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iPod Tip #5
The iPod has some nice PDA type functions. You can easily sync calendars, contacts, and photos along with music, audiobooks, and podcasts. Need some help getting the most out of your iPod?
Let’s start by setting up your iPod for syncing with all these services.
Connect your iPod to your machine (USB or Firewire). Then open iTunes if it does not automatically launch.
In the iTunes menu, go to -> iTunes -> Preferences
Go to the iPod Preferences. There are a number of preference panels to set up for how you want to sync your iPod with your Mac or Windows PC. Let’s start with the first preference pane for Music.
Here you can select if you want your iTunes to automatically open when your iPod is attached to your computer and If you want to “Enable disk use” so you can use your iPod as a standard USB or Firewire storage device. This is great to store documents and other files on your iPod.
You can decide if you want to automatically sync your entire music library (this would include audiobooks) or just automatically sync some selected playlists only. You can also choose to manage your playlists manually where you can just drag what songs you want on the iPod in what playlists. This preference pane has a check box to allow a color screen iPod to display album artwork.
If you have more songs in your iTunes library than you can fit on your iPod, you can let iTunes create a playlist to fill your iPod, or just use Manual Mode by dragging over individual songs to whatever playlist you like on your iPod.
iTunes also has an “Autofill” function allowing you to “fill” up an iPod Shuffle with music from your collection randomly. This is great if your iPod is not large enough to hold your entire music library.
Once you set up your iPod with the computer and sync, it will be set to this machine’s music library. If you try and sync your iPod to a another computer, it will tell you that the iPod is linked to a different computer and ask you if you want to replace the music library with the one on the new computer. If you choose “yes” your iPod’s music will be erased and replaced with the music library of the new machine. You should really sync your iPod for music with the same computer each time. Of course you can choose to link the iPod back to the original computer and it will replace the iPods music with its library.
Music on your iPod will never be transferred to your computer by iTunes. Bookmark information for “bookmark-able” audiobooks and podcasts, rating of content, and “on-the-go playlists” created on the iPod are transferred back to the computer when you sync. If you have a voice recorder for your iPod, your voice notes automatically transfer to iTunes when you sync, so syncing is a two-way function. But due to piracy protection audio content is not transferred from iPod to computer. See iPod Tip #1 to see how to use shareware to transfer content from iPod to computer (this can be a lifesaver if your computer’s hard drive failed and you had no backup).
The Next iPod preference pane is for managing Podcasts. iTunes can fetch any podcasts you have subscribed to and automatically sync them to your iPod. You can choose which ones you want to sync automatically or manage them manually.
The Next iPod preference pane will only be active if your iPod has a color LCD screen. This is for syncing your Photos with iPhoto or Adobe Elements. You can decide which albums will sync with your iPod. There is also a check box for allowing iTunes to include “full resolution” versions of photos on your iPod. The iPod usually transcodes your pictures to a resolution that will display on the iPod and a TV, scaling the file size down if needed. The “full resolution” versions would be added to a separate folder on your iPod allowing you to drag them to any connected computer if you enable disk use. This would be good if you needed to keep the “full resolution” versions available on the iPod for some other use.
Color LCD iPods have the ability to browse your photos and display slideshows. The displayed slideshows can be shown on a TV set with the iPod AV cable (composite video and audio) or an “AV” docking station (S-VHS and audio).
The Contact iPod preference pane is for managing your Contacts stored in the Address Book (OS X) or Outlook/Outlook Express (Windows). You can choose to sync all your contacts or selected groups only.
Next let’s look at the Calendar iPod preference pane. This for managing your Calendars using iCal (OS X) or Outlook/Outlook Express (Windows). You can choose to sync all your calendars or selected calendars only.
Since iPods do not have the ability at this time to change photo, contacts, and calendars they must be managed on the computer and transfered back to the iPod. If you own multiple Macs, adding a .Mac account will allow syncing contacts and calendars between your computers as well as Safari Bookmarks, Mail account information and Keychains. It also allows a local iDisk folder for synced documents between all your computers.
You should sync your iPod with one computer in order to have a better user experience. It is not desireable to keep replacing data on the iPod completely each time and having a hard time remembering which computer you used to sync last.
There is no reason however that you could not sync different services on different computers. Example: I sync my music/audiobooks, photos, and podcasts with my Mac at home and I sync my contacts and calendars on my PowerBook for all of my iPods. The reasons I do this are simple. My Mac at home has a “huge” hard drive and my music collection is also “huge”. I also shop at the iTunes Music Store at home. Since my PowerBook is mobile and with me everyday, I find syncing my iPod for contacts and calendars more convenient on my PowerBook. This is easily accomplished by just setting up iTunes the way I want on my desktop Mac and my PowerBook.
