CNET editor's take: Anapod

CNET editor's take

Reviewed by Troy Dreier Reviewed May 5, 2004

Editors' rating: Excellent 8.0 out of 10

Simply put, Anapod Explorer gives you a Windows-like feel and more control over your iPod. While Apple provides the blissfully intuitive iTunes for free to help iPod owners (Mac and PC) organize and sync their music, using it means doing things Apple's way. It's easy to work with iTunes, but it limits the control you can have over your music, and it won't let you stream or share music on your iPod. Luckily for Windows users, Red Chair's Anapod Explorer adds all this and more.

Red Chair sells three versions of Anapod: one for standard iPods, one for Minis, and a universal edition that supports both. The last costs $30, whereas the first two are only $25. The trial version (available here) is simple to use, but the purchase and installation processes are somewhat cumbersome. You first need to buy the software, download and install the program, click a link to send in an electronic token, then finally check your e-mail for the installation code that will let you fully activate the product. However, once you've paid, you can install Anapod on as many PCs as you like. Plus, paid users get free lifetime upgrades--a big plus, as Red Chair tends to update the program quite frequently.

Anapod Explorer lets you drag and drop files through a Windows Explorer-like interface.

The Anapod Explorer interface consists of a Windows Explorer-like screen that lets you drag and drop files to and from your iPod--no iTunes required. The display is boxy, utilitarian-looking, and not particularly attractive, but it makes up for its design with powerful features. From there, you can set folders for single-touch synchronization--one of our favorite features. Simply specify where you store your music, and Anapod Explorer will look for changes whenever you click the Sync button. It works with as many folders as you want.

From the main screen, you can view your tracks, play them directly from the iPod (without storing them on the computer), create playlists and MorphLists (which are akin to iTunes' SmartLists), and view your most recently transferred tracks. Plus, you can change the bit rate of songs as you copy them to your iPod, a handy space-saving feature, although it compromises sound quality to a certain extent.

Anapod Explorer comes with a second, more advanced tool called Xtreamer, which lets you view and play your iPod's contents through a Web browser interface on your computer. Even better, Xtreamer lets you stream music from your iPod across a local network or the Internet so that you (or anyone else) can access your music from remote locations--for instance, at work. If you have a direct Net connection, you can use your IP address to hook up to Anapod Explorer, but if you're behind a firewall or a gateway, you'll need to know how to configure port forwarding in order to access the music on your iPod remotely.

To get the most out of this app, we recommend that you consult its long, illustrated online manual, the OmniTome. The guide comes in handy, not just because Anapod Explorer does so much, but because it's far from the most intuitive program we've encountered.

Red Chair makes similar programs that add Anapod-like functionality to the Dell Digital Jukebox (Dudebox Explorer), as well as Creative Nomads (Notmad Explorer), Rios (Riorad), and iRiver players (iRivium).

At a glance

Editors' rating:

8.0 Excellent

User rating:

Be one of the first to rate this product!

The good:

Enables transfers directly within Windows sans iTunes; lets your iPod stream songs over the Internet; lets you upload songs to your computer; can reduce MP3 bit rate during transfer.

The bad:

Bland, boxy design; no Mac version; online streaming requires some networking knowledge.

The bottom line:

Anapod Explorer is an essential tool for power users who crave more sophisticated control over their iPods.

Read More......

Anapod Review

Anapod Review

We check out Red Chair Software's iPod software solution.

March 16, 2004 - When I was a youngin' you couldn't officially use the iPod with Windows. You had to rely on third-party developers for software that would let you use Apple's portable with a PC. I had a first-generation iPod and primarily used XPlay to transfer tunes. At that time Red Chair Software didn't have any software for the iPod. The company had already earned props from the industry for its outstanding Notmad Manager, which I still use to get music to all of my Creative portables.

After Notmad, RDC tackled a slew of other portables. The company now handles the iPod, iPod mini, all Creative portables, the Dell DJ, and several Rio portables. In other words, RDC has all the major players covered. (iRiver would probably be covered as well if the iHP-1XX required software for transfers.)

The first generation of Anapod came out a few months ago. I never reviewed it because my old-ass first-gen iPod was barely functional. This weekend things changed: I got an iPod. Regular readers are probably scratching their heads. Most of the iPod-related email I get is hate mail blasting me for not recognizing the supremacy of Apple's portable. However, I don't hate the iPod. If I were spending my own money for a jukebox I would buy something else, but that doesn't mean I hate it. To be honest, I didn't pay a slim dime for my iPod. I won it in one of my poker games. (A third-generation iPod in decent shape covers a $250.00 raise, right?) At any rate, I am now part of the gang. As long as they'll have me.

Incidentally, for this review I am using Anapod version 8.4.2. I have the Universal edition, which means that it has every feature and works with both the iPod and the iPod mini. The software is available for iPod only ($25.00), the iPod mini only ($25.00), or both ($30.00). Obviously the Universal version offers the best value. You can also get a trial version for free from the RDC download page.

The included screenshots of the software are set in no particular order. You can enlarge them to get a good feel for the software's many faces. Additionally, I tend to distrust "official claims," but RDC has a handy head-to-head of iTunes and Anapod features and abilities. I wouldn't rely solely on this comparison, of course, but it is useful as general reference material.

	Anapod Main Window Anapod drive. Click image to enlarge.

So why even get third-party software when you get a full version of iTunes for free with the iPod? After trying Anapod, I would ask why wouldn't you use it over iTunes. In fact, the only thing I think iTunes has over Anapod is the price. However, if you are serious about your music Anapod has much more to offer.

