Secrets of the iPod and iTunes (Fifth Edition) [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Software Alternatives

Although the Windows iPod ships with iTunes and used to ship with Musicmatch Jukebox, those two programs aren't your only options for moving songs to your iPod. Three other fine applications originally designed to let Macintosh iPods function with Windows PCs now also work with the Windows iPod. Those utilities are Mediafour's ([www.mediafour.com]) $30 XPlay 2, Red Chair Software's $25 Anapod Explorer ([www.redchairsoftware.com]), and Joe Masters' free EphPod ([www.ephpod.com]).

XPlay 2

Mediafour is known among Mac users primarily for its MacDrive product, which allows Mac volumes to be viewed and manipulated on a PC running Microsoft Windows. In January 2002, the company held a press briefing for a product called XPod, claiming that the product would give Windows users the same kind of access to the iPod that Mac users have.

Somewhere along the way, Apple suggested that the name XPod was a little too close to iPod, and Mediafour obligingly changed the name to XPlay. Though the name changed, the product's capabilities did not. The betas of XPlay released in the spring of 2002 showed a program with a lot of promise: the capability to mount and manipulate an iPod formatted for the Macintosh as an external drive on the desktop or through Windows Explorer, the option to have Windows Media Player 7.x and later recognize the iPod as a portable music player (letting you see and play the music on the iPod, as well as copy compatible music files from Windows Media Player to the iPod), and the capability to update your iPod's music files automatically when the iPod is attached to the PC.

Now in final form, XPlay lives up to its promise, providing users of Mac and Windows iPods, iPod Photos, and iPod minis a way, other than through iTunes or Musicmatch, to organize the music on their portable players.

Note that you must be running XPlay 2 1.0.11 or later to use the program with an iPod Photo. Earlier versions of XPlay don't recognize this colorful iPod.

Installing and configuring XPlay

Follow these steps to set up XPlay on your PC:

1. On a PC running Windows 98SE, Me, 2000, or XP, install XPlay.

2. Restart your PC.

3. When the PC is fully booted, plug your iPod into the PC with a FireWire cable (or USB 2.0 cable, if you have a fourth-generation iPod, iPod Photo, or iPod mini).

Your iPod will mount as a removable drive (Figures 5.18, this page and 5.19, next page), and a small icon will appear in the System Tray. (When you click this icon, you can unmount the iPod.) In short order, the XPlay iPod Setup Wizard appears.

4. Click Next to begin the setup process.

5. In the first screen, change your iPod's name, if you want (Figure 5.20), and click Next.

In the resulting synchronization option screen, you can specify whether you'd like the iPod to be updated automatically when you plug it in or whether you want to update the iPod yourself (Figure 5.21).

6. Make your choice, and click Next.

Next, you are asked to select a music collection to synchronize with: Windows Media Player or a folder of your choosing. Which you choose depends largely on where you have your music stored on your PC. If it's already in Windows Media Player, choose this option. If you're using iTunes or have dropped your music into a folder somewhere else on your PC, you may prefer to synchronize to the iTunes library or to another folder on your PC.

7. Make your choice, and click Next.

In the next screen, you're offered the option to register your iPod with Apple. If you choose it, XPlay will launch your Web browser and take you to Apple's registration site. If you haven't already registered your iPod, feel free to register it this way. You don't have to register for XPlay to work, however.

8. Again, make your choice, and click Next to complete the setup process.

XPlay and your iPod are ready to use.

If you'd like to change the way that XPlay is set up laterto update your iPod manually rather than have it updated automatically, for exampleright-click the XPlay icon in Windows' Notification area, and choose Change Synchronization Options from the contextual menu (Figure 5.22). Choosing this command walks you through the latter part of the XPlay setup process.

Playing with XPlay

XPlay offers you two ways to get to the music on your iPod: browsing the items inside the XPlay folder that XPlay places on your iPod, or going through the default media player. In this section, I'll look at both methods.

