iPod & iTunes: The Missing Manual

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Even before you extract it from its box, the iPod makes a design statement. Its shrink-wrapped cardboard cube opens like a book, revealing elegantly packaged accessories and software nestled around the iPod itself.

The first part of this book will familiarize you with the hardware portion of this parcel.

In addition to the nicely nestled iPod itself (Figure 1-1), the package's compartments hold all the other stuff that comes with various iPod models: earbud-style headphones and their foam covers, the connection cable for your computer, power adapter, dock, carrying case with belt clip, remote control, and software CD. All you get by way of instructions, though, is a small square folder, including the short iPod User's Guide. Good thing you have the book in your hands to fill in the gaps.

Figure 1-1: After the outer sleeve (top) is removed, the artfully designed packaging opens up to reveal the inner iPod. (Don't be deceived by the black-looking iPod photo. That's supposed to show what the thing looks like in the dark. There's no such thing as a black iPod—at least not yet, although a company called Colorware will sell you a hand-painted Pod at http://www.colorwarepc.com. (And you can always indulge your color whims with an iPod Mini.) The iPod comes with all the hardware and software you need to get up and running, but the choice of music to put on it is up to you. If your iPod model didn't come with all the accessories shown, you can probably find most of them for sale on the Web.

You'll probably blow right past the warranty information (basically, you're covered for one year) and the software agreement (the usual legalese that makes most people's eyes glaze over like fresh Krispy Kreme doughnuts). The software agreement includes a small section about making digital copies of music, whose sentiment is echoed right on the iPod's cellophane wrapping:

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In addition to the nicely nestled iPod itself (Figure 1-1), the package's compartments hold all the other stuff that comes with various iPod models: earbud-style headphones and their foam covers, the connection cable for your computer, power adapter, dock, carrying case with belt clip, remote control, and software CD. All you get by way of instructions, though, is a small square folder, including the short iPod User's Guide. Good thing you have the book in your hands to fill in the gaps.

Figure 1-1: After the outer sleeve (top) is removed, the artfully designed packaging opens up to reveal the inner iPod. (Don't be deceived by the black-looking iPod photo. That's supposed to show what the thing looks like in the dark. There's no such thing as a black iPod—at least not yet, although a company called Colorware will sell you a hand-painted Pod at http://www.colorwarepc.com. (And you can always indulge your color whims with an iPod Mini.) The iPod comes with all the hardware and software you need to get up and running, but the choice of music to put on it is up to you. If your iPod model didn't come with all the accessories shown, you can probably find most of them for sale on the Web.

You'll probably blow right past the warranty information (basically, you're covered for one year) and the software agreement (the usual legalese that makes most people's eyes glaze over like fresh Krispy Kreme doughnuts). The software agreement includes a small section about making digital copies of music, whose sentiment is echoed right on the iPod's cellophane wrapping: Don't steal music.

The monochrome LCD screen is your window into the iPod's world. You can use it to navigate the menus, see how much of a charge the battery has left, and view the name of the current playlist or song. The display, whose resolution is 160 x 128 pixels, also comes with a white backlight, so you can still use your iPod in movies, concerts, and coal mines.

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Many a cloud of gadget euphoria dies instantly when the new owner realizes that the device must sit in a battery charger and juice up before any fun can happen.

Out of the box, the iPod may have enough juice to turn itself on and get you hooked on spinning the scroll wheel. But you'll still need to charge the iPod before you use it for the first time.

If your Mac or PC has powered FireWire or USB 2 jacks, you can charge up the iPod just by plugging it into your computer. (For FireWire, "powered" usually means the fatter 6-pin FireWire connector, not the little 4-pin connectors found on many Windows machines. For USB 2, you need a powered jack like those on the back of the computer, or on a powered USB hub—not, for example, the unpowered jack at the end of a keyboard.) The battery charges as long as the computer is on and not in Sleep mode.

It takes about three hours to fully charge your iPod. Note, however, that it gets about 80 percent charged after an hour. If you just can't wait to unplug it and go racing out to show your friends, you can begin to use it after an hour.

During the charging process, you may see either the "Do Not Disconnect" message (if the iPod is also sucking down music from your computer), the "OK to Disconnect" message (if it's done with that), or the main menu (if it's a 2003 or later model).

Some iPods come with a cool accessory: the iPod dock. The dock, shown in Figure 1-4, is a plastic stand with FireWire and stereo line-out connections built into the back. To charge up the iPod, you can either plug in the flat FireWire cable right into the bottom of the player, or plug the cable into the back of the dock.

Figure 1-4: The iPod dock allows for upright charging and a better view of the iPod's screen, not to mention a healthy flow of air around that toasty little battery as it charges. If your iPod didn't come with the dock, you can buy one separately on Apple's Web site for $40. (Alas, the dock doesn't fit 2001 or 2002 iPod models. There is one available for the iPod Mini, though.)