For starters, Anapod allows for drag and drop transfers of music to and from the iPod. You simply connect your iPod and open up Windows Explorer. As you can see in the screenshot, Anapod shows up as if it were a drive. The iPod also shows up, but you cannot drag music directly to that folder, as most of you know. You can open up the Anapod window and then drag tracks/folders to the new window or simply drag directly to the folder icon. This is as simple as transferring music gets.

	Anapod Explorer Anapod explorer. Click image to enlarge.

Notice that I wrote "to and from." Anapod allows you to pull music from your portable to your computer. Copyright protection be damned! This is a huge benefit for many users. For example, I have enormous MP3 collections at work and home. If I get a new CD I don't want to bring it to work in order to rip it again. With Anapod I simply drag it onto the iPod and then pull it off at work.

You can also use this drag and drop communication for general data files and extras. For example, you can drag contacts into the appropriate folder and be done with it.

	Anapod transferring.

You can also navigate the iPod with a web interface. The big blue screenshot shows you feature. You have access to the same folders and also get a handy search tool with highly detailed parameters. I ran a simple search for "always" and it instantly spat out my results along the bottom of the page. You then get the choice to either download or stream the song/s. Slick, huh? The skin is pretty ugly but others will become available.

If you don't want to load your songs onto another computer, but still want to listen to them through it, you can use RDC's TrueStream. This feature allows you to control playback on the iPod through controls on a software player. You can highlight songs, artists, albums, playlists, etc. and then stream them to your computer through the USB/FireWire port. The songs show up in the software player as if you were playing them from your normal source drive. Chances are that the computer in question already has the songs, but it is a very convenient feature. It worked perfectly with nary a skip or pause.

	Anapod Browser Anapod browser. Click image to enlarge.

This was the first time I ever used RDC's AudioMorph. This feature allows you to change the bit rate in songs you are transferring to your iPod without changing the bit rate of the original files. For example, say you encode your desktop MP3s at 256kbps and want to move a boatload of music to your portable. You can have Anapod re-encode the files at, say, 128kbps in order to save space. You must download plug-ins depending on what format you want to morph. (MP3, WMA, WAV, and Ogg plug-ins are available.)

	Anapod AudioMorph Anapod AudioMorph. Click image to enlarge.

For MP3 Anapod is compatible with LAME. You simply copy the lame.exe into the Shared folder and then chose the AudioMorph option in the software. When you start the transfer you will see a new window spawn and watch as the command lines are automatically given. It took about four minutes for 60MB of 192kbps music to get downgraded to 128kbps and then transferred to my iPod. S you can see in the AudioMorph screenshot, you can control the parameters for the "new" bit rates, as well as change them into VBR files. RDC didn't miss a trick.

In reality I will probably never use this feature. The trade-off in sound quality is rarely worth it to me. However, this feature will be extremely valuable to folks who don't care about a degradation to 128kbps. Hell, you might not even hear the difference if you're using crappy headphones, which a lot of you are. I really give it up to RDC for including this feature.

	Anapod and LAME Anapod and Lame. Click image to enlarge.

Anapod is peppered with minor features that won't make or break the deal but are very practical. For example, you can batch edit multiple tags at once. If your Metallica files are all named Melattica, you can select the artist and then change them all. Similarly, the transfer manager reveals several useful details. You can see if any files didn't make it and why, see if any have bogus tags, see how many playlists you just created, etc.

Before I started writing this review I also poked around to see what other folks thought of Anapod. One thing I read was that the software experiences problems with iTunes. I cannot say that Anapod will never conflict on anyone's computer, but I have been running both programs and haven't hit a snag yet. I have, however, dealt with RDC support and can tell you that they are knowledgeable and responsible.

	Anapod Contacts Anapod contacts. Click image to enlarge.

Conclusion

If you own an iPod I strongly suggest you try out Anapod. It will add several useful features to your iPod and streamline transfers. The list of features is excellent and the implementation of these features is almost perfect. RDC also enjoys a history of solid updates and product support, so you needn't worry about buying software from a company that might vaporize in a couple months. There's really no reason not to use it.

Recommended without reservation.

-- M. Wiley

Performance Outstanding on every point. Fast, small, and efficient. Another excellent offering from RDC. 9.5 Ease of Use The drag and drop is simple enough, but you also get the web-like explorer. Much easier than iTunes or anything else. 9.5 Value iTunes is free, which will keep many users on it. However, for what Anapod offers the value is very high. 9.0 Features It improves on the official software in every way. It also adds features, e.g. TrueStream and AudioMorph, that you cannot find anywhere else. 10 Overall Rating (Not an average) 9.5

Read More......

HOW-TO: Get music OFF your iPod

Never did we think we’d need to do a How-To on something which should be part of the basic functionality of a portable music player, but once you put your tunes on an iPod unfortunately it’s a one-way sync unless you know the tricks for getting them off. There are already a lot of different ways to copy music off of an iPod, Apple is just choosing to spend a lot of time and resources to make it hard to do. In this How-To we show you several different ways of getting the music off of your iPod and onto both Macs and PCs, all with free tools.

Why do we need to get our files off our iPod?

It would be a wonderful thing to know we’ll never have a hard drive failure, a system crash with data loss or our computer stolen, but that’s not reality. In our world, those things happen and once you’ve spent the time, money and effort to put music on your iPod, there isn’t any reason it should be locked away. We’ve needed to do a fresh install of the operating system for every computer we have ever owned (yes, including Macs), and sooner or later plenty of users will need to do the same, either because of a physical defect which requires new hardware, or to eliminate any of the spyware, viruses, and other exploits which are part of the computing experience these days. Back-ups are great, but we can’t always back-up our entire library of music. And besides, why should we, it’s our music on our iPod?

