Article
Ask iLounge 12-1-05
By Jerrod H.
Contributing Editor, iLounge
Published: Thursday, December 1, 2005
Category: Ask iLounge
Ask iLounge offers readers the opportunity to get answers to their iPod-related questions from a member of the iLounge editorial team. We'll answer several questions here each week, and of course, you can always get help with more immediate concerns from the iLounge Discussion Forums. Submit your questions for consideration using our Ask iLounge Submit Form. We reserve the right to edit questions for grammar, spelling, and length.
How do I copy music from my iPod onto my computer?
Click here for the answer.
How do I put DVDs on my iPod?
For converting DVDs, web video, TV shows and home movies to your iPod, iPhone or Apple TV, we have a three-part series outlining the best formats, settings, and various tools to use for converting all types of video content for use on these devices.
The Complete Guide to iPod, iPhone and Apple TV Video Conversion (Mac)
The Complete Guide to iPod, iPhone and Apple TV Video Conversion (Windows)
Q: What are the best speakers to use with my iPod? (15, 76-79, and 90-92)
Q: What are the best headphones to use with my iPod? (10, 72-75, and 90-92)
Q: I really want to get a nice case for my iPod. Do you have any suggestions? (36-37, 54-67, and 90-92)
Q: How can I connect my iPod to my car stereo? (14, 32-35, 68-71, and 90-92)
Q: Are there any batteries that I can use to extend my iPod's battery life? (82-83 and 90-92)
A: Answers to these and many other questions can be found in two places. Our Free iPod Book 3.3 provides a complete report card to all of the iPod accessories we've reviewed as of summer 2007, as well as over 125 iTunes and iPod tips & tricks. Further, our new 2008 iPod & iPhone Buyers' Guide has accessory tutorials at the page numbers listed in parentheses above. These and other publications in our Library are free downloads, developed by the editors of iLounge!
Q: I’d like to create a playlist containing Rolling Stones’ Top 500 songs, and order them by the rank that Rolling Stone’s gave them in their list, i.e.:
| Rank | Title | Artist | Year |
| 1 | Like a Rolling Stone | Bob Dylan | 1965 |
| 2 | (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction | The Rolling Stones | 1965 |
| 3 | Imagine | John Lennon | 1971 |
| 4 | What’s Going On | Marvin Gaye | 1971 |
| 5 | Respect | Aretha Franklin | 1967 |
| 6 | Good Vibrations | The Beach Boys | 1966 |
| 7 | Johnny B. Goode | Chuck Berry | 1958 |
I certainly want to keep the existing info for each file, track, album, etc. How would you suggest creating this type of playlist and still maintaining the ranking?
- Blake
A: There are several ways this can be done. First, the easiest: simply create a manual playlist containing the songs in the Top 500 list. Then, put the songs into their appropriate ranking by dragging them up and down the list. Make sure that the leftmost column header is colored blue. When this is column header is active (and shuffle is off), the sort will be maintained in iTunes and sent to the iPod. Change to another column heading or turn shuffle on, and your sort will temporarily disappear. If you do this accidentally, don’t fret: your sort is still maintained, and all you have to do is reselect the leftmost column header. It’s a bit confusing that the numbers on the left don’t change as you play with the columns, but know that you can always restore your manual sort.
Sure, that method is drag-and-drop easy, but in our opinion, it’s very dangerous. If you accidentally delete that playlist, you’ve likely lost hours of dragging and dropping. How would we do it? We’d use the “Comment” tag to permanently mark each member of the list with its ranking. If you do, be sure that you’ll use something that is unique, and will correctly behave in a computerized sort. For example, we’d use something like “RS-001 through RS-500.”
You may find it worthwhile to do the first method before beginning to tag your “Comments” field, so that you can keep the “Get Info” window open, and press “Next” to advance to the next song’s “Get Info” panel directly.
With these tags in the “Comments” field, you could then create a smart playlist that looks like the following:
Then, sort the contents of the smart playlist by the “Comment” tag, in ascending mode (triangle pointing up), and you have a Top 500 list that’s simple to regenerate! Sure, it will take a lot of repetitive work to initially create, but it’s far more permanent.
One more thing: when you’re done, please post it as an iMix! We’re sure many would like the ability to view this compilation in order, with instant previews. (You can only publish 250 songs per iMix, so if you do this, you’ll have to break it up into two).
Q: I have a large playlist which I synchronize with my 20GB iPod (which has 18.5GB of usable space). Recently, I added album art to this playlist, which increased its size beyond my iPod’s capacity, forcing me to remove songs from this “iPod playlist.” After it successfully reloaded the revised 18.5GB playlist, the iPod’s “Settings->About” menu said that there was 5.7GB free on the iPod. What gives?