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The iPod comes with a set of white earbud-style headphones (Figure 1-6). These aren't just flimsy freebies tossed in the box, either. They're designed with the iPod's amplifier in mind.

Figure 1-6: You're supposed to wedge the iPod earbuds into your ear canals, preferably after covering each one with one of the included gray foam covers. (You even get two sets of these covers, so you and a loved one don't have to exchange earwax.) As with any type of headphone, excessively loud music can damage hearing, so use the volume controls sensibly.

With a frequency response of 20 to 20,000 Hertz, the iPod can cover a huge range of sounds—comparable to that of a respectable home stereo. In other words, it lets most people hear all the detailed sonic mayhem on a Pink Floyd album. To reproduce this range of frequencies, the iPod earbuds use 18mm drivers with neodymium transducer magnets. (No, you're not expected to know what that means—but it's fun to say at cocktail parties. See the box below.)

While the iPod earbuds are quite robust, they're not for everyone. Some people don't care for the sensation of oversized chunks of foam jammed into their auditory canals. Others lack the wedge of cartilage that keeps earbud-style headphones in place, and can't use the iPod buds without duct tape.

The driver is the moving element in any type of speaker system, from tiny headphones to subwoofers. When an amplifier supplies power, the driver vibrates and produces sound waves.

Neodymium—which, from your cramming for that high school test in the Periodic Table of the Elements, you may recognize as atomic number 60—is a rare-earth metal that's used in magnets, lasers, and purple glass. Its name is derived from the Greek

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Some 2002-and-later iPod models include a delicious accessory: a futuristic-looking silver remote control (see Figure 1-7). Complete with a handy jacket clip, the remote replicates most of the main iPod controls including

,

, volume adjustment, and Hold.

Figure 1-7: The iPod remote control, included with the higher-priced models of each generation (and optional for other 2003-and-later models like the Mini), has a clip on the back to attach to a lapel or pocket.

With the remote within easy reach, you can pause a song without having to fumble around for the iPod. No longer must you miss out on the beginnings of all those conversations when someone walks up to you and says, "Hey, did you get an iPod?''

The remote does make for a longer earphone cord, though, making cable management more of an issue.

If your iPod model didn't come with a remote, and you're coming down with a serious case of Remote Envy, the remote control and a spare pair of earbuds are available for $40 from Apple's Web site, stores, and retail outlets.

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Apple began including a simple black iPod carrying case with the more expensive iPod models in 2002, and continued the tradition with the 2003-and-later family. The case is basically a slipcover with a belt clip on the back. It holds the iPod snugly and protects it from scratches and fingerprints (Figure 1-8). If you're feeling left out, you can buy the case for $40 from the Apple Web site.

Figure 1-8: Some people don't like the included case because it covers the iPod's screen and makes using the front-panel buttons impossible. When it's on, you must control the iPod from the wired remote instead of the iPod buttons. Chapter 14 describes alternative cases and where to get them.

The iPod Mini's belt clip snaps onto the player. If you want to wear your music on your sleeve on days when you're going beltless (or when you're working out), $30 at Apple's Web site will get you a wide black armband instead.

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The iPod's menus are as straightforward as its controls. You use the scroll wheel to go down the list of options you see on the screen. Then you press the Select button to pick what you want. Small arrows on the end of each menu item (like this: Settings >) indicate that another menu lurks behind it, so keep pressing Select until you get where you want to go. (If you realize that that is not where you want to go, press the Menu button to retrace your steps.)

The menus and screens described here refer to the ones used in iPod system software 1.3 (for 2001 and 2002 iPods) or 2.1 (on third-generation models that first appeared in 2003). If you have an older iPod that you haven't updated in a while, you can update your software by downloading the current version from Apple's Web site. Details on Section 15.8.

The main screen (Figure 1-9) says iPod at the top and offers a choice of five areas to go to next: Playlists, Browse, Extras, Settings, and Backlight. Here's more about what's under each menu item.

Figure 1-9: If you don't see this main menu at the moment, press the Menu button repeatedly until you do. From here, you can drill down into any iPod function.

A playlist is a customized list of songs that you create from the tracks in your music library. It's your own personal music mix that you can save, store, and play over and over again on your iPod or computer.

Except for On-The-Go playlists (described next), you make playlists on your Mac or PC using the iTunes or MusicMatch Jukebox software. For example, you can make a playlist called "Go For Baroque" and add all of your favorite Bach and Handel songs from your music library, in the order you want to hear them. You can also get the computer to create playlists for you with the iTunes Smart Playlists feature (Section 4.9.3).

Once you save a playlist and synchronize your computer with the iPod, the file is transferred to the iPod.

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Sleek and smart as the iPod may be, it can't do much by itself until it meets up with a computer. Once connected to a Mac or PC, however, the iPod is ready to accept whatever you want to give it—your whole music library, of course, but also everything from the complete recorded works of Tom Petty to your phone book, from news and calendar information to files too big to fit on a burned CD.

