Article
Ask iLounge 4-17-08
By Jesse David Hollington
Contributing Editor
Published: Thursday, April 17, 2008
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 want to rip CDs and then transfer them to my iPod. However, I do not want the music to be stored on my computer’s hard drive. I want all the burned music to be stored to an external harddrive, then downloaded to my iPod. My objective is to not have any stored music on my computer harddrive. Can this be achieved?
- Benjamin
A:Actually, this can be achieved quite easily, simply by specifying a path on your external hard drive as your “iTunes Music Folder” in your iTunes preferences.
To do this, simply go into iTunes advanced preferences by selecting Edit, Preferences from the iTunes menu, and then selecting the Advanced tab:

Change the path shown for the iTunes Music Folder to your local hard drive, and any CDs that you rip will be placed in this location instead of on your computer’s hard drive. Further, if you also check the “Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library” option, any music files that you import yourself from other sources will also be copied to this location during import.
Your iTunes library database will still reside on your local computer by default, but your media files will be stored in the location specified. The iTunes library database is used to store information about your actual media tracks and where they are stored, and doesn’t take up a lot of storage space compared to the actual media files themselves. If you would like to move this to the external hard drive as well, this is certainly possible, although a few extra steps are required. See our iPod 201 article, Managing your iTunes Library on an External Hard Drive for more information.
I recently bought the Zeppelin and I see there is a USB port on the back. Do you know if I can hook up my Macbook directly to the Zeppelin via USB and play iTunes from my Macbook (since it holds way more playlists than the nano). Could I use an IBM notebook to do this? The USB on the back of the Zeppelin is different than the USB port on the notebooks so I do not know if there is a special cable available to do this.
- Karen
A:Unfortunately, no. The USB port on the back of the Zeppelin is actually only used for firmware upgrades.
We contacted the folks at Bowers & Wilkins, who make the Zeppelin, to inquire about this, and their response was:
“The USB port is strictly for internal upgrades. You cannot use it to connect to your computer, you can use the AUX plug for that. There are no other uses (at this time).”
As suggested above, connecting the “line-out” from your computer to the AUX port on the Zeppelin is probably the simplest way to play music on the Zeppelin anyway. This will obviously transmit all of your computer’s audio to the Zeppelin, however, so you may want to ensure that other system sounds are disabled so they do not interrupt your music.
As an alternative solution, if the Zeppelin and computer are not in close proximity, you might want to look at an Apple Airport Express, which includes a feature called “AirTunes” for streaming audio wirelessly from iTunes to a set of remote speakers. The new units also function as an 802.11n wireless access point/router and can be used to share USB printers as well. The main advantage to AirTunes in this case is that it will only transmit your playing track audio from iTunes and not any other system sounds, and of course your speakers can be in a completely different room from your computer if you so desire.
I was wondering if you knew of any Bluetooth stereo headsets for the iPhone. I’ve looked at wired headsets from Ultimate Ears and V-Moda, but figured if I was going to pay $100-200 for a stereo headset for my iPhone I might as well see if I could find a Bluetooth headset. I’ve looked at some by Plantronics, Jawbone, and Jabra, but none of them offer stereo, don’t work with iPhone, or don’t mention if their product is compatible with the iPhone. Any ideas?
- Josh
A:Unfortunately the iPhone does not support the stereo (A2DP) Bluetooth profile, so there are no Bluetooth stereo headsets that can be used directly with the iPhone.
There are Bluetooth stereo headset adapters that come with an extra module to either connect to the headphone jack itself or the Dock Connector. These are generally the same solutions that are sold for the standard iPod models, and we are not aware at this time of any that will provide support for voice calls on the iPhone. Therefore, you would not only have to contend with an extra module connected to your iPhone, but you would only be able to use it to listen to your media content and would need to switch to another method such as a standard Bluetooth headset or using the phone directly when making or receiving phone calls.
Whether A2DP support is coming in a future iPhone model is uncertain, but from our own experiences with Bluetooth headsets on various other devices such as the Nokia N95 and E90 that do support the A2DP profile, you’re going to find the sound quality to be a bitter disappointment if you’re considering products like Ultimate Ears and V-Moda as alternatives. Not only are most built-in Bluetooth stereo headsets of a relatively low earphone quality, but the wireless technology used by A2DP degrades the sound quality somewhat. We have even tested Bluetooth stereo headset adapters with our own higher-end earphones and found the difference in sound quality over A2DP to be noticeably lower than a direct wired connection to the device with the same earphones.
My computer has a TV tuner card and I am looking for a way to record TV shows using the tuner and then transfer the latest episode to my iPod. I have no found no solution to do this. Any ideas?
- Eric
A:Exactly how this works is going to depend on the make and model of your TV tuner card and what software you are presently using to record TV shows. The key question here is the format that these shows are recorded in, and any conversion options the software may have built-in.
For Mac users, Elgato’s EyeTV 3 (see our iLounge review) provides built-in functionality to automatically convert recorded content into an iPod and iTunes ready format on the fly. Unfortunately, although there are a number of TV recording applications available for Windows users, built-in options for iPod conversion are somewhat more limited.
This does not preclude you from manually converting these into an iPod-ready format using any number of tools currently available for plain video file conversion. The goal basically in this case is just to find or export the TV recording in its native format, and then run it through a conversion application such as Videora (http://www.videora.com) to produce an iPod-compatible version of the video.
