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

FireWire to Go

When Apple introduced its fast serial input/output technology, FireWire, it didn''t do so by hailing the benefits of this technology as they might relate to video and audio applications. Rather, Steve Jobs demonstrated FireWire by plugging a small hard drive into a Mac. What''s the big deal?

To begin with, the hard drive wasn''t powered. Second, the Mac was.

Again, what''s the big deal?

Before this, external hard drivesmost of which used the Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) technologyhad to be plugged into an electrical source. And the computer intended for use with this SCSI drive had to be powered off when you plugged the SCSI device into it. Otherwise, you possibly were in for a heap of troubletrouble that might include a corrupted hard drive or a fried motherboard on your computer.

This FireWire stuff was remarkable because it could pull power from the device it was plugged into via the FireWire cable, and you could plug and unplug devices with the drive and computer switched ona process known as hot swapping.

This trip down memory lane serves to explain that because the iPod is, in essence, a FireWire drive with a few components thrown in (OK, elegantly thrown in) to make it play music, it operates in a similar fashion to any other FireWire drive. Just like some other FireWire drives, the iPod doesn''t require external power when it''s plugged into a computer. Just like other FireWire drives, an iPod can be plugged into a running computer, and (if you''ve configured the iPod to mount as a FireWireChapters 2 and 5) you have a reasonable expectation that its icon will appear shortly on your Mac''s Desktop or within Windows'' My Computer window.

With the release of the third generation of iPods, the iPod became both a FireWire and a USB 2.0 drive. This USB 2.0 functionality is a boon to both Mac and Windows PC users. Mac users with late-model Macs (that sport a USB 2.0 port) can mount and charge a fourth-generation iPod, iPod Photo, and iPod mini via a USB 2.0 connection just as they can with FireWirethus freeing the Mac''s FireWire ports for other devices. (A third-generation iPod can be mounted via USB 2.0 but not charged.) Windows PC users will appreciate support for USB 2.0 because they''re more likely to find a USB 2.0 connector on their computers than a FireWire port.

Regrettably, USB 2.0 can''t work miracles. As I mentioned earlier, the iPod can''t be used to boot a PC. This is a limitation of the Windows operating system, not of the iPod, so if you feel shortchanged as a Windows user, please direct any testy letters to Redmond rather than to Cupertino. Because the iPod can''t boot a PC, my Windows readers may feel a little left out in the early part of the chapter. For this, I apologize, but I promise to deliver a few Windows-centric tips later in the proceedings.

Some iPods can, however, boot a Macmeaning that the hard drive inside the iPod can start up your Mac if your Mac supports being booted from a FireWire drive. (The Blue & White Power Mac G3 and Power Mac G4 [PCI Graphics] don''t support FireWire booting.) This feat may not seem so remarkable until you try the same trick with another FireWire drive that doesn''t support booting.

You''ll notice my careful use of the word "some" in the previous paragraph. By that I mean that all four generations of the white iPod, the iPod Special Edition: U2, and the iPod Photo will boot a Mac, but an iPod mini won''t. Although installation of Mac OS X 10.3 seems to go successfully, the iPod mini refuses to boot. For this reason, any reference in the following pages to installing a bootable operating system on an iPod refers only to standard-issue iPods, not the iPod mini.

There''s no trick to getting a white iPod to boot your Mac, however. Plug it in, designate the iPod as the startup device, and restart your computer. The trick is installing a bootable operating system on the iPod. With Mac OS 9, this is no big deal unless you have a Mac made in the past couple of years; no Macs sold today can boot into Mac OS 9. If you want to boot your newish Mac from an iPod, you must install Mac OS X on that iPod. On earlier Macs, Mac OS 9 installs as you''d expect.

In early versions of Mac OS X, this process was also nearly painless (as it is with Mac OS X 10.3, Panther). But installing Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) on an iPod is a bit more challenging (though not impossible). In the next few pages, I''ll show you how to place each of these operating systems on your iPod and, when they''re in place, how to boot into them.

