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Some users complain that iTunes is somewhat limited to how music is managed, and to complicate it further iPods will seemingly only operate with computers they are set up to sync with. This technobabble article will go through some easy steps you can take to get music off your iPod without using iTunes.

Normally, people use iTunes to copy music on and off of their iPods. To prevent unauthorized music redistribution iTunes won’t work with someone else’s iPod on your computer. These restrictions are unfortunate - but this is the sacrifice Apple made for making deals with record labels to sell their music online. Regardless of why or what - if you legitimately have music (say, something you wrote) on your iPod - wouldn’t it be handy to be able to plug that iPod into you’re friend’s computer and share your work?

Navigate your iPod

The iPod works like a USB hard drive. iTunes even has a setting to enable disk use. So when you plug your iPod into your computer you should see it (Windows users will see a drive in My Computer, and Mac users will see the icon on the desktop)

View hidden files

The folders that actually store your music are hidden on the iPod. So first, make sure you are seeing hidden and protected files. Window users can check out the control panel -> “folder options” for this. For mac users, hop into terminal and try this:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder

Yes, Apple is TRYING to make it hard to get at it Oh, and if you want to hide hidden stuff again try:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
killall Finder

Access your music

Now that you can see hidden stuff, you should see a folder called iPod_Control in your iPod. Inside this folder is another folder called “Music” which contains all the songs on your iPod. Unfortunately, iTunes renames the files with short codes - but the real names of the songs are retained in the MP3 tags. If you copy these files to your computer there are various organizational utilities on the web that will help rename them back, based off the ID3 tags. Hop on google and look for mp3 organization or renaming utilities.

Avoid iTunes alltogether

There are even utilities out there that will allow you to copy files to and from iPods. This is a common thing for Linux users as there is no iTunes in linux. Some example programs: Amarock, Banshee (those are Linux only) also SongBird which is cross-platform. http://getsongbird.com/

A new category has been added for product reviews. To start things off, here is a short list of products from 2008 that are worth getting geeky over…

#4 Palm Centro

You’re probably realizing this is a list of toys, but oh well. The Palm Centro is by far the best cell phone I’ve had. As a Verizon customer I am discouraged by the crippled software they’ve had on most of their phones. But with the Centro, it’s all open - free to add your own images, ringtones, mp3s, games - all FREE FREE FREE. The phone itself works well, the keyboard isn’t terrible - and it’s reletively reliable. But hey, it doubles as a portable nintendo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A1VhnjHgD4 — that video of mine has over 8000 views and climbing - it’s certainaly a hot item! Also check out the inMotion mobile audio kit by Altec Lansing.

#3 iPods

Well of course. The iPod touch has become quite a nifty little gadget with the App store. I am still a fan of the iPod classic too, which is one of the few devices capable of holding my 100 gigs of music. Games, movies, podcasts - it’s heavenly!

#2 Eee PC 900

The Eee PC 900 is a great little computer. The pros are the price, the size, and the fun. The cons are the performance and Xandros - the lame OS that is ships with. Throw on Xubuntu and maybe a little ram, and you have yourself a good little machine that’s fun to tinker with. I wouldn’t recomend it to everyone, but if you’ve got some geek in you - go for it!

#1 MacBooks

As a lifelong Apple diehard, it’s hard to review the MacBook in any sort of unbiast way. Simply put, my 13″ MacBook is the best computer I’ve ever owned, but I hope that’s saying a lot. Not only is my machine feature-packed, it’s dependable. It’d been dropped down stairs, left in the car, and brought everywhere. It’s also easily upgradeable, which is big for Apple.

Getting your DVDs onto your iPod

There’s a grey legal area here. Depending on who you ask, copying DVDs is either within your rights or illegal completely. Personally I do feel kind of frustrated that I own an iPod and a bazillion DVDs but I have to jump through quasi-illegal hoops just to watch my own movies on my own gadgets. But anyways I’m not here to tell you what’s right or what you should do, but at least give you the instructions on how to successfully copy your DVDs to your iPod.

There are a few steps to this:

1) Breaking the copy-protection/encryption on your DVD
2) Converting the video to the ipod format
3) Copying the video to the iPod

To accomplish it you’ll need some different programs on your machine.

For step 1 above you can use:
* For Mac: MacTheRipper download
* For Windows: DVD Decrypter download

Either of these programs will take you through the process of opening the dvd, and saving the de-crypted file somewhere on your computer. It’s pretty simple, insert the dvd (close your player if that opens) load the program, open the dvd up (or the video_ts folder) and click the button to start. I usually save the ripped files to my desktop as I don’t want to forget they are tucked away somewhere - they are quite large as it’s an entire dvd of content.

When it’s completed you can eject the dvd - the ripped files are yours for the tinkering - you can use a program like popcorn (mac) or dvdshrink (pc) to make a “backup” of the dvd using these files. But our goal is to get this movie on to your iPod. Now, this ripped copy isn’t a video file just yet - it’s really just a dump of the dvd with the encryption removed.

Step 2 - Handbrake download

Handbrake is a great little program for Mac/Windows/Linux. It can encode/convert the video in and out of various formats. The Mac version can do some decrypting as well, which might mean you can skip step 1 - but most newer movies are locked down pretty well.

Anyhow, you should have the decrypted version on your desktop. Load up handbrake and click the source button, you’ll choose the folder on the desktop as the source (the folder containing video_ts, the ripped files) You should see a dropdown with a label “Title:” next to it, in this dropdown you’ll see a list of all the videos from the DVD. For instance, if you’re working on a copy of a TV show - you should see several episodes. Sometimes it’s just special feature tracks, etc. The “long one” is usually the main movie.

You should see a presets list - a bunch of different formats handbrake can generate. (On the mac there’s an icon to view this tab if it’s hidden) We want to select the iPod format. (Under the Apple category) If you have an iPod touch or iPhone there’s a sepereate preset for that which will yield a slightly higher resolution video. After you’ve selected the appropriate preset, you’re ready to start. You can do several at once by adding them to the queue - or just click start to get going.

The entire process can take some time - maybe a half hour or so depending on how fast your machine is. This process will really put a lot of strain on your system - I’ve watched my processors max out and heat up to 180-degrees. This means a laptop will run down it’s battery quickly, etc.

When handbrake finishes you should see a .m4v file on your desktop.

Step 3 - iTunes (download from apple.com)

iTunes should have no problem with your .m4v file. If you have itunes installed, you most likely can double-click the .m4v file and it will go into your library. If not, you can always drag and drop the icon in. Once the video is in iTunes, make sure it plays correctly. If so, you can drag it over to your ipod in itunes. (Or I just have everything sync - so I don’t even have to drag it over)

When you’re done, clean up the files from your desktop - like I said, they take up a lot of space. You’re ready to watch your dvd on your iPod! You should even have the chapters and captions set up correctly!

Enjoy, let me know how it works out for you!