internet. You can always download and install the latest version of iTunes from the Internet.

If you have installed Mac OS X on your computer, you probably don’t need to do any installation because it is likely that you already have iTunes installed on your machine.
To use one of the CD options, just insert the CD, launch the installer, and follow the onscreen instructions.
If you don’t already have some version of iTunes installed on your Mac, you can download and install a copy from the Internet. This is often the best option because you are sure to get the most current version of the application.

Launching and Performing the Initial Configuration of iTunes on a Windows PC

Whichever path you have taken to this point, I am sure all is well and you are ready to start cutting your teeth on iTunes.
To open the application and perform the initial configuration (which you need to do only the first time you open the program), follow these steps:

1. Open iTunes. You have several ways to do this. You can use the desktop icon to open it (assuming you chose to have an icon placed there). You can also choose Start, All Programs, iTunes, iTunes to launch the application from the Start menu. Or, you can click the shortcut that was conveniently placed in the taskbar for you. After you have used one of these methods, the iTunes window will open. The first time you launch the application, the iTunes Setup Assistant will appear. The helpful assistant will guide you through the few configuration decisions you need to make before you start working with the application. As with other assistants, you will move through the iTunes Setup Assistant by reading its information, making choices, and using the Next button.
2. Click Next to move to the Find Music Files screen. The purpose of this screen is to indicate whether you want iTunes to search your Music folder to find any existing music and then add that music to your iTunes Library. If you have music in this folder, I recommend that you let iTunes add it to your Library. If you want iTunes to search for music on your computer, click the Yes radio button (which isn’t really necessary because it is the default selection) and then click Next. If you want to skip this search, click No and then click Next.
3. Use the Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized window to indicate whether you want iTunes to automatically rename and organize the music in your iTunes Music folder when you change that music’s information (such as genre). Unless you have a very specific reason not to want this feature, click Yes and then click Next. If you do have some reason why you don’t want iTunes to rename or move your music files, click No and then click Next.
4. Use the iTunes Music Store window to determine whether you want to move to the iTunes Music Store immediately after the Setup Assistant is done. Because you will learn about the iTunes Music Store in detail in Part III, “The iTunes Music Store,” click the No radio button and click Finish. The Setup Assistant will run and you will see the iTunes window . If you indicated that you want iTunes to find any music in your Music folder and add it to the iTunes Library, you will see the music that the application found.

Now you are ready to learn about the major elements of the iTunes window.

Downloading and Installing iTunes on a Windows PC

It can be better to download a copy of iTunes from the Internet to install it on your computer even if you have a copy on the iPod CD. That’s because the application is periodically updated. When you download a copy from the Web, you get the latest and greatest version. When you install a copy from the CD, you get the latest and greatest version when the CD was produced, which might not be the current latest and greatest.
If you want to download and install a copy of iTunes, perform the following steps:

1. Open your favorite Web browser, such as Internet Explorer.
2. Move to http://www.apple.com/itunes.
3. Click the Download link. You will see the Download page.
4. Scroll down the page until you see the Download iTunes section
5. Click the Windows 2000 or XP radio button.
6. Enter your email address if you want to subscribe to any of Apple’s iTunes newsletters; if you don’t, you can leave this blank.
7. Enter your first and last name if you want to (this is optional information).
8. Choose the area in which you live in the drop-down list.
9. Check the boxes for the Apple newsletters you want to receive (or uncheck the boxes for any Apple newsletters you don’t want to receive). For example, the New Music Tuesdays newsletter lets you know about music that has been added to the iTunes Music Store.
10. Click Download iTunes. In most cases, you will see the Security Warning dialog box. If you don’t have your Web browser configured to present this, you will move directly to the Save As dialog box, in which case you can skip the next step.
11. In the Security Warning dialog box, click Yes to indicate that you want to install and run the iTunes Installer. The InstallShield Wizard will open and start the installation process. After a moment or two, you will see the iTunes for Windows window
12. Read the information in the Installer window and click Next.
13. If you have a lot of time and patience, read the license agreement; when you are done, click Yes if you agree or No if you don’t. (Of course, if you don’t agree, you can skip the rest of these steps and the rest of this part of the book because you won’t be able to use iTunes.)
14. In the resulting Information window, you can read information about iTunes, such as what it can do and what you need to install it. Because you have this book, you don’t really need to read this information, but it can’t hurt to do so! When you are done reading, click Next. You’ll see the Setup Type window (see Figure 13.3) .
15. Check the following options to make them active or uncheck them to make them inactive:
• Install desktop shortcuts—This option places a shortcut to iTunes on your desktop. Unless you don’t like desktop shortcuts for some reason, you should usually leave this option checked.
• Use iTunes as the default player for audio files—This option causes iTunes to be used to play most audio files that you will access on the Internet, your computer, CDs, and so on. If you prefer to use another application, such as Window Media Player, uncheck this check box. However, I recommend that you leave it checked for now. You can always change the default application to be something else after you have become comfortable with iTunes (not that you’ll want to!).
• Use QuickTime as the default player for media files—If you choose this option, the QuickTime Player application will be used when you view video or other multimedia content. Just like the previous option, if you prefer to use a different application, uncheck this check box.
16. Click Next. You’ll see the Choose Destination Location dialog box.
17. If you don’t want to accept the default installation location (which is C:\Program Files\iTunes\), click the Browse button and choose the location you do want to use. Then click Next. You’ll see a window advertising the iPod.
18. Click Next. As the Installer starts to work, you will see the Setup Status window. This window provides you with information about the installation When the process is complete, you will see the Installation Successful window.
19. Click Finish to restart your computer and complete the installation process. When your computer restarts, iTunes will be ready for you.