This chapter is dedicated to that concept of iPod as Satellite to Your Computer. It explains FireWire and USB 2.0, and how to use these connections to get songs and files off the mother ship and onto the ultraportable, ready-to-go iPod.

Apart from boosting magazine sales, there's never been much value in sitting in front of the computer, waiting for large files to copy onto external drives and other add-ons. In the eternal search for faster data-transfer speeds, Apple developed a new high-speed cable called FireWire in the mid-1990s. It's easy to use, it's hot-swappable (you don't have to turn off anything before plugging or unplugging the cable), and—unlike SCSI cables, which came before it—it doesn't force you to go through configuration acrobatics to get multiple devices to all work properly.

Dozens of other companies, including Windows PC makers, eventually picked up FireWire. Some gave it other names along the way: IEEE 1394 (its official moniker from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, an industry standards group) and i.LINK, used primarily by Sony. But whatever the name, it's still the same speedy connection underneath.

With its ability to move 400 megabits of data per second, FireWire was quickly adopted by a product that needs to get an enormous amount of information from Point A to Point B: the digital camcorder. Other hardware with a need for speed, like external CD burners and hard drives, followed the path to FireWire connectivity.

FireWire's speed makes possible one of the iPod's best tricks: slurping in an entire CD's worth of music from your computer in ten seconds. It's also how the iPod gets its battery charge. That's great if you have a Macintosh, because every Macintosh made since about 1998 has a FireWire connector built right in (see Figure 2-1).

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Apart from boosting magazine sales, there's never been much value in sitting in front of the computer, waiting for large files to copy onto external drives and other add-ons. In the eternal search for faster data-transfer speeds, Apple developed a new high-speed cable called FireWire in the mid-1990s. It's easy to use, it's hot-swappable (you don't have to turn off anything before plugging or unplugging the cable), and—unlike SCSI cables, which came before it—it doesn't force you to go through configuration acrobatics to get multiple devices to all work properly.

Dozens of other companies, including Windows PC makers, eventually picked up FireWire. Some gave it other names along the way: IEEE 1394 (its official moniker from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, an industry standards group) and i.LINK, used primarily by Sony. But whatever the name, it's still the same speedy connection underneath.

With its ability to move 400 megabits of data per second, FireWire was quickly adopted by a product that needs to get an enormous amount of information from Point A to Point B: the digital camcorder. Other hardware with a need for speed, like external CD burners and hard drives, followed the path to FireWire connectivity.

FireWire's speed makes possible one of the iPod's best tricks: slurping in an entire CD's worth of music from your computer in ten seconds. It's also how the iPod gets its battery charge. That's great if you have a Macintosh, because every Macintosh made since about 1998 has a FireWire connector built right in (see Figure 2-1).

Figure 2-1: Left: The FireWire icon on cables and ports signals that the computer is equipped with the high-speed standard. Right: The connectors are wider and less rectangular than those of a USB cable.

If you're a Windows PC fan, however, FireWire isn't such a sure thing. If you bought an iPod and then found out to your horror that your computer doesn't

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Most computer stores, both retail and online, sell FireWire/1394 expansion cards (Figure 2-3); they're available for both desktop and laptop computers. FireWire cards designed for desktop machines fit into one of the computer's spare PCI slots on the motherboard, making the new FireWire ports available on the back of the case along with all the other port connectors.

Figure 2-3: FireWire cards come in all shapes and sizes and can add two, three, or four FireWire ports to a computer. The cards snap into an empty PCI slot on the computer's mother-board. Adding a FireWire card will allow you to use FireWire-enabled devices like digital camcorders, CD burners, and iPods.

There are expansion cards for FireWire, USB 2.0, and even combo cards that let you add ports for FireWire and USB 2.0 if you really want to go whole-hog toward faster data-transfer speeds. A basic FireWire card generally sells for less than $60, a relatively small price to pay to give your computer the gift of FireWire.

FireWire cards for laptops, which are generally more expensive than the PCI cards, snap into the CardBus slot on the laptop. (CardBus is a ramped-up version of the PC cards used with laptops.) Most laptops manufactured after 1999 can handle CardBus cards, in either FireWire or USB 2.0 flavors.

Before you buy a FireWire card, make sure it's compatible with your operating system and hardware configuration. If you're pressed for time, you can go straight to proven, Apple-approved goods by buying a Belkin PCI expansion card and a PC-ready CardBus FireWire 400 card from the Apple Web site.

Your package will have instructions on how to install the FireWire card, but the general process is straightforward.

First, turn off the computer and unplug it. Depending on the design of your computer, you may need to unplug all of the cables and cords coming out of the back in order to get to get the outer case off. You may also need a screwdriver.

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These days, you don't have to use FireWire as the iPod-to-computer connection. If you own a 2003 or later iPod model, another option awaits you: USB 2.0.