You can find more information on the formats and display resolutions supported by the iPod and its related devices in our Complete Guide to iPod, Apple TV and iPhone Video Formats.
Some tips on how to actually handle TV-to-iPod conversion for Windows users can be found in our Guide to iPod, iPhone and Apple TV Video Conversion for Windows. Page two of this article discusses converting standard digital video content, and page three looks specifically at converting recorded TV content and some of the tools available for this.
I’m looking for an audio recorder adapter that works with iPod touch. From what I’ve read, there is nothing available. Is that correct? Is something in the works? The closest that I’ve found is the Podcast Studio, but I think that only works with certain iPods, and not the iPod touch. If this is the best that I’m going to be able to find, what are the iPods that it works with currently? Does it work with the Classic?
- Liz
A:Unfortunately, the iPod touch does not presently support audio recording. Unlike the iPod classic and iPod nano, the iPod touch simply doesn’t have the necessary software as part of its standard configuration to provide for this. Since all of the available recording accessories for the iPod rely on recording support in the iPod itself, connecting an audio recording accessory will result simply in an error message indicating that this accessory is not supported.
There are some audio recording applications that have been created for jailbroken iPod touch and iPhone models, however these are not compatible with most standard iPod recording accessories at this point, and the few that do work do not provide proper line-in levels. These solutions may be of interested to technology enthusiasts but are definitely not recommended for the average end-user.
In order for voice recording to properly be supported on the iPod touch, Apple is going to have to add this capability in a firmware update. Since Apple does not normally discuss future plans, it is uncertain when this capability might appear, or if it will appear at all.
The bottom line is that if audio recording on your iPod is something that is important to you, you are far better off to go with either the iPod classic or iPod nano (with video). The older fifth-generation iPod and second-generation iPod nano also provide voice recording support with the same accessories, so purchasing an older discontinued iPod model may also be an option.
I have an iPod touch. When I am connected to a wireless network, what information does the iPod touch provide to the network router or switch? For example, can the network administrator see the name or serial number of the touch?
- Anonymous
A:The iPod touch works as a standard wireless client in the same way as any computer does. In order to “lease” an IP address from your network, it will need to provide information such as the hardware address of it’s wireless card (sometimes referred to as a “MAC address”—short for “Media Access Control” and not to be confused with a Macintosh computer). An experienced network administrator might recognize this address as belonging to hardware manufactured by Apple, but it would otherwise be indistinguishable from an address belonging to any Mac hardware such as a MacBook or MacBook Pro.
If you have manually specified a “Client ID” in your network settings, this is also passed to the network server that provides your device with its IP address. However, this field is normally empty by default on the iPod touch and iPhone. Some networks may require it to be specified, but this is relatively uncommon.
Ultimately, however, information such as the iPod’s serial number or even the device name is not passed to the wireless network, and is not even available from the device itself on a standard non-jailbroken iPod touch configuration. Deep scans of the device over the network by a very experienced networking engineer might reveal that the device is an iPod touch, but that’s pretty much it.
Note that jailbreaking the device and adding applications can expose your device, however, particularly if you’re adding file-sharing related applications. Such applications will generally make the iPod touch appear as a “server” on the network. In fact, many jailbreaking tools offer the ability to install OpenSSH on your device, which effectively makes it accessible to anybody with an SSH client and the correct password. If you are jailbreaking your iPod touch, you should always be extremely careful which applications you install. Applications that provide file-sharing and SSH capabilities are recommended for experienced users only, as they provide a potential conduit for hackers to gain access to ALL of the content on your iPod touch if not properly configured. In this case, you’re potentially exposing not only your device name and serial number, but potentially all of your personal content as well, including your address book, calendar, e-mail, and your media library.
Ask iLounge Archives:
11-20-09: Sharing iTunes libraries between two user accounts, Enlarging text on iPhone 3GS, Transferring an iPod to a new user, iPhone shuffles when walking, New 8GB iPod touch models, Transferring purchases from a remote iTunes library
11-13-09: Syncing different contact info with two iPhones on the same computer, iPod shows no content, Syncing music and videos in playlists, Exclamation marks next to tracks in iTunes, Playing podcasts on 3G iPod shuffle.
11-6-09: Storing iPod software updates, Playing an iPod continuously, Transferring play counts to a new iTunes library, iPhone backups, Klipsch S4i earphones
10-30-09: Authorization problems with iPod touch, Changing Grid View background in iTunes, iTunes library and Music Folder are different sizes, Older iPods and firmware updates, Reconciling two different iTunes libraries, Syncing multiple devices to one iTunes library
10-23-09: Using a laptop with an iTunes library on an external hard drive, Transferring YouTube videos to iPod, iPod touch accessibility settings, Disabling Shake to Shuffle on iPod nano, Purchased songs fail to download from iTunes Store, Charging and powering off iPhone
Next: iDesign on inMotion Portable Speakers: The Altec Lansing/IDEO Interview
Previous: One "Breakthrough," Three Cases: The SeeJacket, Xylo + Naked Case Story
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hey, i don’t know my password to my iTunes account and i don’t know the awnser to the security question. I got and email sent to me from iTunes with a link that gives you a way to reset it, but its a huge link and everytime I click on it it never loads. I tried it on several computers and the same thing happens everytime. Can I call iTunes to give me my password or sumthing??
Posted by ChiSoxchamps on April 21, 2008 at 6:35 PM (PDT)