Installing iTunes on a Windows PC

Over the years, Apple has produced a few applications designed for both Windows PCs and Macintoshes. Thank goodness for Windows users that iTunes is also in this group. (None of the others are worthy of much mention, but iTunes is definitely a crossover hit!)
In order to use iTunes on a Windows computer, you must be running Windows Vista or Windows XP. If you are running Windows 98, Me, or 95, you are out of the iTunes game. (Of course, those older versions of Windows are really old and you should be using a newer version for more reasons than just the ability to run iTunes!)
You have two primary ways to get a copy of iTunes and install it on your computer. (The good news is that neither way will cost you any more money than you have already spent.) First, if you have purchased an iPod, which is a likely case given that you are reading a blog about iPods, a copy of iTunes is provided on the CD included with every iPod. Second, if you don’t have an iPod or if you don’t have the CD that came with it for some reason, you can download iTunes from the Internet.

The iPod and the iTunes Music Store

When it comes to citizenship, iTunes definitely gets an A+ because it plays so well with others.
If you have read Part I, “The iPod,” you know that the iPod might just be the coolest portable electronic device ever to hit the streets. Although the iPod is indeed an awesome piece of technology, it wouldn’t get very far without a tool to manage the music it contains. iTunes is that tool. iTunes and the iPod go together like a 1-2 combination punch, peanut butter and jelly, jalapenos on a pizza, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope (well, you get the idea). Using iTunes, you can determine which parts of your music library are on the iPod. iTunes manages moving the music files to the iPod and organizing them, so the process is quite simple (from your perspective anyway).

In fact, iTunes will manage the process for you automatically if you prefer; when you connect your trusty iPod to your computer, iTunes will recognize it and then synchronize the music it has in your Library with that on your iPod. You will learn in detail about the last part of the digital music triumvirate: the iTunes Music Store. With the iTunes Music Store, you can shop for music to add to your Library. When you find songs you’d like to have, you can purchase and download them into your iTunes Library with just a couple mouse clicks. And you can do all this from within iTunes itself. It feels like the iTunes Music Store is just an extension of iTunes, which, in fact, it is. You access the iTunes Music Store from within iTunes, and the Store uses an interface that looks very similar to iTunes. So, once you know iTunes, you won’t have any problems with the iTunes Music Store.

Playlists: Customize Your Music Experience

I’ve saved one of the best features of iTunes for nearly last—playlists. Playlists enable you to create custom collections of music from the songs in your iTunes Library. (If you think of a playlist as a custom CD without the disc, you will be very close.)
When you create playlists, you can mix and match music to your heart’s content. For example, you can build your own “greatest hits” collections that include multiple artists, music genres, and so on. You can repeat the same song multiple times in the same playlist. You can also get rid of songs you don’t like by not including them in the playlists you listen to. What’s more, you can create a playlist to include a specific amount of music from a single CD or endlessly repeat all the music in your Library.
Basically, you can use playlists to organize a collection of songs in any way you choose. You can then listen to your playlists, put them on a CD, or move them to an iPod.

Where Does All That Music Come From?

You have three primary sources of the music and sounds from which you will build your iTunes Library:

• Audio CDs—You can add music from your audio CDs to the iTunes Library. In iTunes lingo, this process is called importing.
• The Internet—You can download music and other audio files from the Internet and add those files to your iTunes Library.
• The iTunes Music Store—Using the iTunes Music Store, you can search for, preview, and purchase music online and add that music to your Library.

AIFF and iTunes

The Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) provides relatively high-quality sound, but its file sizes are larger than MP3 or AAC. As you can probably guess from its name, this format was originally used to exchange audio among various platforms. As with the WAV format, because the MP3 and AAC formats provide better sound quality in smaller file sizes, you aren’t likely to use the AIFF format very often. The most likely situation in which you might want to use it is when you want to move some music or sound from your iTunes collection into a different application that does not support the MP3 or AAC format.

WAV and iTunes

The Windows Waveform (WAV) audio format is a standard on Windows computers. It has been widely used for various kinds of audio, but because it does not offer the “quality versus file size” benefits of the MP3 or AAC formats, it is mostly used for sound effects or clips that people have recorded from various sources. Millions of WAV files are available on the Internet that you can play and download.
You can load WAV files into iTunes, and you can even use iTunes to convert files into the WAV format. However, because MP3 and AAC are much newer and better file formats, you aren’t likely to want to do this very often. Occasionally, you might want to add WAV files to your iTunes music collection; this can be easily done, as you will learn later in this blog.

AAC and iTunes

The newest digital audio format is called Advanced Audio Coding or AAC. This format is part of the larger MPEG-4 specification. Its basic purpose is the same as the MP3 format: to deliver excellent sound quality while keeping file sizes small. However, the AAC format is a newer and better format in that it can be used to produce files that have better quality than MP3 at even smaller file sizes. Also, as with MP3, you can easily convert audio CD files into the AAC format to store them on a computer and add them to an iPod. What’s more, you can convert AAC files into the Audio CD or MP3 format when you want to put them on a CD to play on something other than your computer, such as a car stereo.
The AAC format also enables content producers to add some copy-protection schemes to their music.
Typically, these schemes won’t have any impact on you (unless of course, you are trying to do something you shouldn’t).
One of the most important aspects of the AAC format is that all the music in the iTunes Music Store is stored in it; when you purchase music from the store, it is added to your computer in this format.

MP3 and iTunes

Even if this blog is your first foray into the wonderful world of digital music, you have no doubt heard of MP3. This audio file format started, literally, an explosion in music technology that is still reverberating and expanding today. MP3 is the acronym for the audio compression scheme called Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) audio layer 3. The revolutionary aspect of the MP3 encoding scheme was that music data could be stored in files that are only about one-twelfth the size of unencoded digital music without a noticeable degradation in the quality of the music. A typical music CD consumes about 650MB of storage space, but the same music encoded in the MP3 format shrinks down to about 55MB. Put another way, a single 3.5-minute song shrinks from its 35MB on audio CD down to a paltry 3MB or so in MP3 format. The small size of MP3 files opened up a world of possibilities.
For example, MP3 enabled a new class of portable music devices. Because MP3 files can be stored in small amounts of memory, devices with no moving parts can store and play a fair amount of music; these were the early MP3 players, such as the Rio. Then came other devices containing small hard drives—can you say iPod?—that can store huge amounts of music, enabling you to take your entire music collection with you wherever you go. These devices are extremely small and lightweight, and their contents can be easily managed.
You will encounter many MP3 files on the Internet, and with iTunes, you can convert your audio CDs into the MP3 format so that you can store them in iTunes and put them on an iPod.