If you have a Windows PC, you can use a USB 2.0 cable for any 2003-or-later iPod, including the iPod Mini.

Make sure you connect the USB cable directly to a high-powered port on the PC or a powered USB hub. Low- or unpowered USB jacks, as on the side of a keyboard, don't have enough mojo for your Mini.

Before USB 2.0 hit the streets, a FireWire connection was the fastest way to transfer big chunks of data onto a computer from devices like digital camcorders, external hard drives, and CD burners. FireWire, which transfers data at 400 megabits per second, whips the plastic off a USB 1.1 connection (about 12 megabits per second).

When USB 2.0 products began to crowd store shelves around 2002, FireWire was left in the dust, speed-wise. USB 2.0 (also known as Hi-Speed USB) can whisk data from device to device at 480 megabits per second. USB 2.0 is also backwards compatible, so people with a box full of USB 1.1 mice, scanners, and other peripherals can still plug in and use their old devices in USB 2.0 ports, even if they don't get the 2.0 speed boost.

Those are megabits, not megabytes. Data transfer speeds are traditionally measured in megabits or kilobits per second; disk and file sizes are measured in megabytes (MB).

There are eight bits in a byte. To put USB and FireWire into more familiar terms, then, USB can transfer files at up to 1.5 MB per second. FireWire can move 50 MB of data per second, and USB 2.0 can shuttle to 60 MB per second.

(FireWire isn't standing still, of course; there's now FireWire 800, which, as you can probably guess, moves data at 800 megabits per second. To add to the confusion, the original FireWire standard is now sometimes called FireWire 400. FireWire 800 is available on high-end Macintosh computers and peripherals, but has not yet made the leap to the iPod.)

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The CD that comes with the iPod contains all the software you need to get up and iPodding in no time (Figure 2-5). (There's only one CD in the box of the latest iPod models. The iPod CD installer program is smart enough to figure out what kind of computer you're using and show you only the Mac or Windows installer on the disc.)

Figure 2-5: The typical iPod CD (for Mac, top, and Windows) contains the iPod installer software, a copy of iTunes or MusicMatch Jukebox, an electronic copy of the iPod instruction booklet, and a folder of samples of spoken-word audio files from Audible.com. An Acrobat PDF file of legal and regulatory information is also included for those who really love to read the fine print. (Installation CDs are constantly evolving creatures, so don't be alarmed if your screen looks different from those pictured here.)

Early versions of the iPod CD included software for both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. But beginning with the 2003 iPods, Apple expects you to use Mac OS X 10.1.5 or later. Recent versions of the iPod CD come with iTunes 4; if that's not the version you have, download the latest version of iTunes at http://www.apple.com/itunes.

If you're a stalwart Mac OS 9 fan, there's still hope. Some people have reported being able to get a new iPod to work with iTunes 2 and the latest version of Mac OS 9, although sometimes erratically. A few folks have come up with detailed workarounds (like those described at http://www.phaster.com/ipod_hacks), but they're not for the technically faint of heart. If you want to use a new iPod in all its glory—with the iTunes Music Store, iSync, and other goodies described in this book—it's best to do it with the operating system Apple recommends.

To install the software, insert the iPod CD into the Mac. If necessary, install the iTunes jukebox software from the CD or download the latest version from Apple's Web site.

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For most people, the goal with any new electronics purchase is to get the new toy working right away so the fun can begin. For new iPod owners, getting to The Fun can be a very short wait. After unpacking the iPod and all its accessories, charging it up as described in Chapter 1, and installing the software, you're ready to dive in.

You may already have Apple's free iTunes program and plenty of songs stored in its music library. If so, the first synchronization between iPod and computer can be astoundingly simple. As soon as you connect the new iPod to the Mac or PC, iTunes opens automatically and begins copying your entire music library to the player (see Figure 2-7).

Figure 2-7: The Source list (left side) displays an icon for the iPod whenever it's connected, as well as your music library, list of playlists, songs from the iTunes Music Store, and Internet radio stations. The bottom of the window shows the amount of space left on the iPod, the number of songs, and consecutive days the iPod can play music without repeating songs.

If you don't want iTunes to appear automatically every time the iPod is connected, you can turn off this option in the iPod Preferences dialog box (Figure 2-9).

Figure 2-9: Left: Click the circled button to call up the iPod Preferences dialog box. (The second button provides access to equalizer settings; the third controls screen displays. The last button dismounts the iPod from the computer.) Right: In the iPod Preferences box, you can choose to have the iPod update everything automatically or just certain playlists. "Manually manage songs and playlists" lets you move just the songs you want to the iPod.

If you don't have iTunes or any MP3 files on your hard drive already, you'll have to install iTunes and snag some music files from your music CDs (Chapter 4) or download some songs from the Web (Chapter 3). Once you have a library of music built up that you'd like to transfer to the iPod, just plug it in, let iTunes open, and watch the two machines talk music together.