The Low-Capacity iPod

Those Mac users who own an early iPoda 5 GB model, for exampleare undoubtedly jotting numbers in the margins as they read this chapter.

"Let''s see, a full installation of Mac OS X 10.3 requires about 3 GB of hard drive space. My iPod holds approximately 4.6 GB of data. If I subtract 3 from 4.6, just how crazy would I have to be to install the Mac OS on an iPod with this kind of limited storage capacity?"

The answer: a little bit.

There are things you can do during the installation of Mac OS X to slim down the system. For example, you can click the Installer''s Customize button when it makes itself known, and choose to not install such applications as Internet Explorer and the various components of the iLife suite (iMovie, iPhoto, iTunes, iDVD, and GarageBand). You can also uncheck the options to install additional printer drivers, fonts, text-to-speech voices, and language files. Doing all this creates an installation that consumes about 1.1 GB of space.

But honestly, if you wanted a music player that stored only a couple of gigabytes of songs, you could have saved yourself a lot of money and purchased a less-expensive player (or replaced your old iPod with an iPod mini). Because Mac OS X does take up so much room, it doesn''t make a lot of sense to create a bootable 5 GB iPod with the intent of keeping it in this state forevermore.

In a pinch, however, it could make a lot of sense. When I speak at computer conferences, I often create a bootable iPod that duplicates the essential elements of the startup drive on my Mac at home. Or if I need to troubleshoot a client''s Mac, it''s often easier to create a bootable iPod that also contains my troubleshooting tools than to try to perform the operation with a PowerBook and a load of disc-based troubleshooting utilities.

Installing the Mac OS on Your iPod

Placing Mac OS 9 and versions of Mac OS X before Mac OS X 10.2 on your iPod is remarkably similar to configuring any Mac''s hard drive as a startup disk. To start, just plug your iPod into a Mac running either Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X.

If the iPod''s icon doesn''t appear on the Desktop, launch iTunes 2, 3, or 4; click the iPod in the Source list; click the iPod Preferences button at the bottom of the iTunes window; and select Enable Disk Use (called Enable FireWire Disk Use in older versions of iTunes) in the resulting iPod Preferences window. Then quit iTunes.

Insert a Mac OS installation disc into your Mac''s CD/DVD drive. Note that a Software Restore CD won''t allow you to install a copy of the Mac OS on your iPod. You must have a separate installer disc, such as the Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X 10.1.x installation disc.

Now I''ll show you the steps for installing Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X 10.1.x.

Throughout this section, I refer to Mac OS X 10.1.x. I do this to distinguish this earlier version of Mac OS X from the later 10.2.x (Jaguar release) and Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther release). Any time I refer to Mac OS X 10.1.x, you can assume that I''m also referring to earlier versions of Mac OS X. I specifically mention 10.1.x because, quite frankly, any earlier versions of Mac OS X were pretty marginal. If you haven''t upgraded Mac OS X to at least 10.1, you should, and quite honestly, you''ll find your Mac is far more functional with even more recent versions of the Mac OS.

Installing Mac OS 9

Just follow these steps to install Mac OS 9 on your iPod:

1.
Insert the Mac OS 9 CD, and choose Restart from the Special menu.

2.
As soon as you hear the Mac''s startup sound, press and hold down the keyboard''s C key.

3.
When you see the happy Mac face, let go of the C key.

Now the Mac is booting from the CD-ROM you inserted. The CD window should open, revealing the Mac OS Install application.

4.
Double-click this application to launch the installer.

5.
Click the Continue button in the resulting Welcome screen.

6.
In the Destination screen that appears next, choose your iPod from the Destination Disk pop-up menu (Figure 6.1); then click Select.

7.
Click through the Important Information and License Agreement screens after reading every word in them carefully.

I''m kidding. No one reads these things. But agree to the license agreement, because if you don''t, the installer quits, and then where are you?