CD Audio and iTunes

The CD Audio format was the world’s first widely used entry in the digital audio format life cycle. The creation of this format was the start of the CD revolution. Instead of vinyl albums, which were a pain to deal with and included lots of hisses, pops, and other distractions when played, listeners began enjoying digital music. In addition to being much easier to handle than LPs, CDs provided a much better listening experience and were—and are—much more durable than records.
They also sounded much better than cassettes and could be just as portable.
Eventually, CD Audio made its way to computers, which now can provide all the music-listening enjoyment of a home stereo plus much more, thanks to applications such as iTunes.
Although you can use iTunes to listen to your audio CDs, typically you will just convert those CDs into one of the newer digital formats and store that content on your computer’s hard disk so you don’t have to use a CD when you want to listen to music. You will also make use of this format when you put your iTunes music on your own audio CD so that you can play your iTunes music when you are away from your computer.

Audio File Formats You Might Encounter When You Use iTunes

As you work with digital music and other audio files, you’ll encounter a number of different file formats that you need to understand. This is important because each of these formats offers specific benefits and limitations that impact what you do with your music. For example, some file formats offer better music quality versus file size than others. You definitely don’t need to have all the specifications for each of these formats committed to memory; instead, all you need to be able to do is to distinguish between them and to be able to choose the format that is the most appropriate for what you are trying to do.
Most audio file formats are encoded. What this means is that specific compression algorithms are used to reduce the size of the audio file without, hopefully anyway, lowering the quality of the resulting sound very much. The higher the compression that is used, the lower the quality of the resulting music when it is played back. Note that the words higher and lower are relative. Often, it takes a musical expert to tell the difference between encoded and unencoded music, but even if it is imperceptible to us mere mortals, it does exist.
When it comes to digital audio files, one trade-off always has to be made. And that is file size versus sound quality. When you add thousands of songs to your iTunes Library, you can easily consume gigabytes of disk space. Although you might have a humungous hard drive in your computer, you might also have other files you want to store on it, such as photos, Word docs, and so on. Even I realize that computers can be used for more than just music.
To keep the amount of disk space required to store your music to a minimum, you will encode it. When you do, you choose the settings you want to use to encode that music. The more encoding you apply, the less space the music will consume, but the lower quality the playback will be. You will quickly find a happy medium between file size and how the music sounds to you.

What You Can Do with iTunes?

Following are some examples just to whet your appetite:

• Listen to audio CDs.
  
• Listen to Internet radio.
  
• Store all the music you like in a single place so you never need to fuss with individual CDs again.
  
• Search and organize all this music so that listening to exactly the music you want is just a matter of a few mouse clicks (and maybe a few key presses).
  
• Create custom albums (called playlists) containing the specific songs you want to hear.
  
• Create custom albums (called smart playlists) that are based on a set of criteria, such as all the Jazz music you have rated at four or five stars.
  
• Use the iTunes built-in Equalizer to make your music just right.
  
• Burn your own music CDs to play in those oh-so-limited CD players in your car, a boom box, or in your home.
  
• Share your music collection with other people over a wired or wireless network; you can listen to music other people share with you as well.

Getting Help with iPod Problems

Apple maintains an extensive iPod Web site from which you get detailed information about iPod problems. You can use this information to solve specific problems you encounter (that aren’t solved with the information in the previous sections, such as a reset).
To access this help, use a Web browser to move to www.apple.com/support/ipod. On this page, you can search for help, read FAQs, and get other information that will help you solve iPod problems .There are a number of other Web sites that might be helpful to you as well. These include www.ipodlounge.com and www.ipodhacks.com. You can also use www.google.com to search for other iPod information; you’ll find no shortage of it.

Restoring an iPod

As you read earlier, you can also use the iPod Software Update application to restore an iPod. When you restore an iPod, its hard drive is erased and a clean version of its software is installed. The purpose is to configure the iPod with factory settings that will likely solve many problems you are having.

How to reset an iPod?

If you can’t get an iPod to do anything (and you’ve checked the Hold switch) or if it is behaving badly, try resetting it. When you reset an iPod, its temporary memory is cleared, but your data won’t be affected. Follow these steps:

1. Connect the iPod to the power adapter using the FireWire cable and then plug the power adapter into a wall outlet.
2. Move the Hold switch to the On position and then slide it to the Off position again.
3. Press and hold both the Menu and Play/Pause buttons down for about five seconds until you see the Apple logo on the iPod’s screen. This indicates that the reset process is complete.
4. Try to use the iPod to do what you were trying to do when you noticed a problem. If resetting your iPod solves your problem, you are home free. If not, you might want to try restoring it.

Checking the Basics iPod Malfunction

We all do things that can be classified as dumb once in a while. And using the iPod can result in a few of these events, so use the following list to make sure you haven’t done anything to shoot yourself in the foot:

• If the iPod won’t respond to any controls, make sure the Hold switch isn’t active. The Hold switch does just what it is supposed to—it prevents everything from working. It can be rather embarrassing to panic that your precious iPod has suffered a major failure only to realize that the Hold switch is on. (Of course you understand that this has never happened to me.)
  
• If the iPod won’t turn on, connect it to the power adapter or to a computer using a six-pin FireWire connection. It might simply be that the battery is out of power. Remember that the iPod uses some battery power when you aren’t using it, and after 14 days or so, it might not have enough battery power to wake up. Sometimes the empty battery icon will appear when you try to turn on a fully discharged iPod and sometimes it won’t.
  
• Try connecting the iPod to a computer. If it mounts, you probably just need to do a minor reset to get it to work again.