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The beauty of the iTunes/iPod system is that whatever music you add to your Mac or PC gets added to the iPod automatically, effortlessly, quickly. You've always got your entire music collection with you. Just plugging in the iPod inspires iTunes (or MusicMatch) to open up and begin syncing.

It's conceivable, however, that you won't always want complete and automatic syncing to take place whenever you connect the 'Pod. Maybe you use the iPod primarily as an external hard drive (Chapter 11), so you don't especially care to have iTunes jumping up like a West Highland terrier every time you plug in the iPod. Maybe you want to synchronize only some of your music, not all of it.

Fortunately, you're in complete control of the situation.

If you like, you can command your jukebox software to open only when you want it to, rather than every time the iPod is plugged in.

iTunes. When the iPod plugged in, click its icon in the Source list. Then click the iPod-shaped icon in the bottom right part of the iTunes window (identified in Figure 2-9). The iPod's Preferences box appears, where you can turn off the "Open iTunes when attached" checkbox.
MusicMatch. Look for your iPod in the Portables Plus box, right-click it, and choose Options from the shortcut menu. Click the iPod tab in the box, and turn off "Automatically launch MusicMatch Jukebox on device connection." Click OK.

With MusicMatch Jukebox and 2003-and-later iPods, you can also turn off the auto-launch in the iPod Manager box, which appears when you click the iPod icon in the Windows system tray. Turn off "Automatically launch application on iPod plug in."

The auto-sync option pretty much removes any thought process required to move music to the iPod. But if you'd rather take control of the process, or you just want to transfer

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The iPod was designed to be the destination of a one-way trip for your tunes: music slides down the cable to the iPod, but songs on the player never make the trip back to the Mac or PC.

This design was perfectly intentional on the part of its creators. As noted earlier, Apple's position appears on a sticker on every iPod: "Don't steal music." If the iPod let you copy music both ways, people might be tempted to turn the device into a pocket music-sharing service, capable of copying free copyrighted songs from computer to computer.

The truth is, though, that not everyone who wants to upload songs from the iPod to a computer is stealing music. You may perfectly have legitimate reasons for wanting to be able to do so.

For example, say your computer's hard drive self-destructs, vaporizing the 945 MP3 files that you've made from your paid-for CD collection. You legally own those copies. Shouldn't you have the right to retrieve them from your own iPod?

Most people would answer "yes." Some might even thump their fists on the table for emphasis.

And then they would clear their throats and ask, "Well, how can I do it, should I ever need to copy files off my iPod?"

Once again, the following methods are printed here not to encourage you to steal music, but instead to help you back up and manage the songs that you already own.

Turning the iPod into a FireWire hard drive (Chapter 11) lets you copy everyday computer files back and forth from your Mac or PC. But when it comes to your music files, you won't even be able to find them. The iPod and its music management programs use a special database for storing and organizing the music files—and it's invisible.

The name of the super-secret invisible iPod music folder is called iPod_Control, and there are software utilities for both the Mac and the PC that can make it visible. Here are a few of the easiest and most reliable.

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Recorded music has appeared in a variety of shapes and sizes over the decades, including fragile discs spinning at 78 rpm, vinyl records in colorful sleeves that were artworks in themselves, pocket-size cassette tapes, and futuristic-looking compact discs. But no music format ever exploded into the public consciousness as quickly and widely as the bits of computer code known as MP3 files.

The MP3 format makes it possible to compress a song into a file small enough to be uploaded, downloaded, emailed, and stored on a hard drive. That feat of smallness set off a sonic boom in the late 1990s that continues to reverberate across the music world today.

This chapter tells all about MP3 and other music formats, including the latest iPod-approved format: AAC (Advanced Audio Coding), a copy-protected file type that makes Apple's iTunes Music Store possible.

The era of modern digital audio began in the early 1980s. A new, small, shiny format called the audio compact disc, developed by Sony and Philips, began to appear in music stores alongside albums on tapes and vinyl records. Unlike analog tapes and LPs, audio CDs stored music in digital form, and produced a bright, clean sound with pristine clarity. (Some audiophiles still prefer the "warmer" sound of vinyl, not to mention the expansive canvas that records provided for detailed album artwork, but many have accepted the CD.)

1985 was a pivotal year for the CD. The format's popularity got a huge boost from its first big seller, Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits, and a variation on the audio CD technology called CD-ROM (Compact Disc, Read-Only Memory) edged into the computer market as a way to play multimedia files and interactive programs.

Over the years, a CD drive became a standard component of a computer. On most audio CDs, songs are stored in a format called CD-DA (Compact Disc, Digital Audio), which is essentially the same thing as AIFF format.