When you finish the XPlay setup, the installer places an XPlay music folder at the root level of your iPod. The contents of this folder (Figure 5.23) are arranged similarly to the iPod interface. Inside the XPlay music folder, you'll find:

Albums.
Inside the Albums folder, you'll find a list of all the albums on your iPod, as well as another folder called (all songs on all albums). Opening this folder revealsas you might expectall the songs on all the albums on your iPod.

Artists.
Here, you'll see file icons that represent all the artists on your iPod. Double-click an artist folder, and you'll spy another folder called All Songs by "artist", in which "artist" is the name of the artist. If you click the James Brown folder, for example, you'll see another folder called (all songs by James Brown). Double-click this folder, and you'll see a list of all the songs on your iPod by that artist: "Prisoner of Love," "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," and "I Got the Feelin,'" for example. Inside an individual artist's folder, you'll also see the artist's songs broken down by albumsCan Your Heart Stand It!! and Ain't That a Groove, for example. Finally, the Artists folder contains the (all songs by all artists) folder that…well, you can probably guess.

Composers.
XPlay 2, released in the spring of 2004, includes two new folders. The first is Composers, a folder that organizes songs by their composers. How does XPlay know who wrote the tunes in your music library? It finds this information within a song's ID3 tags (part of a music file that stores such info). If someone has entered information in a song's Composer field, XPlay will use that information to sort the song. Double-clicking the Composers entry might show Lennon/McCartney if you have any Beatles songs on your iPod, for example.

In addition to seeing individual songwriters when you double-click the Composers icon, you'll spy All Albums by All Composers and Unknown Composer. Double-clicking the first reveals album entries for every song on your iPod that has information in the Album ID3 tag. Even if you have just one song from an album, if that one song has something written in the Album field, it will appear here as an album. Double-click these albums to reveal any songs you have from that album. Double-clicking Unknown Composer presents a list of albums that don't have any information entered in their Composer ID3 tag.

Genres.
This folder works much like the Composers folder. If a song has Genre ID3 tag informationAcoustic or Jazz, for exampleit will be sorted into the appropriate genre folder within this folder. Double-click a genre folder to reveal all the songs that fit that genre.

Playlists.
This folder contains all the playlists on your iPod. Double-clicking a playlist reveals all the files within that playlist.

Songs.
Double-click this folder to display all the songs on your iPod.

XPlay Help.
Double-click this file to view XPlay's help file.

Copying via drag and drop

Using this hierarchy, you can add audio files to your iPod simply by dragging them from a drive on your PC to a folder on the iPod that contains songs. Note that XPlay doesn't allow you to copy protected AAC files (the kind you purchase at the iTunes Music Store) to your iPod.

Copying music back to your PC

The iPod was designed to be a one-way deviceallowing you to copy music from your computer to it but not copy music from it to your computer. But obviously, it's something a lot of people want to do (for reasons both pure and not-so). XPlay allows this second kind of copying via its Copy To contextual-menu command. To invoke it, simply right-click any of XPlay's items save playlistsArtists, Albums, Genres, Composers, or Songsand choose Copy To from the resulting contextual menu. Pick the destination for the copied files in the Browse for Folder window that appears, and click OK. The files you've selected will be copied to your PC's hard drive.

Copying via Windows Media Player

If you've chosen to use Windows Media Player in conjunction with XPlay, follow these steps to copy songs from your PC to the iPod.

1. Launch a copy of Windows Media Player.

2. Click the Copy to CD or Device button.

The main Windows Media Player window splits in two, with the left side devoted to files on your PC and the right side devoted to files on your iPod (Figure 5.24). If your iPod doesn't appear in the list to the right, choose it from the Device List pop-up menu above the right pane of the Windows Media Player window.

After churning away for a while, Windows Media Player displays all the songs on your iPod.

3. If you want to play files on your iPod from Windows Media Player, return to the XPlay music folder on your iPod, navigate to a song or playlist you want to play, right-click that item, and choose Play from the contextual menu.