Last week we posted our observation that the new new version of iTunes 4.7 disabled a popular and useful utility called “iPod Download” which lets you drag and drop files from the iPod to anywhere you choose. Apple added some blocking code to stop the plug-in from working, and later in this How-To we’ll show you how to enable “iPod Download” with a HexEditor in the Mac section.

All that said, Cory Doctorow from BoingBoing made a couple posts about the current vibe he’s getting from Apple, and we echo the same thoughts (check out his thoughts here and here). Cory also suggested a tool for Macs to get files off, we’ll have that in the Mac section of this How-To as well.

We wanted to explain all of this, since we received more than than a few emails and a lot of instant messages from people discovering they couldn’t just get their stuff off their iPod.

We’re also hopeful Apple might consider not spending engineering time and lawyer fees on chasing after applications and developers who just want to give folks an obvious feature that’s being left out only to appease the RIAA. At the end of the day, Apple needs to know that we’re their customers, too.

On with the How-To. We picked a couple of free tools that help you get your music off your iPod, there might be better ones that we missed, so feel free to post them up in the comments.

Get the tunes off with a PC
On the PC side we picked like the full-featured (and free) ephPod. ephPod can download news, get Outlook contacts, edit your calendar, add songs and few dozen other useful things—but for us, the best feature is a simple file export to get your songs off your iPod. The PC does not need to be the authorized machine for your iPod.

Download and install ephPod.

Open the application, Start > Programs > ephPod.

Make sure your iPod is plugged in and select the drive in the pull down list that your iPod appears as.

Once the application has seen your iPod, double click “songs”—this will bring up a list of all the songs on your iPod.

When you see the song(s) you wish to copy off your iPod, select and “right click” and choose “Copy Songs to Directory” on the song or press Ctril+Alt+C. For our example we’re taking our Engadget Podcast off of our iPod and putting it on another computer.

ephPod will ask where to save the file, we choose our desktop.

ephPod will then create a new folder along with the file you selected.

Click OK and that’s it!

Get the tunes off with a Mac
Our favorite was to get our files off our iPod on our Mac “was” iPod Download, but since iTunes 4.7 came out, Apple disabled it (we’ll show you how to fix that at the end of the How-To). iPod Download was also pulled after Apple’s legal team went after the site hosting the application, so here’s another application that does the same thing and is free. The Mac does not need to be the authorized machine for your iPod.

We like iLinkPod, simple quick and released under the terms of the GNU General Public License. After installing, iLinkPod checks your iPod, displays the results and when complete, a new folder with pop up and you can then see all the hidden goodness, which is your stuff. From there you can drag-and-drop the files off your iPod to your Mac.

Download and install iLinkPod.

After installing double click the application.

Click “Choose” to select your iPod.

Choose the volume or iPod name. Click “Choose”.

iLinkPod will detect if you selected your iPod, then click “Link!”.

iLinkPod will now scan your iPod and you’ll see a new finder window with folders called f00, f01, f02, etc..You’ll also have a folder called “iLinkPodFolder” on your desktop.

From here you can download all your songs or just browse through the folders to find the songs you want to copy to your Mac. In our example again we move the Engadget Podcast over to our other Mac. If you just select the song, you can also play the song directly off the iPod.

That’s it! You songs are now back where you want them!

”iPod Download” fix

Once we realized that Apple killed our favorite app iPod Download, we started to poke around with a HexEdit tool to see what they changed. HexEdit can be downloaded here for free at SourceForge.

Now HexEditing a file can really mess things up, so only do this if you’re comfortable with these types of tools.

As we were looking through the latest iTunes, the French site HardMac uncovered exactly what we were looking for. It’s simple, Apple looks for the name “iPod Download” all you need to do is change it to something with the same number of characters.

So here’s how:

The following assumes you had “iPod Download” already installed and then iTunes killed it.

Download and install HexEdit from SourceForge.

It might be a good idea to make a copy of iTunes and putting in another folder, just in case (File > Duplicate).

Run HexEdit and browse to iTunes (File > Open).

Keep browsing to Contents > MacOS > iTunes. Which is an Executable. Click Open.

Once open, you’ll see a ton of numbers and random characters. Choose Find > Find and Replace. Type iPod Download. Click Find Next.

Here’s what it will find.

Now, change the name from iPod Download to something else, just make sure to keep the same number of characters. For example, we typed in “iown thisipod” without the quotes. bite mesteveb also works.

Exit the application, HexEdit > Quit HexEdit,  you’ll then be prompted to save, click Save.

Now Open up iTunes and iPod download is back!

From here, we’re back to where we were and will enjoy getting our files off our iPod, until the next Apple update or cease and desist letter comes your way.

Reader Comments

1. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 1:49 PM ET by Tigidal

iPod Agent

I dig iPod Agent as it'll nicely organize the files according to Artist/Album folders during the copy.

It also let's you synch up your Mail/News/Movies/Weather/Horoscopes for reading on the run. Check it out:

http://www.ipodsoft.com/ipodagent.aspx

2. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 1:54 PM ET by someguy

ipod download or ilinkpod?

so now that they both (sorta) work, which would you suggest?

3. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 1:59 PM ET by Wondering

Mac iPod to Windows?

Is there any way to get the files from a Mac formatted iPod onto a Windows Machine? Do I need to use a combination of MacOpener(which is expensive 60$) and EPHPod to get my files?

4. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 1:59 PM ET by Justin

PodWorks!!

For $8, PodWorks is the best!

http://www.scifihifi.com/podworks/

5. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 2:04 PM ET by jps

hum

I was considering purchasing an ipod with the idea that it would be a good place to offload my music from my hard drive (as it currently takes up 25 gigs of my tibook's 40 gig hard drive). I wasn't aware until yesterday that I wouldn't be able to get the music back OFF the thing.

fixed something I didn't even know was broken. now to find 350$...

6. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 2:25 PM ET by josh

thank you

once again engadget comes to the rescue. I've been eyeing new laptops to replace my current one that is host to itunes. My laptop only has the mini firewire connection, so no recharging while i transfer songs, doh. I go buy a usb cable and what do you know, usb 1.0, so again no recharging, double doh. Ideally i'll get a new laptop with a fullsize firewire connection, but its great to know that i can salvage all my songs once i begin using a new itunes library. Thanks for solving my problems engadget.

7. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 2:29 PM ET by JJ

Why not just use Windows Explorer?

Why do you even need to add an app to take music off on a Windows iPod? If you show hidden folders in Explorer, you can just go into the iPod Control folder, and within there is a folder that holds all the music, just like any drive. Add Artist, Genre, etc as columns and you can find anything...

8. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 2:38 PM ET by Joe

iPod Download

Is this still available? I haven't had much luck finding a copy.

9. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 2:47 PM ET by annie niemous

No third party tools required on mac:

1: create a new folder. for simplicity we'll just put it on the desktop and name it newMusic.

2: open up the terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal)

3: in Terminal type:

cd /Volumes [hit return]
ls [hit return]

3b: look for the name of your iPod, then select and copy the name

3c: in Terminal type:

cd [paste iPod name here]/iPodControl/Music [hit return]
pwd [hit enter, make sure that you're in the music folder before you proceed]

3d: Music might be music instead... this makes a difference.

4: in terminal type:

cp -R * ~/Desktop/newMusic [hit return]

5: This will take a while. You'll know it's done when you get a new line in the terminal.

6: drag the newMusic folder onto your itunes library. You'll notice that the contents of that folder are not organized in any logical way. Doing this iTunes bit will re-arrange them by artist/album/song so you can find everything.

7: OPTIONAL: before step 1, create a new user so you have a fresh iTunes to work with. Perform steps 1-6 as that user. When you're done with 6, quit iTunes and drag the new user's /User/newUser/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music folder to /Users/Shared. You now have a neatly organized music directory that your normal user can access so you can cherry pick what you drag into your own iTunes library.

10. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 2:55 PM ET by jefdiesel

steveb?

wouldnt it be bite me stevej?

of course ballmer can have a taste too, and i can imagine you guys are pretty much mad at him always,

11. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 2:59 PM ET by colin

command line? hexedit? whatever, i have things to do ...

podworks, baby. podworks.

12. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 3:12 PM ET by Oyvind

Why not use Senuti?

Its free, and presents your music in a much nicer way than the one described above.

=)

13. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 3:23 PM ET by Gareth

iPod Tracks 2 Desktop

I use a nifty (and donationware) applescript that will let you copy tracks from your iPod to your desktop (or another folder) from the applescript menu in iTunes.

Works like a charm (i haven't tested in 4.7 yet though)

http://www.faqintosh.com/risorse/as/ipodtracks2.html

14. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 3:25 PM ET by raul gutierrez

But where is ipod download available?

The original site no longer hosts it....

15. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 3:41 PM ET by stever

the stever

I like SharePod for PC.

http://www25.brinkster.com/carmagt/SharePod/

No install required, the exe sits on your iPod so can run it anywhere.

sweet

16. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 3:47 PM ET by Austin

Get a free ipod.

Get a free ipod here.

http://www.mp3players4free.com/default.aspx?r=14646

Skeptical? Look here for proof:

http://www.freeipodguide.com/?ops=pics

17. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 3:49 PM ET by Oyvind

Why not use Senuti?

Its free, and presents your music in a much nicer way than the one described above.

=)

18. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 4:03 PM ET by Matthew Cipriano

iLinkPod

Seems like either Apple got to them or so many of us have been trying to log on that the site is down... Anyone know a back up site for iLinkPod.com?

19. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 4:04 PM ET by Brent

Sharepod

For getting your music off the iPod on windows you can't beat this program (http://www25.brinkster.com/carmagt/SharePod/). The executable is run from the ipod so no software needs to be installed anywhere and it goes where ever the iPod goes.

20. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 4:04 PM ET by Brian McBride

Anapod

I used their software for the creative line of MP3 players and felt that it is well worth the $25. It fully supports the iPod and also has some cool extras, like streaming.

http://www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod/

21. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 4:06 PM ET by Markus

About the 'hexedit' hack

Not having iPodDownload, I can't try this, but I'm wondering if you need to hack iTunes itself. If iTunes is looking for the item by name, can you not simply rename it in the Finder? I'm guessing that has been tried and does not work, possibly because it's looking at the executable name, or the bundle name inside the info.plist file.
My thought is this: Edit the info.plist file, changing the name of the executable item (CFBundleExecutable item) and then change the name of the executable itself. Then see if it works.

22. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 4:11 PM ET by nobody!

psst.

http://www.geocities.com/turgon1375/ipoddownload.sit

if the link does die.. email me 'nuff said.

23. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 4:21 PM ET by Ben

How to get iPodDownload

go here: http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/15957

ah, that magic of Google

Oh, that the whole HexEdit thing was brilliant. Thanks!

24. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 4:23 PM ET by Stephen

I agree - just use explorer

What is all this nonsense - my iPod has always shown up as an external drive under windows XP. If I want to get my music off of it I just browse it like any other drive. Sure, not everything is organised into nice iTunes folders but I can search it if I need something particular.

I personally cannot wait for an open source iTunes project with open source iPod software. Then maybe finally we will have cue points and album art - even on our old 1st gen iPods.

The iPod is great hardware but we need to take back the software.

25. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 4:43 PM ET by Twist

Show Hidden Files

This used to work but I am not sure if it still does.

You can use TinkerTool or a similar utility to set the Mac OS X Finder to show hidden files and then you should be able to navigate to the Music folder hidden on your iPod to copy whatever you want off of it. If you prefer to leave show hidden items off then after you have found the folder you can make an alias to it. Also once you know the path to the folder you can use the Go to Folder command in the Finder to go to /Volumes/iPodName/path/to/music/folder.

26. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 4:58 PM ET by Cuprohastes

Other than iPod

Great!
Now how do I get files off my iRiver? Or get Windows Media Player to recognise it?

27. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 5:01 PM ET by R S

Copypod

I just used a program called Copypod for windows. It could not have been any easier. Easiest way to go.

28. Posted Nov 2, 2004, 5:18 PM ET by Kristen Leep

Just Use Senuti

Simple, quick, and FREE- use Senuti. It pulls off your music in artist folders, not in the F1, F2 folders like the iPod uses. You can pull songs off by playlist and sort your music by artists or song title. plus, it's FREE and really elegant.

http://wbyoung.ambitiouslemon.com/senuti/

29. Posted Nov 3, 2004, 9:49 AM ET by Casey Marshall

I found Apple's drivers and software to be an unreliable, buggy layer of crapware over what is essentially a simple USB drive that just wants to play my tunes. I would not recommend installing it at all on a PC.
EphPod, while a little funky in the user interface, works very well for me, I highly recommend it. And it has saved my music library before when I did have to reinstall my OS.
Also, if you use a PC, you pretty much have to get a USB2.0 split cable, b/c the iPod will drain its battery *fast* while it is syncing... unless your fireware port provides power pins.

30. Posted Nov 3, 2004, 10:20 AM ET by Erol

iPod.iTunes for OS X is great. Not just copying but synchronizes songs and playlists to iTunes.

http://www.crispsofties.com

31. Posted Nov 3, 2004, 1:59 PM ET by Mike Robson

Well of course they don't want you to get your music OFF the iPod... that's how people steal/share music...

*rolls eyes

32. Posted Nov 3, 2004, 5:36 PM ET by jim

i have a 2nd gen pod and i was wondering if i can download software to use my pod with the new bose speaker dock?

33. Posted Nov 3, 2004, 9:04 PM ET by Bryan

what about using the same iPod between Mac and Windows? I didn't see an answer to Wonder's question and I have the same dilemma.

34. Posted Nov 3, 2004, 9:04 PM ET by Greg

After going through all of them iPod Works was the easiest to use, to get all of the iTunes meta data, and integrate the songs right back into iTunes. No sense moving stuff from the iPod if you lose data or have to reimport it all over again.

35. Posted Nov 3, 2004, 9:06 PM ET by Jon

OmniWeb! (Mac only)

Just drag your iPod onto the Omniweb icon and it you can view the folders of music within as hypertext links. Find the song, right-click and "Save Linked File As".

Not great for transferring alot of music - finding a particular song takes patience - but it works in a pinch.

36. Posted Nov 3, 2004, 10:37 PM ET by MIke C

I have a windows machine and a windows formatted iPod. I will be receiving my first Mac in a week. Is there an easy way to transfer my library from my windows machine to my Mac by use of my iPod or any other way? How should I do it?

37. Posted Nov 3, 2004, 11:54 PM ET by Matt Eastburn

check out this FREE software for your ipod.

http://www.ipodsoft.com/

highly recomended, especially for what it can do.

Matt E

38. Posted Nov 4, 2004, 4:12 AM ET by Tristan Krautz

Also .... send feedback to Apple ... just maybe they might get the message

39. Posted Nov 4, 2004, 10:57 AM ET by Danny

iPod Download fix didn't work for me. I did the Hexedit and replaced ipod download with iown thisipod. Launched iTunes and the iPod updated and iPod Download said reading module and I then saw iPod Download in the menu, but when the updating was completed, iPod Dowload disappeared.

40. Posted Nov 4, 2004, 7:13 PM ET by jim

Does anyone know how to get "iPod Agent" type functions (eg, news, rss, weather) on a mac ??

thx,
jim

41. Posted Nov 5, 2004, 10:57 AM ET by None

No need to change every new iTunes version, just change the iPod Download plugin.

Do this:
- get iPod Download from some place posted here,
- get HexEditor as mentioned in above article,
- install iPod Download as usual
- launch HexEditor,
- open the installed iPod Download Plugin from "/Library/iTunes/iTunes Plug-ins"
- search for string "iPod" and change to something else; i.e. "iPud"
- save and launch iTunes.. voila!

Have Phun.

None

42. Posted Nov 5, 2004, 3:26 PM ET by andy

I would like to swap my music on a iRiver mp3,
anyone have any advice on software? Thanks

43. Posted Nov 5, 2004, 4:48 PM ET by Latoya Vernon

I have a problem with my Ipod, My son dropped it and from then on I cant open it... all i see on the displace screen is a file folder and then an animated iopd with an unhappy face.. what could be the problem and how do I fix it

44. Posted Nov 6, 2004, 2:08 PM ET by Vadim Stern

I have a question....I have about 780 songs on my iPod and my friend has about 14 gigs worth of songs. Is it possible for me to bring his iPod and sync it with my port and get his songs into my computer???? Thanks.

45. Posted Nov 8, 2004, 11:38 AM ET by Caroline

Yea, the hex edit and ipod download worked perfectly. I also am a fan of the Senuti software that shows you the album file.
Thank you so much!