On a Windows PC, if you inspect the contents of a music CD, you see a screen full of names like "Track01.cda." These turn out to be nothing but 1 KB files that point to the hidden audio tracks, as shown in Figure 3-1. Mac OS X displays the audio tracks in all their hefty glory as

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The era of modern digital audio began in the early 1980s. A new, small, shiny format called the audio compact disc, developed by Sony and Philips, began to appear in music stores alongside albums on tapes and vinyl records. Unlike analog tapes and LPs, audio CDs stored music in digital form, and produced a bright, clean sound with pristine clarity. (Some audiophiles still prefer the "warmer" sound of vinyl, not to mention the expansive canvas that records provided for detailed album artwork, but many have accepted the CD.)

1985 was a pivotal year for the CD. The format's popularity got a huge boost from its first big seller, Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits, and a variation on the audio CD technology called CD-ROM (Compact Disc, Read-Only Memory) edged into the computer market as a way to play multimedia files and interactive programs.

Over the years, a CD drive became a standard component of a computer. On most audio CDs, songs are stored in a format called CD-DA (Compact Disc, Digital Audio), which is essentially the same thing as AIFF format.

On a Windows PC, if you inspect the contents of a music CD, you see a screen full of names like "Track01.cda." These turn out to be nothing but 1 KB files that point to the hidden audio tracks, as shown in Figure 3-1. Mac OS X displays the audio tracks in all their hefty glory as AIFF files, right in the Finder window.

Figure 3-1: Left: Here's what a desktop window looks like for a music CD inserted into a Mac. It looks just like an MP3 playlist, except that these AIFF files are much larger. Your computer can play these high-quality files, but they eat up a lot of hard drive space. Right: Audio files are more bashful when a disc is inserted into a Windows drive. The tracks on this Prince CD remain hidden behind tiny pointer files and can be lured out only with CD-extraction software.

Even if you can't see the audio files, you can still

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The iPod was designed to handle AAC and MP3 formats the most efficiently, but it's not limited to them. Here are the other types of music files you can play on an iPod:

WAV is a standard Windows sound format, going all the way back to Windows 95. (Most Macs can play WAV files, too.) Windows fans download WAV recordings for everything from TV-show snippets to start-up sounds and other system alert noises. A WAV song usually sounds better than the same song in MP3—but takes up more room on the iPod.

Speaking of big file sizes, the AIFF standard (Audio Interchange File Format) can create sound files that sound spectacular—in fact, these are the audio files on commercial music CDs—but they hog hard drive space. For example, if you stick Prince's Purple Rain CD into your computer, double-click the disc icon, and drag the song file for "Let's Go Crazy" onto your desktop, you'll soon have a 46.9 MB AIFF file on your hard drive. Although the sound fidelity is tops, the files are usually ten times bigger in size than MP3s.

Apple originally developed the AIFF standard, but AIFF files play on other operating systems, too.

If you insist on putting gargantuan files like AIFFs on your iPod, you'll have to worry about running out of battery power as well as disk space.

A modern iPod comes with a 32 MB memory chip. (Pre-2003 iPods have a slightly smaller buffer.) Yes, it serves as skip protection, because it stores 25 minutes' worth of MP3 or AAC music. For instance, if a jogging bump or your boxing partner jostles the hard drive, the music doesn't skip—because the iPod effortlessly plays the music it's been storing in its memory. But it also serves as a battery-life enhancer, because the hard drive stops spinning whenever the music plays from the memory buffer.

If you have big song files on the iPod, the memory buffer holds less music. When it runs out of music data, the iPod has no choice but to read more information from the hard drive, which runs your battery down much more quickly.

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Bit rate may sound like one of those unbelievably geeky computer terms (which it is), but it plays a big role in how your music sounds when you snag a song from a CD and convert it to MP3 or AAC format. When it comes to sound quality, all digital audio files are not created equal.

The bit rate has to do with the number of bits (binary digits—tiny bits of computer data) used by one second of audio. The higher the number of bits listed, the greater the amount of data contained in the file, and the better the sound quality.

Eight bits make a byte. So why are audio files measured in kilobits (thousands of bits), and not the more familiar kilobytes?

Force of habit. Geeks measure size and storage capacity in bytes, but network speeds and data-transfer speeds have always been measured in bits. When you encode an MP3 file, the transfer and compression of the audio data into the new format is measured in kilobits.

Files encoded with lower bit rate settings—like 64 kilobits per second—don't include as much audio information from the original sound file. They sound thin and tinny compared to a file encoded at, say, 160 kbps.

Just as you can't compare megahertz ratings across different chip families (like Pentium III vs. Pentium 4), you can't compare bit rates between AAC and MP3 files. A 128 kbps AAC file generally sounds much better than a 128 kbps MP3 file. In fact, tests by the group that developed the AAC standard found that a 96 kbps AAC file generally sounds better than a 128 kbps MP3 file. (Your ears may differ.) As a bonus, the AAC version takes up much less space on your hard disk and iPod. You probably don't want to encode AAC files lower than 128 kbps, though, as the sound quality will begin to suffer noticeably.