Updating or Restoring an iPod’s Software

Apple is continually improving the iPod’s software to add features, make it even more stable, and so on. You should periodically check for new iPod software and, when you find it, install it on your iPod—this is called updating the iPod’s software. When you are having major problems with your iPod or just want to completely reformat it, you can also restore its software to return it to factory settings.
You do both of these tasks in the same way, as the following steps show:

1. Open a Web browser and move to www.apple.com/support/ipod/. You’ll see the iPod Support page
2. Locate and click the link for the latest iPod or iPod mini software for your computer’s OS, such as Mac OS X or Windows XP. You’ll move to the iPod Software Update page.
3. Complete the form, click the radio button for your OS, and click Download Update. The update will be downloaded to your computer. Notice the name of the application you download and where you store it on your computer.
4. Launch the iPod Update application— in some cases, it will run automatically after you download it. On the Mac, you’ll see the iPod Software Updater application. On Windows PCs, you will have to restart your computer after running the Setup application. Then, choose Start menu, iPod, System Software, Updater. You’ll then see the Updater application for Windows.
5. Connect the iPod you want to update or restore to your computer.
6. If you want to install the latest version of the iPod software on your iPod, click the Update button. If you want to restore your iPod, click Restore instead.
7. Follow the onscreen instructions to complete the update or restore process.

After you have updated your iPod, you can continue using it as you did before the update.
If you restored your iPod, you will have to perform an update from iTunes to load your music back onto it. You’ll also have to replace any calendar or contact information you want to store on it.

Getting Help from Apple for iPod Battery Problems

If your iPod doesn’t play for the expected time, the battery probably needs to be replaced. If the iPod is still under warranty (one year without the AppleCare Protection Plan or two years with it), Apple will replace the battery for free. If the iPod is not under warranty, Apple will replace the battery for you (currently this costs $99 plus $6.95 shipping). To get more information and start this process, go to www.apple.com/support/ipod/power/ and click the iPod battery service request form link.
If you are comfortable working with electronic devices yourself, you can replace the iPod’s battery on your own. How to do this is beyond the scope of this book, but you can purchase a battery and get help on the Web at places such as www.ipodbattery.com and www.ipodresq.com Replacement batteries cost from $60 to $80, including tools and instructions.
Although being a bit more expensive, sending the unit back to Apple is probably a better way to go in most situations. (Who knows, if you have an old iPod, you might get a better unit back in return!)

How to Test iPod’s Battery?

If your iPod doesn’t seem to play for a reasonable amount of time, you should test it to get an idea of what its current battery life is.
Test your iPod by performing the following steps:

1. Fully charge your iPod.
2. Remove the iPod from the charger so that it is running on battery power.
3. Make a note of the current time.
4. Use the Settings commands to turn off the Equalizer and Backlight.
5. Set Repeat to One.
6. Select an album or playlist and play it.
7. Let the iPod play until it runs out of power. While the iPod is playing, don’t use any of its controls. Anytime you cause the iPod to perform an action, you cause it to use additional power. In this test, you are attempting to determine what its maximum life is so you can compare it to the rated life.
8. When the iPod stops playing and the low power icon appears in the display, make a note of the time.
9. Calculate the battery life by figuring out how much time passed since you started the iPod playing (compare the time you noted in step 8 with what you noted in step 3). If you iPod plays for four hours or longer on a full charge, Apple considers that its battery life is acceptable. If the iPod won’t play for more than four hours, it likely has a problem and needs to be replaced.

How to Get More Life Out of an iPod’s Battery?

The iPod uses a lithium-ion battery. Any battery, including the iPod’s, will eventually wear out and no longer provide the power it once did. In my research, most lithium-ion batteries are rated for 300–500 charges. In this context, a charge can’t be precisely defined, but it does include a full discharge and then a full recharge. A partial charge doesn’t “count” as much, but the precise relationship between amount of charge and how much that charge “counts” can’t be specified. Batteries like that in the iPod actually last longer if you don’t let them fully discharge before you recharge them. Frequent “topping off” will not reduce the battery’s life and in fact is better for your battery than letting it run very low on power before you recharge it.
Every 30 recharges or so, do run your iPod until it is completely out of power and then perform a full recharge. This will reset the battery’s power gauge, which tends to get more inaccurate if the battery is never fully discharged.
It doesn’t hurt the battery to do frequent and short recharges, such as by placing the iPod in a Dock every day after you are done using it.
However, you should make sure to run the iPod on battery power for significant periods of time. If you constantly run the iPod from the power adapter or while it is in the Dock connected to a power source, the iPod’s battery’s performance will degrade.

Tips for charging iPod battery

Fortunately, there are a number of ways to charge your iPod’s battery, including the following:

• Use the included FireWire power adapter.
• Connect the iPod to a six-pin FireWire port either directly with a cable or via a Dock.
• Use a power adapter designed for 12-volt sources, such as the power outlets in your vehicle.

There are two different ways that the iPod lets you know it is charging. When your iPod’s battery is charging via a FireWire connection to a computer, the Battery icon will include a lightning bolt symbol and will include a filling motion from the left to the right of the icon. When the battery is fully charged, the icon will be completely filled and the motion will stop.
When you charge your iPod’s battery through a separate power adapter only, the battery icon fills the iPod’s screen and flashes. When the process is complete, the battery icon remains steady.
According to Apple, it takes only an hour to charge a drained battery to 80% of its capacity. It can take up to four hours to fully charge a drained battery.

How to Maximize and Monitor iPod Battery Life?

