Do more with your iPod

We're sure you're very good at using your iPod and that you're doing everything right: maximising battery life, tweaking your sorting options, syncing multiple iPods on one machine without mixing your music collections. Oh, you're not? Read on.

Tip 1: Use two different iPods
Tip 2: Maximise your iPod's battery life
Tip 3: Sort using the Composers category

Tip 1: Use two different iPods -- and libraries -- on one computer
Let's say you have one computer and two iPods. It's easy enough to synchronise both iPods with just one computer, as long as both iPod users are happy accessing the same music library or the same set of playlists. But that can get hard to manage, especially if you're manually updating the iPod or adding new music that you'd like to keep separate.

In most cases, the easiest way to keep discrete libraries for syncing both iPods is to create a separate user account for each person who uses an iPod with the computer. Here's how to create a separate user and share music (using Windows XP).

First, click Start > Control Panel > User Accounts (Start > Settings > Control Panel if you use the Classic view). Click "Create a new account," and follow the instructions.

Windows XP kindly provides a shared folder that already includes a directory called Shared Music (find it under C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents). The easiest thing to do is to copy all the music on your computer into this folder so that all users can access it. Then the lucky owner of the new iPod can pick and choose what music to include in his or her iTunes Library. From the new account, in iTunes, click File > Add Folder To Library, and copy over whatever music you want (make sure to check the box next to "Copy files to iTunes music folder" when adding to library, under Advanced in the Preferences dialog box, so that iTunes doesn't consolidate the files for the music library).

Now both users can share all or part of the same library, add new music whenever necessary, and automatically update their iPods without the hassle of manually sifting through a large shared library.

Tip 2: Maximise your iPod's battery life
Your iPod's battery is a lithium polymer that's rated for 500 or more charging cycles. (A charging cycle is a full discharge -- that is, when you run the battery all the way down until it has no charge left and follow it with a full charge.) If you recharge your iPod's battery every other day, 500 charges should last you the best part of three years (though some claim you'll get only about 18 months). If you recharge your iPod's battery less frequently, there's a good chance the battery will outlast the hard drive. Here's how to get the longest life possible.

Don't let the battery die completely
To get the most life out of your battery, don't let it discharge fully -- that is, don't run it until it's dead. However little you use your iPod, recharge it fully at least once every three weeks to prevent the battery from going flat. If you go on vacation for a month, you should take your iPod with you and recharge it during that time. (But you were going to take your iPod with you on vacation anyway, weren't you?)

Reduce demands on the battery

• Play your music by album or by playlist, rather than hopping from one track to another. Remember that your iPod can cache an album or playlist to minimise the time the hard disk is spinning. But when you ask your iPod to produce another track it hasn't cached, it has to spin up the hard disk and access the song.



• Use AAC or MP3 files rather than WAV or AIFF (Mac users only) files. Because WAVs and AIFFs are uncompressed and, therefore, much bigger than compressed files, they prevent your iPod from using its cache effectively, so the hard disk has to work much harder.



• Minimise your use of the backlight or turn it off completely. To control the backlight, go to Settings > Backlight Timer. Here, you can designate the amount of time you want the backlight to remain on (2, 5, 10, or 20 seconds), set it to Always On (not recommended, obviously, for saving your battery), or for maximum conservation, just turn it off.

Tip 3: Sort using the Composers category
You've probably noticed that when you're searching for songs, there's a category in the Browse menu called Composers. This category is primarily useful for classical music because these songs may be tagged with the name of the recording artist rather than that of the composer. For example, an album of the Fargo Philharmonic playing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony might list the Fargo Philharmonic as the artist and Beethoven as the composer. By using the Composers category, you can easily find works by your favourite composer: Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and so on.

But the Composers category doesn't have to be limited to classical music. For example, you could use the Composers category to quickly access all of your Nick Drake cover versions as well as Drake's own recordings of his songs. The only disadvantage to sorting this way is that the metadata information for many CDs in the CD Database (a.k.a. Gracenote) doesn't include an entry in the Composer field. If you want to use it, you may need to manually edit the songs' tags. Still, if you're a real fan of a particular artist, this effort can pay off -- and note that many songs purchased from stores such as the iTunes Music Store contain the complete tags.

Note: By editing tags manually, you can create almost any sorting criteria you like.

Submitted by Guy Hart-Davis
Computer guru, book author

Guy Hart-Davis is your basic full-of-knowledge technology author, having written more than 20 computer books, including How to Do Everything with Your iPod, How to Do Everything with iLife, Mac OS X Panther QuickSteps, and PC QuickSteps.

This material has been adapted from How to Do Everything with Your iPod & iPod Mini, 2nd Edition by Guy Hart-Davis. Copyright Mc-Graw-Hill/Osborne 2004. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill/Osborne makes no representation as to the accuracy of the materials provided by them.

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