For both formats, the higher the bit rate, the larger the file size. For example, an MP3 file encoded at 160 kbps sounds a heck of a lot better than one recorded at 96—but takes up over twice as much disk space (1.5

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MP3 files don't have copy restrictions built into them (as AAC and WMA files often do), which is why MP3 is the format of choice for trading and sharing. Thousands of Web sites offer MP3 files to download, as a quick trip to http://Google.com will tell you. Some sites offer music posted by bands and musicians who want to make their songs free to anyone who wants to listen. Other sites stockpile copyrighted works and bombard you with pop-up windows for all manner of services (including adult material).

Here are a few sites that offer free and legal MP3 files:

http://Music.download.com. The venerable http://MP3.com site was bought and sold, but a free download site from its sister company CNET is on the way. Scheduled to debut in early 2004, the site promises to provide a place for independent artists to share their music freely with once and future fans (http://music.download.com).
PasteMusic. For the mere act of signing up for the Paste mailing list, you can download free full-length songs by the site's featured artists. Why are the songs free? The bands hope you'll get hooked enough to purchase the whole CD, which you can also buy here (http://www.pastemusic.com).
FreeSoloPiano. If you think the sound of ivories being tickled is just the thing for your iPod, the free solo piano works available here could be a gold mine ( http://www.freesolopiano.com).
Vitaminic. One of Europe's major sites for new music and musicians using the Internet to promote themselves, Vitaminic hosts thousands of free MP3 files that span both the globe and the genre list (http://www.vitaminic.com).
Internet Underground Music Archive. Dedicated to helping new musicians get heard, the IUMA site offers up free tracks of everything from hip hop to New Age (

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Apple's iTunes software—the ultimate jukebox program for Macintosh and Windows—supplies the software yin to the hardware yang of the iPod. It plays and organizes your music, copies music from your CD collection onto your hard drive, and burns new CDs with music in a sequence you like. It's also an online music store where you can buy a favorite song, legally, for a buck, with just a few mouse clicks.

If you're on Windows, you can still use MusicMatch Jukebox Plus, which first came with the iPod in 2002—but you won't be able to use the iTunes Music Store. If you install iTunes after you've installed MusicMatch Jukebox, be warned that the iPod will switch its syncing allegiance to Apple's software (returning to the mother ship, as it were).

If you try iTunes but want to go back, see Section 5.1 for steps on how to get MusicMatch and the iPod speaking to each other again.

As the MP3 music craze of the late 1990s swept across the globe, software programs for playing the new music files on the computer began to pop up around the Internet. Many Windows fans fondly remember WinAmp as their introduction to MP3 software; early adopters on the Mac side likely recall programs like SoundApp, SoundJam MP, and MacAmp.

When iTunes debuted in January 2001, Apple reported that 275,000 people downloaded it in the first week. The iTunes software proved to be a versatile, robust all-around music management program made exclusively for Macintosh. And it was free.

Even in that first version of iTunes, Mac fans could import songs from a CD and convert them into MP3 files; play MP3s, audio CDs, and streaming Internet radio; create custom playlists; burn audio CDs without having to spring for extra CD burning software; zone out to groovy animated laser-light displays in the iTunes window while songs played; and transfer music to a few pre-iPod, Mac-friendly portable MP3 players.

When the iPod arrived in October 2001, iTunes 2 accompanied it, now with iPod synchronization, an equalizer for enhancing different types of music, a crossfade feature, and the ability to burn MP3 CDs.

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As the MP3 music craze of the late 1990s swept across the globe, software programs for playing the new music files on the computer began to pop up around the Internet. Many Windows fans fondly remember WinAmp as their introduction to MP3 software; early adopters on the Mac side likely recall programs like SoundApp, SoundJam MP, and MacAmp.

When iTunes debuted in January 2001, Apple reported that 275,000 people downloaded it in the first week. The iTunes software proved to be a versatile, robust all-around music management program made exclusively for Macintosh. And it was free.

Even in that first version of iTunes, Mac fans could import songs from a CD and convert them into MP3 files; play MP3s, audio CDs, and streaming Internet radio; create custom playlists; burn audio CDs without having to spring for extra CD burning software; zone out to groovy animated laser-light displays in the iTunes window while songs played; and transfer music to a few pre-iPod, Mac-friendly portable MP3 players.

When the iPod arrived in October 2001, iTunes 2 accompanied it, now with iPod synchronization, an equalizer for enhancing different types of music, a crossfade feature, and the ability to burn MP3 CDs.

Although iTunes 4 is the latest and greatest version of the program, it only works with version Mac OS X 10.1.5 or later and Windows 2000 or later. If you're running Mac OS 9, you'll have to stick with iTunes 2. (Earlier versions of the Mac OS don't work with iTunes or the iPod.) Most of the iTunes features listed in the remainder of this chapter—and throughout the book—refer to iTunes 4.