Unfortunately, you can't play the songs in the list by double-clicking the song title. Neither can you copy the songs back to your PC with Windows Media Player (but you already know how to do that with XPlay).

Note that the files on your iPod must be configured to play with Windows Media Player. Invariably, when you install a new Windows multimedia application, it wants control of your PC's media files. iTunes and Musicmatch Jukebox are no exceptions. During installation, these applications will ask if you'd like them to be the default media player for supported file typesMP3, AIFF, and WAV among them. If you allow this to happen, choosing Play from XPlay's contextual menu will cause the selected file(s) to play in the default music player.

If you'd like XPlay's files to play in Windows Media Player, but they insist on opening in another application, open Windows Media Player, and choose Options from the Tools menu. Click the File Types tab, and in the File Types list, check the MP3 Audio file (mp3) check box (Figure 5.25). Then click Apply to direct MP3 files to play in Windows Media Player.

4. To copy songs from your PC to the iPod, select a compatible music file (MP3, AIFF, or WAV) in the left pane of the Windows Media Player window, and click the Copy Music button (above the right pane).

The song is copied to your iPod. If you try to copy a song in any other format (Windows Media format or protected AAC, for example), the song title will turn red, and in the status column, you'll see an entry that reads "An error occurred." (At this point, you're welcome to thank Microsoft for developing proprietary standards that fail to work with non-Microsoft products.)

Converting .wma files

When you drag a .wma-formatted file to one of the XPlay folders, XPlay will attempt to convert it to an MP3 file. But this works only if you've installed a third-party MP3 encoder such as Intervideo's $10 XPack for Windows XP ([www.intervideo.com/products/custom/ms/windowsxp/media_pack.jsp]). Without such an encoder, you'll receive an error message when you drag a .wma file into an XPlay folder. This error message directs you to Mediafour's support site, which in turn directs you to Microsoft's site, which in turn directs you to a few encoders. My fervent wish is that future versions of XPlay will include such an encoder, thus saving users the trouble of seeking one out.

Anapod Explorer

I'm a bit chagrined that it took five editions of this book to get around to discussing one of the finest Windows tools for managing music on an iPod: Red Chair Software's Anapod Explorer. Granted, unlike iTunes, it won't rip CDs; neither does it provide access to the iTunes Music Store. But when it comes to file conversion, two-way file transfers, and remote access to your iPod, Anapod Explorer trumps iTunes at every turn.

Exploring Anapod Explorer

Anapod Explorer requires Windows 98SE, Me, 2000, or XP. As with all these applications, if you're running Windows 98SE (and really, isn't it about time you upgraded?), you should look for updated FireWire drivers, as the drivers that shipped with this version of Windows aren't terribly robust. The program is offered in four editions: the free Trial Edition, the $25 iPod Edition (for white iPods), the $25 iPod mini Edition, and the $30 Universal Edition (which works with all iPod models). The Trial Edition offers enough features to give you a feel for the program but doesn't offer the program's best features, such as streaming music from your iPod across a network or batch transfer of music from the iPod to your PC. The iPod and iPod mini Editions have the same features; they're simply built for different iPod models. The Universal Edition allows you to use more than one iPod with the program.

It's easy to get going with Anapod Explorer. Just follow these steps:

1. Install and launch the application.

If you've purchased one of the pay-for editions, you'll see a request in the Anapod browser that you double-click an entry to begin the activation process. Double-click the requested entry, and an activation window appears.

2. Click the Go to Online Activation Form button.

Clicking this button opens your browser and takes you to a page on Red Chair's Web site where you register your software. Red Chair suggests that an activation code will be emailed to you in less than an hour.

3. When you've received your activation code, attach your iPod to your PC via a FireWire or USB 2.0 connection (if your iPod supports USB 2.0).