Also, is there any way that I can synchronize the original set of music without the album art that I’ve added, so more music fits on my iPod?
- Zach
A: To answer your first question, the iPod’s own internal hard drive capacity indicator is for an unknown reason notoriously inaccurate, and we’d recommend you just completely ignore it. Use only the computer to determine the amount of free space on your iPod.
And for your second question… yes and no. You can disable “Display Album Artwork on your iPod” in iTunes’ preferences, but this will only delete the already-tiny iPod-optimized duplicate versions of your album art. On a 20GB music library, disabling this feature only saved us about 20MB. Unfortunately in this situation, the full-size images are embedded in the actual audio files, and are not affected by this setting.
Q: I have a 40 GB 4G iPod and use an iTalk to record podcasts. As you know, the iPod makes that annoying “whirlling” sound and gets recorded when making our shows. Is there any possible way to get rid of it? I use Audacity to edit recording and when I use a noise removal tool it just makes the audio horibble.
- Anonymous
A: Removal of existing background noise is virtually impossible to do well.
However, iTalk offers a remarkably easy way to minimize the sound you’re hearing (which comes from the hard drive): simply move the microphone away from the iPod by using an external microphone with the iTalk’s microphone port on top.
Griffin sells one called the Lapel Mic, though virtually any microphone with a miniplug (including inexpensive ones intended for computers available at stores like RadioShack) should work fine. Be sure to review the compatibility table in the linked Lapel Mic review, to be sure that your combination of iPod and iTalk will work with an external microphone.
Q: My old 3rd generation 15GB iPod came with a great wired remote that I used all the time, leaving my iPod in my pocket or bag while controlling it. I just upgraded to the new 5th generation iPod, only to find out that not only does this iPod not come with a wired remote anymore, it isn’t compatible with my old one. Is there anything I can replace it with?
- Anonymous
A: Yes. At the time of this writing, Brando ($18) offers an “iPod Video Remote Control” that simply mirrors Apple’s 3G remote functionality in the dock connector format.
In the near future, expect to see Griffin’s iFM for Dock Connector ($50), an inline remote with functionality for play, pause, FF, RWD, next, previous, and volume - just like Apple’s. In addition, it’s also an FM radio receiver and a microphone. You’ll also have the option to switch to a wireless remote such as the AirClick for Dock Connector ($40). Neither has been released yet, but they’re coming.
Ask iLounge Archives:
9-5-08: AV output from iPhone 3G dock, New playlists not appearing on iPod, Transferring music on iPod touch from multiple computers, Resetting iTunes Store authorization counts, Editing tag information, iPhone task applications
8-29-08: Disabling data on iPhone 3G, iTunes Plus and Apple Backup, Deleting photos from iPod, iPhone v2.0 and TV Out accessories, Consolidating multiple iTunes libraries, Restoring iPod touch from backup
8-22-08: Cleaning up applications in iTunes, Playing back all songs on iPod, Excluding podcasts from Smart Playlists, Bookmarking tracks, Playing tracks back at a consistent volume level
8-15-08: Transferring play counts back to iTunes, Playing iPod while charging, Customizing iPhone alerts, Syncing movies to iPod nano, iTunes not recognizing new CDs, Sudoku reviews
8-8-08: iPhone and SIM card contacts, Syncing iPhone contacts, Hiding SMS previews on iPhone, Playing iPod touch on secondary computer, Syncing photos to iPod, Resuming interrupted iTunes WiFI Store downloads
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Previous: Ask iLounge 11-24-05
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1
About the Rolling Stone top 500, I have completed such a list using the first method by just dragging them into a manual play list. The other thing I did that you might want to consider was to put the rank in the song title—Like A Rolling Stone (1)—that way I can look on my screen and see the rank.
I was thankful for iTunes for having the ability to enhance my collection by purchasing a song at a time, though I am missing seven songs and have five others where I am searching for the original artist.
Posted by Scot I on December 2, 2005 at 8:27 AM (PDT)
2
Hi, I am interested in the “Ten” flex dock. I have a question about its use. (& other similar products)
I have purchased a casette adapter from apple that uses the dock connecocter. This device permits some control of the iPod from my steering wheel.
With the flex dock I notice that it uses a standard jack connector for the audio, which means I would have to purchase the older style cassette adapter and loose some functionality from the steering wheel.
My question is this. Do you sell, or do you know of a source, for an adaptor so that you can connect both power to the ipod and take advantage of a second connection to the dock. In other words, it would have to by like a ‘Y’ connector with 1 in, and 2 outs for the dock.