46. Posted Nov 8, 2004, 12:02 PM ET by Jonathan Jacobs

HELP: I downloaded the ephpod2, followed the instructions exactly, but when I try to copy the songs to my directory I get an error msg that says, "Source file not found." Does anyone know what to do? Thanks

47. Posted Nov 12, 2004, 1:14 AM ET by mike

at ipodlounge.com downloads: podutil
very easy to use and lots of other stuff de ipod...

48. Posted Nov 17, 2004, 2:45 PM ET by Ben Russell

Thanks a million, I tried the apple's web page and it stated " there no way to copy songs from your ipod to your pc". But then I used google, and your site came up!

49. Posted Nov 18, 2004, 5:10 AM ET by honeybhun

I have downloaded senuti but the copy select button is unavailable to me. Its there but not functional. Is this because my music isnt in my itunes library...any ideas how to activate??

50. Posted Nov 29, 2004, 7:12 PM ET by h2oplo313

Hey, if you want a free ipod, check out

http://www.h2oplo313.uni.cc .

51. Posted Dec 1, 2004, 1:55 PM ET by pnak

you guys should also check out anapod

http://www.redchairsoftware.com/
http://www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod/
http://www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod/featpw.php

52. Posted Dec 1, 2004, 2:21 PM ET by Claus Junker

I had a bad expierince with you software, but only somthing went wrong.I think my frends PC didend show PT(J:)on the screen for his harddrive . It deladet many songs from my iPot and I needed to restor and load every thing .I'm really intrested to manage loading and anloading songs from my iPot on difrent computers . But houw can I do it with out loosing songs ?

53. Posted Dec 8, 2004, 11:44 PM ET by ganster

in ipod agent i used the movie show times,on the ipod what does the times in bracket mean

54. Posted Dec 12, 2004, 8:46 PM ET by Oleg

Search musical system on mp3, music for mobile.

55. Posted Dec 13, 2004, 3:52 AM ET by will dempsey

hay
i downloaded eph pod and i followed the instructions but when it came to importing it back on to itunes it didnt read the songs so it didnt add any of the files

what should i do

thank you

56. Posted Dec 13, 2004, 4:09 PM ET by Chrismol

"Mac iPod to Windows?"

Did anyone respond to "Wondering" about transferring files from a Mac iPod to a Windows drive? Is it possbile? Any suggestions on doing it?

BTW, this linear "comment" format is wonky. I cannot respond directly to a particular post and I cannot find direct responses to particular posts. So, I leave here with nothing. Have you considered a bulletin board application for your comment strings? phpbb is a good place to start.

Thanks,
Chrismol

57. Posted Dec 13, 2004, 4:11 PM ET by Chrismol

"Mac iPod to Windows?"

Did anyone respond to "Wondering" about transferring files from a Mac iPod to a Windows drive? Is it possbile? Any suggestions on doing it?

BTW, this linear "comment" format is wonky. I cannot respond directly to a particular post and I cannot find direct responses to particular posts. So, I leave here with nothing. Have you considered a bulletin board application for your comment strings? phpbb is a good place to start.

Thanks,
Chrismol

58. Posted Dec 14, 2004, 8:01 PM ET by nicko p.

prob. been covered lots, but i am new... can i format my ipod for both mac and pc? i have a pc, my ipod if formatted for mac with songs i don't want to lose...

59. Posted Dec 23, 2004, 12:40 AM ET by Farah

I originally was simply going to go ahead and copy all the files from WInXP to a folder and bring them over to my IPOD to add to my new ibook. Instead I went ahead and pulled them using Terminal on the Mac and now just need to organize. I purposely did this instead of using a program because my IPOD was in disarray with all the filenames/playlists etc. I will try this time to keep everything organized on the mac. Originally I was skeptical about switching but now am happy considering I just learned that mac is based on Unix. Who knew! Certainly not me...

60. Posted Dec 27, 2004, 2:16 AM ET by engage51

Guys new free website launched, use my link please!!
http://www.all4freeipods.com?referer_id=

61. Posted Dec 30, 2004, 2:06 PM ET by otet

Is there a program that will allow you to "hotsync" your iPod to your iTunes on your computer?

62. Posted Dec 30, 2004, 9:36 PM ET by Chris

I cannot copy my ipod files to my computer. When I right click on a song and select "Copy Files to a Directory" is gives me an error message stating, "Source File not Found." Can anyone help me figure this out.

63. Posted Dec 31, 2004, 9:24 AM ET by Chris

I cannot copy my ipod files to my computer. When I right click on a song and select "Copy Files to a Directory" is gives me an error message stating, "Source File not Found." Can anyone help me figure this out.

64. Posted Dec 31, 2004, 7:59 PM ET by Sean

Hello
My brother wrote music to my iPOD from his Mac. He wrote the music files to my iPOD using the iPOD as a harddrive. My PC recognizes that there is an external Harddrive connected but wants to reformat it because the files were written with Mac formatting.
Is there anyway to read mac formatted files from my iPOD with my Windows PC, when the iPOD has been used as a harddrive?

65. Posted Jan 1, 2005, 5:32 PM ET by NIX

I HAVE SEEN LOADS OF PEOPLE ASK FOR MAC TO PC!?!

And of course, no answers...
Having the same problem and havent found a solution, does anyone want to help us out or what!?!

Mac IPod to Pc itunes lib.

PLEASE.....

66. Posted Jan 2, 2005, 4:37 PM ET by BloggMan

Favorite PC app for copying music from an iPod to a PC - or directly into iTunes.....

http://www.ipodcopy.com/

this is a really nice app

67. Posted Jan 4, 2005, 3:18 AM ET by Jason

HELP: I've been try to find a solution to using the Ipod on both a PC and Mac simutaneously. I have been unsuccessfull. My ipod is Windows formatted and when I try to connect it back with my MAC it's not recognized. It doesn't even show up in Itunes on the MAC. No synciing takes place either. I would like to transfer the music files that are currently on my PC to my POwerbook. IF anyone knows of a solution and a simple way of doing it please let me know.