4. Right-click the Anapod Explorer item in the System Tray, and choose Connect iPod from the contextual menu.

5. Click the Anapod Explorer icon in the System Tray, and choose Open Anapod Explorer from the resulting contextual menu.

A familiar interface

Whereas XPlay was designed with the Mac user in mindas evidenced by the fact that Mac folk are accustomed to browsing their files by opening foldersAnapod Explorer has a distinctive Windows feel. What lends it this feel is its striking similarity to Windows Explorer (thus, the name). Just like Windows Explorer, Anapod Explorer presents files in a two-column windowwith the left column containing volumes and directories that can be expanded to reveal enclosed items, and the right column displaying the contents of whatever is selected in the left column.

Specifically, when you click the Anapod Explorer item, the column to the right displays a list that represents your iPod (Figure 5.26). This list doesn't mirror what's actually stored at the root level of your iPod's drive; rather, it represents the music and data stored on your iPod and the special features offered by Anapod Explorer. Among the entries you'll see are Audio Tracks (all the songs on your iPod), Playlists, Artists, Albums, and Genres, as well as Contacts and Notes for storing exactly these kinds of files.

Anapod Explorer also includes a Data Files folder, which it places at the root level of your iPod. If you care to store other kinds of files on your iPodword processing or movie files, for exampleand you want those files to be visible within Anapod Explorer, copy them to this folder. Although you're welcome to copy data files or folders to the root level of the iPod, they won't appear in Anapod Explorer unless you copy them to this specific folder.

The program tosses a few additional helpful entries into this list.You'll find a Search entry that allows you to conduct simple and advanced searches (the difference being that Simple Search allows you to search by one criterion, and Advanced Search lets you gang together multiple criteriaalbum, artist, and genre, for example to find the music you seek.

You'll also find a Last Transfer entry, which provides details on the music files you last transferred to your iPod, as well as a Device Information entry, which reveals such arcane details as your iPod's hardware, firmware, and driver version.

If you click the small plus sign (+) that appears next to the Anapod Explorer entry in the left column, you can easily browse the contents of any of the entries within it by clicking that entry. The contents of that entrythe albums on your iPod when you click the Album entry, for exampleare revealed in the right column. Use the + buttons in the left column or double-click an item in the right column to reveal that item's contentsthe songs on an album, for example (Figure 5.27).

Arrayed across the top-right side of the Anapod Explorer window are buttons that take you to some of these destinations more quickly. Here, you'll find a Top Level button that displays Anapod Explorer's default view, an Audio Tracks button that displays all the songs on your iPod in a long list, a Search button that reveals the program's Search view, and a Playlists button that shows you all the playlists on your iPod.

Transferring music with Anapod Explorer

Moving music into Anapod Explorer is easy. If you're the drag-and-drop type, simply drag a music file or folder full of music to the Anapod Explorer entry in the left column. The program will copy the music to your iPod. If you've copied a folder full of music to the iPod, Anapod Explorer will offer to create a playlist from that folder, giving the playlist the name of the host folder.

If you prefer to move a mass of music at onceand have Anapod Explorer scour your computer for all the music on it at the same timefollow these steps:

1. Click the Anapod Options button at the top of the window.

2. In the resulting Anapod Explorer Options window, click the Speed Sync entry below the iPod entry.

3. Click the Add Folder button, and navigate to the directory where you'd like Anapod Explorer to look for music (your My Music folder, for example, or, if you want to find all the music on your PC, your C drive).

4. Click OK to dismiss this window, and click the Sync button at the top of the Anapod Explorer window.

5. In the resulting SpeedSync window, click the Begin Comparison button.

Anapod Explorer will root around in the directory you designated, looking for music that isn't currently stored on your iPod. When it finishes, the "PC Files Not on iPod" tab lists all the music it finds that isn't on your iPod.

6. Enable the Transfer These Files to Your Player option, and click the Synchronize button (Figure 5.28).

The music from the PC will be copied to the iPod.