The Battery icon in the upper-right corner of the screen always tells you what your battery’s status is at any point in time.
When your iPod is running on battery power, the amount of shading within the icon provides a relative—and I do mean relative—indication of your battery’s current state. As you use battery power, the “filled in” part of the battery will decrease until your iPod runs out of gas. When it does, you’ll see an icon of a battery with an exclamation point that indicates your iPod is out of power, and the battery will have to be charged before you can use the iPod again.
To maximize your iPod’s playing time per battery charge, you can do the following:

• Keep the iPod’s software up to date.
• Use the Hold switch to prevent your iPod from being unintentionally turned on when you carry it around. You’d be amazed how easy it is for the iPod to be turned on and start to play without you knowing it, especially if you carry it in your pocket, backpack, or computer bag. (It’s no fun trying to listen to tunes only to find out your iPod’s battery has been accidentally drained—not that this has ever happened to me of course.)
• When you aren’t listening, don’t keep your iPod playing. Use the Pause button when you aren’t listening to music. Playing music uses power at a greater rate than not playing music.
• Put your iPod to sleep by turning it off when you aren’t using it. The Sleep, or Off, mode uses the least amount of power. (You can press and hold the Play/Pause button to turn the iPod off. You can also add the Sleep command to the Main menu if you prefer to use that instead.)
• Keep backlighting at a minimum level. Backlighting is very helpful to be able to see the iPod’s screen, especially in low-light conditions. However, it does use additional power, so you should use it only as needed to maximize battery life. When you don’t need it, such as in daylight conditions, turn it off. When you do need it, set it such that it remains on only a few seconds when you press a control.
• Minimize track changes. Each time you change tracks, the iPod uses more power than it would just playing tracks straight through.
• Turn the Equalizer off. The Equalizer uses more power than playing music without it.
• Every 30 recharges or so, fully drain and recharge the battery.
• Keep the iPod at a comfortable temperature. Using the iPod in very cold or very hot conditions lowers its battery life.

Moving Images from an iPod to a Computer

To move images that you have stored on the iPod to your computer, connect the iPod to the computer on which you want to place the iPod’s images. Open the DCIM folder and you’ll see subfolders that contain the images you have downloaded. Open the folder containing photos you want to work with and you’ll see those photos.
You can then open them or import them into the application you use to work with digital images. After you have moved the images from your iPod onto your computer, delete the images from the iPod to free up disk space. You can do that by using the Delete command on the iPod’s Roll Information screen or by deleting the image folders from the iPod from your computer’s desktop.

Storing Photos on an iPod

To store images on an iPod, perform the following steps:

1. Use a digital camera to capture images.
2. Remove the memory card containing the images you want to move to the iPod.
3. Open the card slots on the Media Reader by sliding its protective cover open.
4. Insert the memory card into the appropriate slot in the Media Reader. Insert the card with the label side up.
5. Fold the Dock connector out of the Media Reader to expose it.
6. Connect the Media Reader’s Dock connector to the iPod’s Dock Connector port. The Media Reader will start communicating with your iPod, and you’ll see the Import screen. On this screen, you’ll see the number of photos on the card along with information about the amount of memory being used and the amount of memory available on the card.
7. Highlight Import and press the Select button. You’ll see the Import Progress screen, which displays the progress of the import process. When all the images have been moved from the memory card to the iPod, the Import Done screen will appear.
8. When you are done importing, highlight Done and press the Select button. You’ll move to the Photos screen on which you see the photo files you have imported onto the iPod in rolls.
9. To view information about a roll of photos, select the roll in which you are interested and press the Select button. The Roll Information screen will appear.
10. When you are done viewing information about a roll, choose Cancel. You’ll return to the Photos screen.

Storing Photos on an iPod

To store images on an iPod, perform the following steps:

1. Use a digital camera to capture images.
2. Remove the memory card containing the images you want to move to the iPod.
3. Open the card slots on the Media Reader by sliding its protective cover open.
4. Insert the memory card into the appropriate slot in the Media Reader. Insert the card with the label side up.
5. Fold the Dock connector out of the Media Reader to expose it.
6. Connect the Media Reader’s Dock connector to the iPod’s Dock Connector port. The Media Reader will start communicating with your iPod, and you’ll see the Import screen. On this screen, you’ll see the number of photos on the card along with information about the amount of memory being used and the amount of memory available on the card.
7. Highlight Import and press the Select button. You’ll see the Import Progress screen, which displays the progress of the import process. When all the images have been moved from the memory card to the iPod, the Import Done screen will appear.
8. When you are done importing, highlight Done and press the Select button. You’ll move to the Photos screen on which you see the photo files you have imported onto the iPod in rolls.
9. To view information about a roll of photos, select the roll in which you are interested and press the Select button. The Roll Information screen will appear.
10. When you are done viewing information about a roll, choose Cancel. You’ll return to the Photos screen.

Choosing Card Reader for Your iPod

To be able to store images on an iPod, you need some way to move the images from the camera’s memory card onto the iPod’s hard drive. At press time, there is only one device that allows you to do this: the Belkin iPod Media Reader. This very versatile device enables you to read files from the most common types of memory cards used in digital cameras, including CompactFlash, SmartMedia, Secure Digital, Memory Stick, or MultiMediaCard.

Using an iPod to Store Digital Pictures

If you have ever been taking photos away from your computer and run out of room on your camera’s memory card, you’ll immediately understand why being able to store images you take on your iPod is a good thing. You can quickly upload images from your camera’s memory onto your iPod and erase the card so that you can take more pictures. When you get back to your computer, you can upload the images from the iPod to your favorite photo application.

To be able to store images on an iPod, you need some way to move the images from the camera’s memory card onto the iPod’s hard drive. At press time, there is only one device that allows yo to do this: the Belkin iPod Media Reader. This very versatile device enables you to read files from the most common types of memory cards used in digital cameras, including CompactFlash, SmartMedia, Secure Digital, Memory Stick, or MultiMediaCard.

Working with Sound You Have Recorded

There are a number of things you can do with sounds you have recorded. These include the following:

• You can play sounds you have recorded by highlighting the sound you want to hear on the Voice Memos screen and pressing the Play button. You’ll see the Now Playing screen, and the sound will play.
• You can delete sounds you have recorded by highlighting the sound you want to delete and pressing the Select button. You’ll see a screen with Play and Delete options. Select Delete and then select Delete Memo on the resulting screen. The sound you recorded will be deleted.
• The next time you connect your iPod to your computer, the sounds you recorded will be uploaded into your iTunes Library. To find them, search for the dates on which you recorded the sounds, and the sounds you recorded on those dates will be shown in the Content pane. After a recorded sound is in your Library, you can work with it just like the songs in that Library. For example, you can play the sounds, add them to playlists, put them on CD, and so on.
• You can also access the recording files you made directly by connecting the iPod to a computer and opening it as a hard drive from the desktop. Then open the Recordings folder, and you will see one WAV file for each recording stored on the iPod. You can play these WAV files or import them into an audio application for editing or other purposes.