68. Posted Jan 5, 2005, 12:55 PM ET by Dingo

Can someone post how you can copy music from a PC formated iPod to a Mac harddrive, ie- the equivalent of sharepod, but in the Mac world??

69. Posted Jan 5, 2005, 12:56 PM ET by Dingo

Can someone post how you can copy music from a PC formated iPod to a Mac harddrive, ie- the equivalent of sharepod, but in the Mac world??

70. Posted Jan 9, 2005, 3:19 AM ET by Cribbit

Check it out, Free Stuff, New Site
http://freetech4you.com?referer_id=4

71. Posted Jan 11, 2005, 7:54 PM ET by Amy

Hi, I need to transfer songs from my IPod to my new mac (my old one crashed and none of my songs were saved), and have downloaded iLinkPod to do so. My problem is that auto-update is currently turned on in itunes and I cant turn it off until i plug in my IPod. But, if I plug it in, wont it erase all of the songs that aren't currently on my new computer?

72. Posted Jan 12, 2005, 10:16 AM ET by clint

Or you could just pull the files from the iPod_Control folder on your ipod.

73. Posted Jan 14, 2005, 4:09 PM ET by Wolvereen

Does anybody know of software that allows you to share songs downloaded from iTunes? I want to download a song, and then put it on TWO different iPods. Anything like that?

74. Posted Jan 21, 2005, 1:44 AM ET by Tasos Munroe

FREE USEFUL TEChS
http://freetech4you.com?referer_id=964

75. Posted Jan 21, 2005, 1:45 AM ET by Tasos Munroe

Kewl Free techs.

76. Posted Jan 24, 2005, 11:28 PM ET by Crystal Martinez

Is there any way to get the files from a PC formatted iPod onto a Mac?

77. Posted Jan 30, 2005, 4:00 PM ET by Kurtis

Hey this is the best thing since well the iPod... my bro and I each have one and we wanted to have the same songs on each but we reformated our pc and lost all of our songs so we still had them on our iPods and now we have "synced them"

78. Posted Feb 4, 2005, 3:51 PM ET by JP

I am on an XP computer, and can not get my ipod- just bought it, a mini, to come up as a drive??

79. Posted Feb 6, 2005, 9:54 PM ET by non-Admin

If you're gong to bother with Hexing then change the plugin in your own home directory and leave the system level iTunes application alone. Works just the same and you get a custom playlist to boot.

80. Posted Feb 15, 2005, 8:28 PM ET by mmjones

I tried the HexEdit fix for iPod Download - only it's not working. I changed "ipod download" to "iown thisipod" through HexEdit...but it won't let me pull files over into my iTunes library. And when i went back into HexEdit to make sure i did it correctly there are now two iTunes in "Contents > MacOS > iTunes."

Any ideas on what i did wrong?

81. Posted Feb 16, 2005, 5:05 AM ET by Jo

Is 'ipod download' also available for PCs how would it work there?

82. Posted Feb 21, 2005, 10:27 AM ET by DeleteYourself

Is there any way to get music from iTunes to your iPod on multiple computers? In other words: a way to import music to your iPod on any computer, not just the main comp. your iPod is "registered" to?

Thanks!

83. Posted Feb 25, 2005, 9:16 AM ET by Gaz

I used TinkerTool to show the invisible music folder on my iPod and transfered it successfully to my hard drive. Dragging the music folder into the iTunes main window though doesn't seem to have added the music to my iTunes library and using File/Add to Library doesn't recognise the 'invisible' music folder on the desktop. Any advice on how to load my newly freed music into iTunes?? Thanks!

84. Posted Feb 28, 2005, 10:27 AM ET by Aj

i have a 40gb photo ipod and the ephpod does not recognise the device. how can i get my music of the IPOD and back onto my pc as i formatted it :(.

85. Posted Mar 9, 2005, 11:10 AM ET by Chris Vane-Tempest

Hi there, question for you all. If you view the Ipod as an external hard disk and display the hidden folder so you can access the tunes.. Can you then drag and drop tunes FROM and TO the ipod.. I know you can get them off back onto the PC but if I was to dump more songs onto the ipod would it then play them when I disconnect it from the PC?

Thanks...

86. Posted Mar 9, 2005, 11:15 AM ET by Chris Vane-Tempest

Hi there, question for you all. If you view the Ipod as an external hard disk and display the hidden folder so you can access the tunes.. Can you then drag and drop tunes FROM and TO the ipod.. I know you can get them off back onto the PC but if I was to dump more songs onto the ipod would it then play them when I disconnect it from the PC?

Thanks...

87. Posted Mar 11, 2005, 11:04 PM ET by EvilEyez

You can easily use a mac, and a pc to transfer files on and from mac/pc with xplay on windows, or mac drive on windows. xplay sets up a folder viewable for both mac & pc, but once you setup xplay and add songs, then go to mac and add songs you will no longer be able to use xplay to acess and transfer, you will have to use macdrive. hope the info help.. search google for website. need sum help aim msg me on evileyez604

88. Posted Mar 12, 2005, 2:48 PM ET by Jake Mitchinson

may i remind you that you can get music off your ipod by following these simple steps:

1. Set your iPod to hardrive status
2. Go into my computer
3. Enable iPod as an external music player 4. Open the music folder ( all of your music is stored here)
5. copy all music into the shared music folder

Copying the music takes about 40 minutes for 1,000 songs. If you play these songs now, they will be stored on the iTunes library. Didn't you know that?