If you've been following along in Anapod Explorer while you read these pages, you've undoubtedly noticed that some entries within the Anapod Explorer Options and SpeedSync windows hint at greater thingsspecifically, that the program is more than willing to copy files on the iPod to the PC. It works this way:

1. Repeat steps 1 and 2 above.

2. In the PC Target Folder area of the SpeedSync area of the Anapod Explorer Options window, enter a path to a folder where you'd like to store music copied from the iPod (such as C:\Documents and Settings\chris\My Documents\My Music\iPod Music).

3. Click OK to dismiss this window, and click the Sync button at the top of the Anapod Explorer window.

4. In the resulting SpeedSync window, click the Begin Comparison button.

5. Enable the Transfer These Files Back to the PC option, and click Synchronize.

Those files on your iPod that aren't stored on your PC's hard drive will be copied to the folder that you designated in Step 2.

Alternatively, you can right-click items on the iPod from within Anapod Explorera playlist or album, for exampleand choose Copy to Computer to copy the selected item to your PC.

Complete Conversion

Anapod Explorer includes an AudioMorph feature that, with near transparency, converts files that are incompatible with the iPod.wma, FLAC, and Ogg Vorbis, for exampleto something the iPod can digest without altering the original file on your PC. AudioMorph can also convert the bit rate of a file during transferchanging MP3 files encoded at 256 Kbps to 160 Kbps, thereby allowing you to put more files on your iPod.

I say "near" transparency because this works only with files for which you have a suitable plug-in. You can find compatible plug-ins by clicking Anapod Options, clicking the AudioMorph entry in the resulting window, and clicking the Help and More Plugins button. Doing so takes you to Red Chair's Web site, which contains links to suitable plug-ins. As with XPlay, I'm disappointed that Red Chair didn't include plug-ins for converting common file types (.wma to MP3, for example).

Playing music with Anapod Explorer

As with Windows Explorer, much of the power of Anapod Explorer is hidden in its contextual menus, such as a method of playing the tunes on your iPod when it's connected to your PC. To do so, right-click an appropriate entrya song, album, artist, genre, or playlist, for exampleand choose Play Track (or Play These Tracks, if the item contains multiple tracks) from the contextual menu. Music will play through the PC's default music player.

To force the files to play in a different playerWindows Media Player if you want to play MP3 files, for examplesimply right-click an item, choose Play Track (or Play These Tracks) from the contextual menu, and select Choose Playback Software from the submenu. In the Anapod Explorer Options window that appears, choose an application from the window's Playback Software pop-up menu. If the application you want to use doesn't appear in this pop-up menu, click the Register Application button, navigate to the application you desire, and click Open.

Other Anapod Explorer tricks

Despite its understated interface, Anapod Explorer has a lot going on under the surface. Here are a few of the highlights:

Anapod Xtreamer

If you've dutifully read this book from page 1, you understand that iTunes allows you to listen to music stored on computers running on the same local network. Anapod Explorer offers a similar capabilitywith a twist. With a feature called Anapod Xtreamer, you can listen to the music stored on an iPod that's connected to a computer on a network.

When you choose Browse Anapod Xtreamer from the Anapod Explorer icon in the System Tray, your PC's default browser launches to reveal a Web page representing the musical contents of the iPod connected to your PCincluding entries for All Tracks, Search, Playlists, Artist, Albums, and Genres. Click the link associated with one of these entries, and the contents of that entry are displayed on a subsequent page. From there, you can click the Stream All Tracks in This Folder link to play all the tracks in that folder, or click the STR entry next to an individual track for that track to stream to your default music player and play (Figure 5.29).

Should you want to download a track from the iPod to your PC in this view, just click the DL link next to a track. The track will download from the iPod to your PC just as though it were a Web-based file.

"But wait a minute," your interior voice interrupts, "if I can access my iPod via a browser, what's to keep someone who knows my IP address from also accessingand possibly downloadingthe music on my iPod?"

Nothing, except your skill at setting up a firewall.