How to Record Sound on an iPod?

To record sound, use the following steps:

1. Move to the Voice Memo screen; if you aren’t there already, choose Main menu, Extras, Voice Memos, Record Now.
2. Highlight Record and press the Select button. Your iPod will begin recording, and the counter on the Voice Memos screen will begin counting the time of the current recording. At the same time, the Pause and Stop and Save commands will appear on the screen
3. Speak into the voice recorder. Whatever sound you make will be recorded.
4. To pause the recording, highlight Pause and press the Select button. The counter and recording will pause.
5. To resume recording from where you left off, highlight Resume and press the Select button. Your iPod will start recording again.
6. When you are done recording, highlight Stop and Save and press the Select button. The recoding process will stop, and you’ll move back to the Voice Memos screen on which your recording will be listed. It will be named with the date and time on which you made it. You can repeat the previous steps to continue recording sound until you have captured all that you are interested in or until you run out of disk space to store the sound you have recorded, whichever comes first.

Choosing a Voice Recorder for an iPod

In order to record sound on an iPod, you need to obtain a voice recorder accessory. By the time you read this, there should be at least two of these units available: the Belkin Voice Recorder for iPod and the Griffin Technology iTalk iPod Voice Recorder. Only the Belkin unit was available when I wrote this, so that is the unit I focus on here. This unit retails for about $50 and enables you to access the recording features that are already built in to the iPod’s software.
Installing the Voice Recorder couldn’t be easier. Simply plug the unit inato the iPod’s Headphones and Remote ports. When you do so, you’ll see the Voice Memo screen. That’s all there is to setting up the voice recorder.

Using an iPod with More Than One Computer

Because the iPod is so very portable, you might use it with more than one computer. And because iTunes is free, there is no reason you can’t install it on every computer you use. Using an iPod with more than one computer only presents one minor complication: When you configure an iPod to be automatically updated, you link it to the iTunes Library on the machine you configured the update on. When you connect the iPod to another machine that also has automatic updating set, you will see a warning prompt that explains that the iPod is linked to another iTunes Library If you click Yes in this prompt, the music currently on the iPod will be replaced by the music stored on the computer to which the iPod is connected and the link will be changed to the current iTunes Library.

If you don’t want to replace the iPod’s music, click No.
Because you can link the iPod to only one computer at a time, you might want to use the iPod to move music from the “nonlinked” computer to the one that is linked with your iPod. If you have music on one computer that you want to store in the Library on another computer, do the following steps:

1. Mount the iPod as a disk on the computer that has the music you want to move to another computer.
2. Create a folder on the iPod called “Music to Move” or something similar.
3. Copy the music you want to move into the folder you created in step 2.
4. Connect the iPod to the computer to which it is linked.
5. Copy the music files from the iPod onto the computer.
6. Add the files you copied to the iTunes Library on that computer. (The next time you update the iPod from this computer, the music files you added to the Library will be placed in the iPod’s music collection if they meet the update’s criteria.)
7. Delete the music files you copied onto the iPod from the iPod.

Using an iPod as a Hard Drive

After you have enabled this functionality, you can use an iPod as a disk by performing the following steps:

1. Connect your iPod to your computer. iTunes will open, and if you have configured automatic updating, the iPod will be updated.
2. On your computer’s desktop, open a new window and select the iPod, which will be listed just like other hard drives in your system.
3. To copy files onto the iPod, drag them from other locations on your computer and drop them onto the iPod.
4. When you are done moving files to or from the iPod, eject it. You can do this from the computer’s desktop by selecting the iPod and choosing the Eject command or from within iTunes by selecting the iPod on the Source List and clicking

the Eject button. The iPod will be unmounted, and you can disconnect it from your computer.

Enabling an iPod to Be Used as a Hard Drive

To be able to use an iPod as a hard drive, you need to configure it within iTunes by using the following steps:

1. Connect your iPod to your computer. iTunes will open, and your iPod will be shown in the Source List.
2. Select the iPod and click the iPod Options button. You’ll see the iPod Preferences dialog box.
3. Check the Enable disk use check box.
4. You’ll see a warning prompt that explains that if you enable disk use, you’ll have to manually unmount the iPod before disconnecting it.
5. Click OK to close the warning prompt.
6. Click OK to close the iPod Preferences dialog b

Using an iPod as a Portable FireWire/USB 2 Hard Drive

Here’s some news for you: The iPod is a fully functional, portable FireWire/USB 2 hard drive. In addition to using the iPod’s hard drive to store music, you can also use it just like any other hard drive you connect to your computer. Because you use FireWire or USB 2 to connect it, an iPod has speedy performance, too.
The uses for an iPod as a hard drive are almost endless; following are a few examples:

• A transport drive—Have files you want to move from one computer to another? No problem. Connect your iPod to one computer, copy files to it, connect it to the second computer, and copy files from the iPod onto that computer.
• Extra storage space—Need a few extra GB of disk space? No problem. Connect your iPod and you have it.
• Temporary backup drive—Have some important files you want to back up? Place them on an iPod and there you go.

Reading Notes on an iPod

After you have placed text files in the Notes folder, you can read them by choosing Main menu, Extras, Notes. You’ll see the Notes screen, which contains a list of all the text files in the Notes folder on your iPod. To read a note, highlight it and press the Select button. You’ll see the note’s text on the screen. Scroll down the screen to read all of the text if you need to.

Moving Notes to an iPod

Connect your iPod to your computer and place the text file you created in the Notes folder on the iPod’s hard drive. (To do this, you need to configure your iPod so it can be used as a hard drive.)

