"iPod & iTunes: The Missing Manual"

 

There's something about an iPod that makes it hard not to want one--its sleek design, cleverly designed scroll wheel, and the just-right weight in the palm of your hand. Even if you don't listen to "portable" music, the iPod gets you thinking that you might like to start.

 

Part of the beauty of the iPod is that even the original Mac-only version, released by Apple in 2001, held 1,000 average-length songs, far more than the typical MP3 player. With the 2002 version, Windows users joined the family of iPod users.  Add iTunes, free for both Windows and Mac platforms, and you can create mixes and musical collections to suit any mood or occasion.

But music playing isn't the only tune the iPod knows. To discover the full range of this device's capabilities, you'll need "iPod & iTunes: The Missing Manual" (Biersdorfer, O'Reilly, US $24.95), the book that should have been in the box. 

No iPod (yet), you say? Music lovers will still want this guide to iTunes--the ultimate jukebox program for Macs and Windows that plays and organizes your music, copies music from your CD collection onto your hard drive, and burns new CDs with music in whatever sequence you like. It's also an online music store where you can buy a favorite song--legally--for just a buck.

In this freshly updated edition, "New York Times" tech columnist J. D.Biersdorfer opens the secret doors of this gleaming beauty and its new colorful spin-off the iPod Mini. She lays bare an astonishing collectionof useful tips, tricks, and shortcuts for using your iPod, like these:

-iPod as PDA. The iPod can suck in your calendar, address book, to-do

list, and notes from a Mac or PC, and then display them at the touch of a

button. It also doubles as an alarm clock and stopwatch.

-iPod as hard drive. Hook up your iPod to your Mac or Windows machine

where it shows up as a disk. Use it to copy, back up, or transfer large

files from place to place--at impressive rates of transfer speed.

 

-iPod as e-book. The iPod makes an excellent book reader, capable of

displaying and scrolling through recipes, driving directions, book pages,

and even web pages.

-iPod as GameBoy. Well, not a GameBoy exactly. But the built-in games are

perfect time-killers for waiting rooms, bus rides, and the Department of

Motor Vehicles.

Music lovers will also get an in-depth tour of the iTunes application--

everything from importing music and creating playlists to burning your CDs

and DVDs and sharing music across a network. Biersdorfer provides a guided

tour of the iTunes music store, as well, where you can browse an inventory of more

than 500,000 songs or sample and buy any of 5,000 audio books.

No matter what kind of music moves you, "iPod & iTunes: The Missing

Manual" will help you get much more out of your iPod--and much more into

it.