Apple has made it very difficult to supply power and other peripherals at the same time. We need a stackable dock connector or something to get access to the dock from more than one peripheral at a time...or at least one peripheral and dc power.
Thanx for your help
mark
Posted by iPod-ude on December 2, 2005 at 6:14 PM (PDT)
3
A tip for sorting large playlists: you can really speed things up when organizing a manual playlist. It’s a little hard to explain it, but say you’re working with a list of 500 items, and you have #1, #2, #3, etc. in their comments. You can then search on, say, #41 and organize #s 410-419 relative to one another. This way, you can work with sets of ten or whatever rather than the full list so your time spent dragging and dropping is *drastically* reduced.
Note that in the above example, #41 itself will be there, too, of course, but you’ll probably want to leave it alone, since as you act on the items, iTunes remembers how you’re placing them relative to one another, such that if you drag all of 410-419 below #41 or drag #41 above #410, iTunes will think you want it to really be *right there*, and, if you’d already sorted the 40s, #41 will now be right before #410. That’s the trick that I’m not sure how to explain clearly, but once you’ve seen it a few times, you can figure it out and how to avoid it!
I’ve been working on collecting Rolling Stone’s top 500 albums and if I hadn’t figured this out, I would’ve gone postal by now!
Posted by kimota on December 2, 2005 at 11:02 PM (PDT)
4
My hard drive recently crashed and i lost all my music on iTunes. How can i put the music that is on my ipod back onto my new downloaded iTunes. I have heard that you have to disable ‘Automatic Updates’ (i cant find this setting in iTunes) but also that Apple has disabled this so you cant put music back straight throught the itunes. I am worried that if i plug my ipod back onto my computer that it will automatically delete everything as the library is empty.
Please help!!
Posted by FleurAB on December 3, 2005 at 12:13 PM (PDT)
5
i recently bought a new pc and moved my music to it. my library now has two copies of every song. when you try to listen to one copy, it gives this message, “the song could not be used because the original file could not be found. would you like to locate it?” and an exclamation point shows up in the far left box. when i delete each of this type of file, they return the next time i open itunes. i have a file called “previous itunes libraries” on my new computer and there are three files in there. (i don’t remember creating these, so i’m not sure if i did, or if they were automatically created.)
suggestions for solving this issue would be greatly appreciated.
cheers!
Posted by lifecontained on December 4, 2005 at 9:48 AM (PDT)
6
Hello All,
Ok I have a question… I was doin’ a lil surfin’ and found a shower radio that you can put your Ipod into and play your tunes.
DOes anyone know anything about it and if it safe for my Pod??? It looks kind of cool and is inexpensive but I dont know anything about it.
Posted by Happy05 on December 5, 2005 at 2:04 PM (PDT)
7
So do you mean that Griffin’s iFM is compatible with the 5G iPod then? It doesn’t say so on their website.
Posted by Magic Rabbits in Aberdeen, Scotland on December 6, 2005 at 7:49 AM (PDT)
8
Magic Rabbits -
Griffin will soon be shipping a 5G-compatible version of the iFM, which uses the 5G iPod’s dock connector instead of the now-defunct remote control port. Stay tuned.
Posted by Jerrod H. in TX on December 7, 2005 at 12:22 PM (PDT)
9
FleurAB: Step 1 is to not let iTunes TOUCH your iPod until you’ve copied your music off. When you plug it in, iTunes will open and you’ll get a message about your iPod. CANCEL OUT of this message and close iTunes. Then you can use ephPod or PodWorks or whatever to copy your songs. Don’t let iTunes do anything to your iPod until you’ve got the music off of it. Then just set it up like it was a new iPod. You’ll have to copy all your music back, but you won’t lose your songs.
lifecontained: well, you can do one of a number of things...if you’ve had iTunes keep track of all your music and you don’t have a lot of iTunes specific meta-data (like playlists, ratings, or playcount) you care about, you can just delete the iTunes library.xml file, de-install and re-install iTunes, and have it search for all your files anew. you can also do a “Show Duplicate Songs” in iTunes 4.9+, then sort by Date Added ascending...the top files will be all your inaccessible dupes, ready to be deleted.
the “previous itunes library” files are written every time you add, delete or change a file in your library.
Posted by dasmegabyte on December 7, 2005 at 1:31 PM (PDT)
10
I started out with shuffle. Now I have a deal and got my IPod 15GB. You can use cords from future IPods for connecting with your 15gb right? EG. IPod Mini USB cord used for IPod 15GB.
Posted by Vypre on March 29, 2006 at 4:29 PM (PDT)