Although Anapod Xtreamer was created so you can stream music from an iPod across a local network, let's not kid ourselves. If you have a static IP address, an always-on broadband connection to the Internet, and the will to do so, you can allow the rest of the world to listen to the music on your iPod (and grab the tunes on it).

It doesn't take a great legal mind to know that using Anapod Xtreamer in this way is anything but kosher. So don't.

File recovery

You may know that when you toss a file into the Recycle Bin and empty the bin, the file isn't really wiped from your computer's hard drive. Rather, the database that keeps track of these kinds of things makes a note that the hard drive sectors occupied by that file may now be written to. Similarly, when an application such as iTunes or Anapod Explorer replaces one music library with anotheras is the case when an iPod is associated with one computer and then automatically synchronized with anotherthe music files supposedly vaporized from your iPod may still be on it.

Anapod Explorer includes a feature that may allow you to recover such files. To access it, right-click the Anapod Explorer System Tray icon, and select Anapod Manager Options. Click the iPod Devices link; then click the Recover Missing Tracks button. Anapod Explorer scours the hidden folder on the iPod that holds the device's music and attempts to recover any that aren't currently recognized as part of the iPod's current roster of tunes. You'll find a list of these recovered tunes when you click the Last Transfer entry.

And more…

Anapod Explorer lets you do a load more stuff: adjust track volume, transfer items quickly from one playlist to another, create playlists similar to iTunes Smart Playlists (though not as smart as Apple's offering), and create contacts within the application. If it's not abundantly clear by now, I'm pretty fond of this program. If you're a Windows user who's interested in an alternative to iTunes, Anapod Explorer is worth a long look.

EphPod 2

Joe Masters' EphPod 2 is a free application that allows you to manage the music on your iPod. Like Musicmatch Jukebox, it lets you move files to the iPod from Windows, launch songs in the designated media player (iTunes, Windows Media Player, or Musicmatch Jukebox, for example), and create contacts and calendar events. EphPod uses a spreadsheet-style columned interface to represent the layers of the iPod, rather than XPlay's folders. Unlike XPlay, EphPod does most of the work internally, rather than through Windows Explorer or Windows Media Player. Also, unlike Musicmatch Jukebox, EphPod lets you copy unencrypted AAC files from your PC's hard drive to the iPod. (EphPod, like XPlay, doesn't support copying the encrypted AAC files available from the iTunes Music Store to your iPod. Anapod Explorer will allow you to play these files if your computer has been authorized by iTunes.)

Setting up EphPod

EphPod requires that your PC be running Windows 98SE, Me, NT, 2000, or XP. If you're running Windows 98SE, you may want to search for upgraded FireWire drivers or upgrade your version of Windows before you start.

Also, EphPod works perfectly well with an iPod formatted for Windows. But if you'd like it to work with a Macintosh iPod (the purpose for which it was designed), you need to install an application that allows the PC to "see" the Mac iPod.

XPlay uses Mediafour's own MacDrive for this purposeand EphPod can, toobut EphPod's creator has had better success with DataViz's $40 MacOpener. Mr. Masters offers a version of EphPod that contains a 15-day trial version of MacOpener so that you can try it for yourself. You can find this version at [www.ephpod.com/downloa69].

Then follow these steps to make EphPod work for you:

1. Install EphPod.

2. Connect your iPod to the PC with a FireWire or USB 2.0 cable.

3. Launch EphPod.

The EphPod Installation Wizard starts. You don't have much to do other than click a Next button if your iPod is attached and recognized by the PC. (You can tell that the iPod is recognized if it appears as a removable drive.) During the setup process, EphPod creates a database of all the songs, playlists, artists, and albums on your iPod's hard drive.

Why Use a Third-Party Application?

Given that iTunes (or Musicmatch Jukebox, with older iPods) is included with the iPod, and considering that Macintosh iPod owners can easily use the Windows software on the iPod CD to convert their iPods to Windows-compatible devices, why bother with XPlay, Anapod Explorer, or EphPod?