8.
Click Start in the Install Macintosh Software screen to begin the installation (Figure 6.2).

9.
Go have a cup of coffee; the installation takes a while (Figure 6.3).

10.
When the installer is finished, click Quit.

11.
Choose Control Panels and then Startup Disk from the Apple menu.

Your iPod appears as one of the startup-disk choices (Figure 6.4).

12.
Click the iPod; then click the Restart button to boot from your iPod.

Installing Mac OS X 10.1.x

And to install Mac OS X 10.1.x on your iPod, follow these instructions:

1.
Insert the Mac OS X Installer disc.

2.
Either restart your Mac and hold down the C key to boot from the Installer disc or double-click the Install Mac OS X application on the CD.

3.
Click the Restart button in the resulting Install Mac OS X window.

The Mac will restart and boot from the OS X Installer disc.

4.
When the installer appears, select the language you''d like your Mac to use, and click Continue.

5.
In the Welcome screen, click Continue again.

6.
Chapter 10 for information on troubleshooting your iPod.)

8.
In the next Easy Install screen, specify whether you want to proceed with the installation as is or perform a customized installation.

Because you want both a bootable iPod and one on which you can store as much music as possible, click the Customize button.

9.
In the Custom Install screen that results, select only the language options that you''re likely to use.

These languages take up space on your iPod''s hard drive that could be devoted to storing tunes.

10.
Click Install, and go have two cups of coffee; this installation takes longer than the Mac OS 9 installation.

11.
When the installation is complete, click Restart.

Don''t worry if you''re not around to click Restart; the Mac will restart on its own 30 seconds after the installation is complete. Your Mac will boot into Mac OS X 10.1.x from your iPod.

12.
When the Mac reboots, go through the Mac OS X setup procedure.

When you finally get to the Desktop, Software Update will launch automatically. Mac OS X gets better with each update, and it''s likely that a few updates are waiting for you.

13.
If Software Update discovers updates, install them (Figure 6.5).

14.
After the updates are installed, restart (if necessary), and run Software Update again.

Certain updates become available to System Update only when other updates are installed. This situation used to be a real inconvenience that required you to installseparatelyone update after another. Apple has ganged groups of these updates into a single installation package, such as the Mac OS X Update Combo 10.1.5. But such dependent installations haven''t disappeared completelyand who knows what the future might holdso it''s a good idea to run System Update a couple of times in a row to be sure that you''ve got all the latest updates.

Your iPod is ready to boot your Mac into Mac OS X 10.1.x.

Installing Mac OS X 10.2.x (Jaguar)

A reader of the first edition of this book wrote in to say that even though he followed the instructions in the book, he was unable to install Mac OS X 10.2 on his iPod. What did I"Mr. Secrets of the iPod," as he put ithave to say on the subject? Just this:

As you''ve observed, you cannot place a bootable copy of Mac OS X on your iPod by using the Mac OS X 10.2 installer. When I attempted to do so, the OS X installer got as far as installing the contents of the first installation disc (there are two installation discs in the commercial release of the OS), but the iPod refused to boot to allow the installation of the second disc.

Sometime later, I attempted to install Jaguar on an iPod from the installation DVD that accompanies a Dual 1.42 GHz Power Mac G4. Although the installation process completed, the iPod refused to boot beyond Jaguar''s initial gray startup screen.

But because I am "Mr. Secrets of the iPod," allow me to let you in on this little secret: You can install a copy of Mac OS X 10.2.x on your iPod, and your iPod will boot from it. The trick is that you must move an existing copy of Mac OS X 10.2.x from your Mac''s hard drive to the iPod. To do this, I use Mike Bombich''s $5 Carbon Copy Cloner ([www.bombich.com/software/cc68])a utility that "clones" a Mac OS X installation from one volume to another and allows you to make that cloned volume bootable. Here''s how to go about it:

1.
With your iPod configured to mount on your Mac''s Desktop, plug it into your Mac.

The iPod''s icon will appear on the Desktop (or, if Finder Preferences isn''t configured to display hard drives on the Desktop, in the Computer window).

