Overview
- Put on the headphones and crank up the action! Here's the one and only, ultimate guide for music junkies looking to squeeze every possible bit of potential from their beloved iPods, both Mac and Windows versions
- Legendary Mac maven Scott Knaster shares more than 100 hacks, tweaks, and mods that unlock both the musical and non-musical tricks in the iPod's repertoire
- Since iPod is the constant companion of music lovers everywhere, they'll groove to the discovery of how to make it download headlines, stock quotes, even driving directions; become a Bluetooth transmitter; or run Linux-and that's before they learn to create and play adventure games with it
- In this latest offering from ExtremeTech, readers learn to tweak Gracenote CDDB in iTunes, hack their own iTunes music library and album covers, and more
- According to Apple's research, an iPod is sold nearly every thirty seconds
- iTunes owns digital music-more than eighty percent of legal music downloads, over seventeen million songs, have come from iTunes since its launch
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewBuy iPod. Press button. Hear music. If that’s all you want from your iPod, fine. But it can do lots more than that. With a little tweaking, even more. And, hey, it wasn’t cheap. So why not get everything out of your iPod that you can? Scott Knaster’s Hacking iPod and iTunes is the place to start.
Knaster, who co-wrote Mac Toys, begins with built-in iPod and iTunes features you probably haven't fully explored yet. For example: Smart Playlists to keep your music fresh, Equalizer to tweak sound quality, and Sound Check to keep volumes level. Next, there’s a full chapter on using iPod’s built-in non-music features: recording voice memos, storing digital photos, using your iPod as an external disk drive; integrating iPod’s contact and calendar with Microsoft Outlook; and more.
If you’re running your iPod with a Mac, you can automate all sorts of interesting activities with AppleScripts. As Knaster shows you, you don’t even have to write those scripts yourself -- just download ’em. For example, Knaster covers scripts that help you clean up duplicate or “dead” tracks; and others that transform your iPod into an alarm clock or sleep timer.
There are some great tips on getting music into your iPod -- from capturing streams (and whatever else your computer might be playing) to ripping “stubborn” CDs. You’ll find loads of hardware tips, too: sharing your iPod with a splitter, connecting to your car stereo, finding an iPod wireless remote, and more. From burning mix DVDs to finding Visualizer plug-ins, this is your No. 1 source of great iPod ideas. Bill Camarda
Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2003 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks for Dummies, Second Edition.