If you're a Mac iPod user looking for a way to use your iPod on a PC without reformatting the iPod's hard drive, XPlay is an attractive option. Unlike EphPod, XPlay includes the software necessary for a Windows PC to mount and use a Mac iPod. Mac iPod owners must purchase a separate utility (at $10 more than the price of XPlay) to use their iPods with EphPod. And XPlay now supports the iPod's EQ features and lets you copy music files from the iPod to your PC easily.

Longtime Windows users are likely to be attracted by Anapod Explorer's interface; nothing else out there resembles Windows Explorer so closely. Those who are looking for powerful ways to move music from PC to iPod (and back again) will be pleased by what Anapod Explorer has to offer. And if you'd like to serve up the contents of your iPod to those on your network (or across the world), Anapod Xtreamer makes it darned easy to do so.

EphPod is an enticing alternative for those whose iPods are already formatted for Windows, not only because it's free, but also because of all the things it can do that iTunes and Musicmatch Jukebox can't: create contacts, edit calendars, download news stories, and copy songs from the iPod to your PC's hard drive.

Using EphPod

EphPod's interface is similar to Windows Explorer (Figure 5.30). The top half of the EphPod windowcalled iPod Viewis divided into panes that represent navigation layers on the iPod. The bottom half of the windowcalled Songslists songs. Navigating EphPod is a simple matter of choosing entries in the iPod View section, selecting subentries in the second and third panes, and then selecting songs in the song list in the bottom half of the window.

In the first pane at the top of the window, you'll find Playlists, Artists, Genres, Songs, Contacts, and Recent. These entries work this way:

Click the Playlists entry, and the playlists on your iPod appear in the second column. Click a playlist, and the songs in the playlist appear in the third column. Double-click a title in the third column, and the song list scrolls to the point where that song appears at the top of the song list.

Click the Artists entry in the first column, and the second column reveals all the artists on your iPod in the second column. Click an artist, and that artist's albums appear in the third column. Click the All entry in the second column, and all the albums on your iPod appear in the third column. Click an album in the third column, and all the songs on that album appear in the song list.

Click the Genres entry in the first column, and the second column displays a list of the styles of musicrock, jazz, and classical, for exampleon your iPod. EphPod gets this information from each song's ID3 tag information.

File Ripping and Windows

One feature that XPlay, Anapod Explorer, and EphPod don't have is the capability to rip music files from audio discs. Fortunately, this feature isn't necessary, because you have a copy of iTunes or Musicmatch Jukebox. But you Mac users who are reading this chapter in the hope of using your Mac iPods with Windows are in for a slight shock when you attempt to rip an audio CD with Windows Media Player.

Yes, you can shove an audio CD into your PC and ask Windows Media Player to extract the audio files from that CD; the application will oblige. Regrettably for you as an iPod owner, however, the form that those extracted files take is not compatible with your iPod. Windows Media Player encodes files in a format that's friendly only to Windows Media Player. If you try to copy such files to your iPod, you'll receive an error message indicating that the iPod can accept only MP3, AIFF, and WAV files.

If you want to extract audio files from a CD in a format that the iPod can understand, you'll have to use iTunes, Musicmatch Jukebox, or a utility such as the free Audiograbber ([www.audiograbber.com-us.net]).

Click the Songs entry in the first column, and all the songs on the iPod appear in the song list. You can sort songs by several criteria, including Title, Artist, Album, Genre, Comment, Track Number, Song Length, Encoding (the song's bit rate), File Type (MPEG, AIFF, or WAV), File Date, File Size, File Name (the path to the file), and Song ID (the number assigned to the song in EphPod's database).

Click the Contacts entry, and the subject headings for all your contacts appear in the second column. If you double-click a contact, the Contact Information window appears. You can edit that information in this window.