Creating Notes for an iPod

You can also store and display text files on your iPod. For example, you might want to store instructions to perform a task that you have trouble remembering how to do or the directions to a location on your iPod for easy reference.
To create a note on an iPod, use any word processor or other application that can create a text file (filename extension should be .txt). Create the text you want to store on the iPod and save it as a TXT file.

How to View Your Contacts in iPod?

To view your contacts, perform the following steps:

1. Choose Main menu, Extras, Contacts. You’ll see the list of contacts sorted by your sort preference.
2. To view a contact’s detailed information, highlight the contact in which you are interested and press the Select button. You’ll see a screen showing all the information for that contact.
3. Scroll down the screen to see all the information for the contact.

Configuring How Contacts Appear

When it comes to displaying contact information on an iPod, you have two options. To select an option, choose Main menu, Settings, Contacts. You’ll see the Contacts preferences screen. This screen has two options. Use the Sort option to choose how contacts are sorted on the screen. Use the Display option to display how contacts are displayed on the screen. In both cases, your choices are First Last, which lists the first name followed by the last name, and Last First, which places the last name first and the first name last.
To select an option, choose the setting and press the Select button to toggle the option.

How to Move Contact Information from Outlook to an iPod (Windows)?

Exporting contacts from Outlook is done with the same steps you use to export calendar information. The one difference is that you choose the vCard file format for contacts. The vCard file format is a standard format used for virtual cards that can be exported from or imported into most contact managers, including Outlook and Address Book.
After you have exported contact information from Outlook, the steps to import those contacts onto your iPod are very similar as well. Instead of using the Calendars folder on the iPod, you place contacts in the Contacts folder.

How to View Your iPod Calendar?

To view your iPod calendar, do the following steps:

1. Choose Main menu, Extras, Calendars. You’ll see the Calendars menu.
2. Highlight the calendar you want to view and press the Select button. If you want to see all the calendar events, choose All. You’ll see the Calendar display . The current date is highlighted. Dates with one or more events scheduled are marked with a black box.
3. To get details for an event, use the Scroll pad or Click Wheel to move to the date in which you are interested. As you move away from the current date, its box will take on a lighter shade and the currently selected date will be highlighted in the darker shade.
4. When the date in which you are interested is highlighted, press the Select button. The events for that date will be listed.
5. To see the detailed information for an event, highlight it and press the Select button. You’ll see the detailed information for that event.
6. Use the Menu button to move back to the list of events or back to the calendar. The iPod calendar also picks up event alarms for the events you place on it. To configure the event alarm, open the Calendars menu and scroll until you see the Alarms option. Set this to Beep to hear the beep sound for an event alarm, Silent to see a silent alarm, or Off to turn the event alarm off.

To delete an event from your iPod, remove the event file from the Calendars folder on the iPod if you are using a file-based method (such as with Outlook). If you are using iCal, just remove the event from the iCal calendar and synchronize.

Moving Calendar Information to an iPod Using iSync and iCal (Mac)

Synchronizing your iCal calendar on your iPod is very straightforward, and you can even configure this to happen each time you connect your iPod to your Mac. Follow these steps:

1. Connect your iPod to your Mac and open the iSync application.
2. If you have never used iSync to synchronize your iPod before, choose Devices, Add Device.
3. Click the Scan button. You will see the iPod in the window.
4. Double-click the iPod’s icon, and the iSync options dialog box will appear
5. Check the Turn on ipodname synchronization check box, where ipodname is the name of your iPod.
6. Check the Automatically synchronize when iPod is connected check box.
7. Check the Contacts check box and choose the specific contacts you want to move to your iPod on the Synchronize menu. For example, to have all your contacts synchronized, choose All contacts. If you want only a specific group of contacts to be moved, select that group instead.
8. Check the Calendars check box and choose the calendars you want to be moved to your iPod. Choose all your calendars by clicking the All radio button or choose specific calendars by clicking the Selected radio button and then checking the check box next to each calendar you want to place on your iPod.
9. Click the Sync Now button. The information you selected will be moved onto your iPod.

You only need to do these steps the first time you synch your iPod with iCal and your Address Book. If you configure automatic synchronization, this information will be updated each time you connect your iPod to your Mac.

How to Move Calendar Information from Outlook to an iPod (Windows)?

To move calendar events from Outlook to your iPod, perform the following steps:

1. Open your Outlook calendar.
2. Select an event you want to move to your iPod calendar.
3. Choose File, Save As.
4. In the resulting Save As dialog box, move to the folder in which you want to store the events, choose iCalendar Format or vCalendar Format on the Save as type drop-down list, and click Save. The event will be exported from Outlook in the format you selected.
5. Repeat steps 2 through 4 until you have saved all the events you want to move onto your iPod. Unfortunately, repeating events are not moved. You have to move each event individually.
6. Connect your iPod to your computer. For this process to work, your iPod must be configured so it can be used as a hard disk.
7. Open the folder in which you saved the events you exported in step 4.
8. Open the My Computer folder in another window and then open the iPod so that you see the folders it contains
9. Drag the calendar events from the folder you opened in step 7 and place them in the Calendars folder on the iPod. When you do this, the events will be added to your iPod’s calendar.