The marriage of iTunes and the iPod was a match made in heaven for fans of MP3 players, and Apple made the union even stronger in the summer of 2002 when it announced the new iPod models for Macintosh and Windows. iTunes 3 debuted simultaneously, with better integration with Apple's iLife suite (iPhoto2, iMovie 3, and iDVD 3). iTunes 3 also added software goodies like a one-to-five star rating system for favorite songs (Section 4.7.3), Smart Playlists (Section 4.9.2.1), a Sound Check feature designed to smooth out volume levels from song to song, a Join Tracks command that merges several tunes from one album into one uninterrupted track (Section 4.7.7), and so on.

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The area at the center top of the iTunes window—the status area—tells you what song is playing, who's playing it, which album it came from, and how much playing time remains. To the left are volume and song navigation controls; to the right is a search box for hunting down or looking up specific singers or songs. Figure 4-1 presents a guided tour of the controls and functions on the iTunes screen.

Figure 4-1: The iTunes window shows all of the current playlists, the various places to find music in the Source list, and even album art on the left side. The main area of the window displays all of the songs on the chosen source. Depending on what you click in the Source list, iTunes displays all of the songs you're currently hearing. In this case, you can see the entire contents of the iTunes library.

The Source panel at the left of the iTunes window displays all of the audio sources you can tap into at the moment. If you have a CD in the computer's drive, for example, it shows up in the Source list, as will a currently connected iPod.

Clicking a name in the Source column makes the main song-list area change accordingly, like this:

Click the icon of a CD you've inserted; the disc's track list appears.
Click a playlist (Section 4.9.1); the contents of that music mix appear in the window.
Click the Radio icon; a list of Internet radio stations shows up.
Click the Music Store icon; you jump to Apple's online music emporium where you can browse, preview, and buy songs (Chapter 6).

As shown in Figure 4-1, the iTunes window is brimming with tools for managing your music, all of which are described in detail starting on Section 4.7. But first you'll need some music to work with. The next section explores one of the most popular uses for iTunes—ripping digital audio files from compact discs.

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Ripping a CD means "converting its recordings into digital files on the computer." (Too bad recording-industry executives didn't know that when they accused Apple's "Rip, Mix, Burn" ad campaign of promoting piracy, evidently equating "Rip" with "rip off.")

With the proper iTunes settings, ripping a CD track and preparing it for use with the iPod is fantastically easy. Here's how to go about it.

Okay, okay! This chapter has already convinced me to switch to iTunes, but I have thousands of songs in MusicMatch Jukebox already. How do I get them moved over to iTunes without missing a beat?

Fear not, gentle Windows friend. Moving your vast audio collection from one program to another can be painless, and you'll definitely have fewer backaches than if you were hefting around boxes of CDs or LPs.

If you haven't downloaded iTunes yet, do so. During the installation process the program asks whether you'd like to search for any music files to add to the iTunes music library. If you agree, iTunes automatically gathers up copies of all MP3 files on your PC.

If you've already downloaded iTunes but skipped the music roundup option, don't worry. Just launch iTunes and follow these steps.

First, open your My Music folder (or whatever folder you've set MusicMatch Jukebox to use for song storage). In its window, you see all of the subfolders that contain your music.

Position the My Music window so that you can see the iTunes program window—specifically, the Library icon on the Source list.

Now drag the songs out of the My Music window and onto the iTunes Library icon. iTunes adds the songs to its music library.

If you want to bring the playlists you made in MusicMatch into iTunes, choose File→Import (in iTunes) and navigate to your MusicMatch playlists. You can import any playlists in the .xml, .txt, and .m3u formats.

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Not all sound files come directly from the compact discs in your personal collection. As long as a file is in a format that iTunes can comprehend (MP3, AAC, AIFF, WAV, or Audible), you can add it to the iTunes music library by any of several methods.

The AAC format includes a copy-protection feature that MP3 doesn't have. Songs you buy from the iTunes Music Store and music encoded from your own CDs with iTunes work, but you may have trouble playing or moving other copy-protected AAC files (like those bought from, for example, LiquidAudio.com).

On the Mac, you can drag a file or folder full of sound files onto the iTunes icon on the Mac OS X Dock, or onto Mac OS 9's floating Applications palette, to add the music to the library. In Windows, hover the mouse over the iTunes taskbar button without letting go of the song files; when the program window pops open, you can drop the songs on the iTunes window. (The taskbar gets cranky if you try to drop files directly onto the iTunes button.)
You can also drag the files or folders straight into the iTunes window.
If menus are your thing, choose File→Add File to Library. In the resulting dialog box, locate and click the file you wish to add, or -click (Mac) or Ctrl-click (Windows) several files in the list to highlight them all at once. Click Choose to bring it, or them, into iTunes.

Fig

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