To play a song in EphPod, double-click its title in the song list to launch the default media player and play the song. To load all the songs in a playlist into the default media player (Figure 5.31), right-click a playlist, and choose Play Playlist from the resulting contextual menu (Figure 5.32).

Transferring music with EphPod

EphPod helps you move audio files on and off the iPod. Here's how to do so:

1. Click the Add Songs button in EphPod's toolbar, or choose Add Songs from EphPod's File menu (Figure 5.33).

The Select Songs dialog box opens.

2. Navigate to a folder that contains MP3 or AAC files you'd like to add to your iPod.

Note that EphPod doesn't allow you to add AIFF files to the iPod, but it does support WAV files. Also unlike Musicmatch Jukebox, it supports [Audible.com] files.

3. Control-click to select more than one file, and click Open.

The Writing Songs window appears, displaying the progress of the copy (Figure 5.34). This window disappears when the copy is complete.

Alternatively, you can choose the Add Songs From Directory command from the File menu and add songs through a Windows Explorer interface.

Using EphPod's other options

EphPod has its own unique features, including these:

Contact creation.
As this book goes to press, not even iTunes can do this. For more information on how to create contacts in EphPod, see Chapter 7.

Calendar Editor.
EphPod includes a feature for editing vCalendar files on your iPod. For more information on this feature and other calendar-related iPod functions, see Chapter 8.

Memo creation.
This is another not-yet-done-in-iTunes feature. Choose New Memo (As Contact) from the File menu, and a window appears where you can put down your most personal thoughts (or, perhaps, your grocery list). For those who are interested in such things, EphPod places your memo in the vCard's Title field.

The option to create playlists from a variety of sources.
From the Playlists menu, you can create playlists based on album title, genre, all songs, or orphan songs (songs that aren't associated with a particular album).

Copy Songs to Directory.
Then there's a feature guaranteed to pique the interest of those on both sides of the music-piracy fence. When you right-click a song or group of selected songs in the song list, you'll see the Copy Songs to Directory command in the resulting contextual menu (Figure 5.35). When you invoke this command, you can copy files from the iPod to the PC. If you chose to, you could take your iPod to a PC-packing friend's house and copy songs from your iPod to your friend's PC. This practice would go against Apple's " Don't steal music" admonition, however.

News service.
New to EphPod is the capability to download news stories from such sources as BBC World News, CNET [News.com], and SlashDot (Figure 5.36). You can also download local weather forecasts. To configure such downloads, choose Configuration from the Extras menu, and click the Download Options tab in the resulting dialog box.

Purchased Music Alternatives

Speaking of alternatives, it's no secret that there are commercial online music outlets other than the iTunes Music Store. Napster, Real Networks, and Musicmatch are following Apple's lead by selling songs for 99 cents and most albums for just under $10. As we go to press, Microsoft has launched a beta version of its MSN Music Service as well. Mac users are barred from these services (Napster won't even allow a Mac browser to access its site) because their computers can't play files encoded in the protected .wma format that these services employ.

I presume that because you're reading this chapter, you're a Windows user. And because you are, you can frequent these sites and purchase the music they offer. Yet because the files sold by these sites are in a format that's incompatible with the iPod, are they worth your while?

Perhaps. Some offer selections that aren't available at the iTunes Music Store, and all of themafter you've slogged through their impotent interfaceswill make you appreciate the iTunes Music Store that much more on your next visit.

To play the music you purchase from these sites on your iPod, you must convert it. This is easier said than done, because .wma files are protected (as are the AAC files sold by the iTunes Music Store), so direct conversion with a player such as Windows Media Player is out.

The trick is to purchase the music, burn it to CD (where the files are converted to a format that's friendly to iTunes and the iPod), and then rip that CD in iTunes in either AAC or MP3 format. Sure, you'll lose a bit of the quality of the original file, because you've converted it from a compressed file to an uncompressed file and then smushed it again with a different compressor (.wma to AIFF to AAC), but currently, that's the only way to go about it.