Setting and Controlling Alarm in iPod

You can also use the iPod’s alarm clock to wake you up or remind you of an important time. To set an alarm, perform the following steps:

1. Choose Main menu, Extras, Clock, Alarm Clock. You’ll see the Alarm Clock screen. By default, the alarm is turned off, which is indicated by the Off setting.
2. Highlight Alarm and press the Select button. The Alarm setting will become On, and the alarm will be active. The time at which the alarm is currently set to go off is shown next to the Time option on the Alarm Clock menu.
3. Highlight Time and press the Select button. You’ll see the set alarm time screen.
4. Use the Scroll pad or Click Wheel to choose the time you want the alarm to sound. Drag clockwise to increase the time or counterclockwise to decrease it.
5. When the correct alarm time is set, press the Select button. You’ll return to the Alarm Clock menu.
6. Highlight Sound. By default, the alarm sound setting will be Beep, which you can hear even if you don’t have earphones or speakers connected to the iPod. If you choose a different sound, you have to have speakers or headphones attached to the iPod to hear the alarm.
7. If you want to have a playlist start playing instead, press the Select button. You’ll see a list of playlists on your iPod.
8. Highlight the playlist you want to use as the alarm sound and press the Select button. You’ll return to the Alarm Clock menu, and the name of the selected list will be shown as the Sound setting.
9. Press the Menu button. You’ll return to the Clock display. A bell icon will appear on the right side of the time to indicate that the alarm is set. When the appointed time comes along, your iPod will turn on and play the beep sound or the selected playlist. Unless you are an incredibly light sleeper, don’t expect the Beep sound to wake you up. It isn’t very loud, and it doesn’t play very long. You’ll have better luck if you connect your iPod to speakers and use a playlist instead.

Displaying the Time on an iPod

There are a couple of ways to display the time and date on an iPod:

• Choose Main menu, Extras, Clock. You’ll see the Clock display In the title area you’ll see the current date. Just below the title, you’ll see the current time.
• If you turn the Time in Title setting to On (as described in step 15 in the previous list of steps), the time will be displayed in the title area of every screen a second or two after you move to a new screen. When you first move to a screen, you will see the title, but after that small amount of time passes, the title will be replace by the current time.

How to Configure the Time on an iPod?

Before you use the iPod as a clock, you need to configure its time and date. Use the following steps to do this:

1. Choose Main menu, Extras, Clock, Date & Time. You’ll see the Date & Time menu.
2. Choose Set Time Zone. You’ll see the Time Zone menu.
3. Scroll on the list of time zones until you see the time zone you are in.
4. Highlight your time zone and press the Select button. The iPod’s time zone will be set to the one you selected, and you will return to the Date & Time menu.
5. Choose Set Date & Time. You’ll see the Date & Time menu again, except that this time it will be in the set date and time mode. The hour will be highlighted.
6. Use the Scroll pad or Click Wheel to increase or decrease the hour until the correct hour is displayed.
7. Press the Fast-forward button so that the minute display is highlighted.
8. Use the Scroll pad or Click Wheel to increase or decrease the hour until the correct minute is displayed.
9. Press the Fast-forward button so that the AM/PM indicator display is highlighted.
10. Use the Scroll pad or Click Wheel to change the AM/PM to the correct value.
11. Continue using the Fast-forward button and Scroll pad or Click Wheel to set the correct date, month, and year.
12. Press the Select button. The date and time you selected will be set, and you will return to the Date & Time menu.
13. Highlight the Time setting. The default value is to use a 12-hour clock.
14. To use a 24-hour clock, press the Select button. The Time setting will become 24-hour, and a 24-hour clock will be used.
15. To display the time in the menu title area, highlight Time in Title and press the Select button. The Time in Title setting will become On, and the time will be displayed in the title bar—instead of the menu title

Tips on Car and iPod

Using an iPod with a home or car stereo is easy to do and lets you listen to your iPod’s music in many situations. Perhaps the best way to do this is to use an FM transmitter so you can tune in your iPod’s music on your car radio or receiver’s tuner. If you do this, check out the following pointers:

• Don’t worry about other people being able to listen to your music when you use an FM transmitter. These devices have very limited range. If you are in a vehicle, someone might be able to pick up your iPod station if their vehicle is right next to yours; however, as soon as you separate even a few feet, they will lose the signal.
• Because you move around a lot when you drive, finding a good (meaning never used) FM frequency to use while you are on the road can be a challenge, especially if you are in a large metropolitan area. If a frequency isn’t being used directly, it still might suffer bleed over from stations on other frequencies. If you choose a frequency that is being used or has bleed over, your iPod’s music might be interrupted occasionally. For best results, select a station that you think is unused and listen to it for a while as you drive around. (Yes, you will feel kind of silly listening to static, but hey, it will help in the long run.)
• When you find a good candidate for unused frequency, set one of your radio’s buttons to that frequency so that you can easily return to it. If you use an FM transmitter in more than one car, you might want to set it on the radio in each one.
• Don’t be terribly surprised if you still have occasional static while using FM, even if you find a good unused station. Hopefully, you will be able to find a station where this is a rare occurrence, but it is likely to happen once in a while. If you can’t find a frequency/transmitter combination that works satisfactorily, try using wires or the cassette adapter method instead.
• Remember that as you move among different areas, there are different radio frequencies being used. You might have to use different frequencies in the different areas in which you drive.
• iPod can be a dangerous when you are driving, just be careful. Your life and your car is more valuable than your iPod. If you ignore this last advice, the all my condolences to you.
  

Controlling an iPod While You Are on the Road

If there is one dangerous topic in this blog, this is it. Playing around with an iPod while you are driving is not a good idea. It is very easy to get focused on the iPod instead of where you are going, and your day can suddenly be ruined, even an aztec ruins would look better than your car. To practice safe iPodding while you are on the road, consider the following tips:

• Choose the music to which you are going to listen while you are stopped. The iPod’s screen is just not large enough to be able to see it clearly and look around you at the same time. Choosing music is at least a one-hand and two-eye operation. That doesn’t leave much left for driving. So fire up your iPod, connect it to the radio with a cassette adapter or configure the FM transmitter, choose your music source and play it, place your iPod in its holder, and then drive.
• Consider creating playlists for driving. You can make these long enough so that you never have to change the music that is playing while you drive.
• If you must fiddle with your music while you drive, at least use a remote control. You can’t change the music source with these devices, but you can change the volume, skip to the next song, and so on.
• Remember that you don’t need to change the volume on the iPod itself. Set it at a mid-level and leave it alone. Use your car radio’s controls instead.
• Keep your iPod secure, as explained in the previous section. Nothing is more distracting than the thought of your precious iPod flying around the car as you drive. If that does happen, remember that fixing you and your car (plus other people) will cost a lot more than a new iPod would!
• Remember the road rule of the day: Road first, music last.