2.
Download, install, and launch a copy of Carbon Copy Cloner.

Version 1.4 and later versions are compatible with Mac OS X 10.2.x.

3.
From the Source Disk pop-up menu in the Cloning Console window, choose a volume on your Mac that contains Mac OS X 10.1.2.x or higher. (As we go to press, the latest Jaguar-compatible version of Carbon Copy Cloner is 2.3.)

Although Carbon Copy Cloner allows you to select which items at the root level of your OS X volume to clone, it doesn''t allow you to choose files and folders within those root-level items. In other words, you can''t tell Carbon Copy Cloner to clone only one or two applications within the Applications folder. You either clone the entire Applications folder (and all its contents) or none of the Applications folder.

For this reason, it''s a good idea to clone an OS X 10.2 volume that isn''t packed with extra files and applications. Cloning a 12.4 GB OS X 10.2 volume to your 15 GB iPod will leave you precious little space for songs, contacts, and calendars.

4.
Choose your iPod from the Target Disk pop-up menu.

5.
In the Items to Be Copied list, Command-click the items that you don''t want to clone to your iPod (Figure 6.6).

Items that you should copy to create a bootable (and useful) startup disk include:

.hidden

Applications

Library

System

Users

bin

mach_kernel

private

sbin

usr

6.
Click the Remove button (just above the Items to Be Copied list) to exclude the selected files from the cloning process.

7.
Click the Preferences button, and in the resulting sheet, make sure that the Make Bootable option is selected, and click Save or Cancel to dismiss the sheet (Figure 6.7).

8.
Click the Lock icon, and enter your administrator''s password when you''re requested to do so.

9.
Click the Clone button to begin cloning the source volume to your iPod.

10.
When the process is complete, quit Carbon Copy Cloner, choose System Preferences from the Apple menu, and click the Startup Disk system preference.

Your iPod will appear in the list of bootable volumes.

11.
Click the iPod''s System folder; then click Restart to boot from your iPod.

Installing Mac OS X 10.3.x (Panther)

I''m pleased to report that Apple did something to its Mac OS X 10.3 installer that lets you install Panther on an iPod without jumping through these hoops. With the Panther installer, the iPod behaves exactly like any other removable drive, and the installer does its job without a hitch.

To install Panther on your iPod, insert the first Panther disc; double-click the Install Mac OS X icon; wait for your Mac to boot; designate the iPod as the target for the installation; and click the Customize button to keep from installing unnecessary language, printer, and application files (and save yourself up to a gigabyte of space on the iPod).

Why Create a Bootable iPod?

After reading the last few pages, you may wonder why you''d bother to install Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X (or both) on your iPod. The truth is, you may not need to. You may own the one Macintosh in the world that will never, ever suffer from hard-disk corruption, extension conflicts, and buggy software. For you, having a reliable bootup disk that contains all your troubleshooting utilities isn''t necessary.

Or, your musical cravings may be so intense that if you can''t cram in every minute of the 666.66 hours of music that the 40 GB iPod is capable of storing, you''ll wind up with a bad case of the heebie-jeebies (or, worse yet, the jim-jams).

I''m not one of these people. Because I troubleshoot Macs for a living, I find the ability to store all the tools I need on such a portable, bootable hard drive to be a real benefit. And although I love music, I hardly find it limiting to store only 100 hours of music on my iPod. It''s so easy to replace songs on the device with new material that when I get bored with my current selections, I spend a couple of hours transferring a different 100 CDs to my iPod, and my listening needs are met for the next couple of months.

Additional Data Storage

Being able to boot your Macintosh from an iPod is a good first step, but it''s only a first step. To make your iPod both bootable and useful, consider using its data-storage capabilities for the following purposes:

Macintosh: Installing your troubleshooting utilities.
The most important reason for making a bootable iPod is that it allows you to repair the hard drive that should be booting your Mac. If your Mac''s hard drive is on the fritz and won''t boot your Mac, it''s a godsend to have another hard drive that can boot your Mac and that contains all your troubleshooting utilities. Currently, those utilities might include Disk Warrior from Alsoft ([www.alsoft.com]), a splendid tool for repairing low-level corruption; TechTool Pro from Micromat ([www.micromat.com]); Data Rescue from ProSoft Engineering ([www.prosofteng.com]); and Norton Utilities from Symantec ([www.symantec.com]).

Macintosh: Keeping the applications you need close at hand.
If it''s your job to chair the next meeting, and you absolutely need a PowerPoint presentation to make that meeting a success, install both a copy of your presentation and a working copy of PowerPoint on your iPod.

Macintosh: Keeping the drivers and accessories you need close at hand.
Fat lot of good it does you to boot from your iPod, fire up your graphing application, and then not be able to print that all-important flow chart because your iPod doesn''t have a copy of the driver that allows it to use the company printer.

Macintosh and PC: Keeping network settings, serial numbers, and passwords close at hand.
When you configure your iPod as an external drive, configure it fully. Nothing is more frustrating than being unable to get on the Internet because you neglected to configure your network settings. Likewise, it''s all well and good that you''ve installed Applications X, Y, and Z on your iPod, but if you haven''t run them and entered the serial numbers that allow them to function, you could be up a creek when you''re on the road and don''t have those serial numbers at hand.

Macintosh and PC: Taking your user folder with you.
Under Mac OS X and Windows XP, your user folder holds most of your computing life: your Documents folder, music files, pictures, movies, network settings, the works. If you keep a copy of your user folder on your iPod, copy that folder to a Mac running Mac OS X or a PC running Windows XP, create a new user on that computer, and copy the information from your user folder to that new user, you''ve got a configuration darned close to the computer at home or work.

Macintosh and PC: Keeping a backup of important documents.
If you''re working on something that you absolutely can''t afford to losethe company''s yearly financial statement, your term paper, or the digital movie of your daughter''s second birthdaykeep a backup copy on your iPod. It''s also worthwhile to keep a backup of your Address Book data, emails you might need to refer to, and your Web-browser bookmarks.

It''s not necessary to keep a copy of absolutely everything on your computerjust those few items that will make you tear your hair out if they''re missing.

PC: Transferring your files and settings.
You can select the iPod as a destination for files and settings transferred with Windows XP''s Files and Settings Transfer Wizard. (To access this wizard, open the Start menu and follow this path: All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Files and Settings Transfer Wizard.)

Just run the wizard, select the iPod as the destination disk, and let Windows copy your files and settings to the iPod. If you need to restore those files to your PC or transfer them to another PC, run the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard once again, select your iPod as the source disk, and copy the files to the PC.

All iPod, All the Time?

Although you can boot your Mac from your iPod, does that mean that you always should?

No.

The iPod was designed as a music playerone whose diminutive hard drive wouldn''t be asked to spin for days on end. When that drive rotates for long stretches of timeas it will when you boot from itthe iPod heats up. If you take a gander at your music player, you''ll see that there''s no way to vent that heat out of the iPod. Excessive heat plus hardware is usually a formula for disaster.

For this reason, I suggest that when you boot from your iPod, you do so for short periods of timelong enough to troubleshoot your Mac or get through a lecture or demonstration. When you''ve accomplished your task, boot from your Mac, and let the iPod carry on with its main job: rocking your world.

Fun Fact. So if you boot from your iPod, does it behave both as a startup drive and as an iPod? In other words, can the iPod sync its calendars, contacts, and songs to itself?

Why, yes, it can. When you launch iTunes, the iPod transfers the songs in the iTunes Music folder to the area on your iPod where songs are stored. And just where, exactly, is that storage area? Read on.