89. Posted Mar 13, 2005, 8:29 PM ET by EVDOguy

I use ChronoSync 2.0.8 to automatically backup ALL my documents (including iPhoto & iTunes), to my 60gb iPod. That gives me another level of backup protection (already using Retrospect to backup the whole drive to firewire). With ChronoSync, I can easily get to my iTunes and iPhoto, since it is just like a finder copy.

http://www.econtechnologies.com/site/Pages/ChronoSync/chrono…

90. Posted Mar 14, 2005, 3:44 PM ET by Robert

So I clicked on your link for the "download and install ephpod." it didnt work, so i went to download.com to get the software.
I was about to download ephpod and follow your directions but then came across this review:

User reviews of EphPod 2.58
Deleted many songs
Reviewer: James
"It deletes every song that you have on your Ipod that you don't have backed up on your computer."

HOW TRUE IS THIS?
and is this the right version, 2.58?

I would love to put my music back onto my computer being that i had to reformat it. but dont want to risk losing all my music, plus it was tons of hardwork.

91. Posted Mar 23, 2005, 8:51 PM ET by Frustrated

PLEASE can someone help...

Can you use a PC formatted iPod with a Mac? And if so how do i best get songs off my PC formatted iPod on to my Mac?

Thank you.

92. Posted Mar 24, 2005, 12:49 PM ET by Lee

Free and pretty simple way on PC(maybe MAC). You can easily navigate to the folder on the ipod with the music using windows explorer. Copy all the music to some place on your PC. The names are all garbled so you have to rename the files. Tag and Rename can do this easily in one step since the ID3 tags are still there.

93. Posted Apr 16, 2005, 12:31 AM ET by Nick

this program doesnt support other languages such as chinese......
need on that does, and also i need one that gets all of the info, it only got some of the song names and artist and albums there was a lot missing.

94. Posted Apr 18, 2005, 11:37 AM ET by Adrian Austin

There is an even easier way to do this you know.

I recently lost my external hard drive with all my music on it and was scared to plug my iPod in because it might remove all my songs of that aswell.

I found that if you hold down Ctrl+Shift when connecting the iPod to your computer then it will not sync.

Once connected, turn on disk support in iTunes.

Open you iPod drive in explorer and open the iPod_control folder (it's hidden).

Copy the (hidden) "Music" folder to your computer somewhere.

Change all the folder contents to be visible.

Drag and drop all the "Fxx" folders directly into iTunes. You must have set iTunes to automatically organize your library and to copy songs to the iTunes library that are added.

Hey presto, all your music is back on your computer.

Hope this helps.

95. Posted Apr 24, 2005, 6:23 PM ET by shawn

the easyist way to get music off and ipod is plug it in and go to my computer and open the ipod folder. you need to make your folders show hidden folders and then a folder called ipod_control will show up and go into it and there will be a folder called music and in there, there will be a bunch of folder music music placed randomly in it. just drag the files into a folder on the computer and your done.

Read More......

PodUtil:A £10 Shareware program which offers powerful copy features and iTunes playlist regeneration.

• PodUtil:  A £10 Shareware program which offers powerful copy features and iTunes playlist regeneration.

Note that this is by no means a comprehensive list… We urge all iPodlounge readers to peruse the diverse options to find an interface/functionality/price combination that suits you best.

How does iPodlounge proceed with a detailed tutorial on a procedure which requires third-party software, for an audience that includes many readers who use both Mac and Windows-based environments?  Quite simply, we have chosen to write the following tutorial using PodUtil, as its interface and feature set are identical on both platforms.  PodUtil is a very nice, very capable piece of software that most users will be pleased with.  Note that whichever software you decide to use, the interface and procedure will likely be quite similar to the following:

Getting Started

To begin, download and install PodUtil from this website. 

Next, connect your iPod using USB2.0 or Firewire to the computer you’d like to upload to.

Note:

PC:  If iTunes isn’t installed yet, your iPod will show up as a portable hard drive automatically.  This is fine.  If iTunes is already installed on the souce computer, it will likely open and ask if you’d like to associate this iPod with this computer, deleting its content. CLICK NO!! In many cases, you’re doing this because the iPod is your only copy of your library… you don’t wan’t to delete it!!  Ensure that “Enable Disk Use” is selected as we did in last week’s article.

Mac:  iTunes will open and ask if you’d like to associate this iPod with this computer, deleting its content. CLICK NO!! In many cases, you’re doing this because the iPod is your only copy of your library… you don’t wan’t to delete it!!  Ensure that “Enable Disk Use” is selected as we did in last week’s article.

Next, launch PodUtil.  PodUtil will detect your iPod, parse through its database, and display a list of all of your tracks in the main window, with a listing of your playlists on the left:

In this window, you can search for tracks (in the top right corner) or preview them straight off of the iPod by double clicking on one.

Copying Tracks to the Computer

To prepare for the music copying process, there are a few things which must be done first.

1. Set your Copy Directory:  At the bottom of the main PodUtil window, select a directory that you would like PodUtil to copy your iPod music to.
   

2. Define your Copy Preferences:  At the bottom right of the main window, open the “Copy Settings” button.  This will open a new window where you can define several options.  To have PodUtil create separate subdirectories for each Artist and Album in your collection, select these two options.  You will likely want to turn on the iTunes features as well… these will take the copied songs, add them to your library, and recreate your iTunes playlists!—two very, very helpful features when restoring a lost library.

3. De-select the songs (either in the main track list or in individual playlists) that you don’t want to transfer to the computer.

4. Click “Copy” in the bottom right of the main window to begin the process!

You’ll find the the upload occurs at a rather fast rate.  You can monitor the progress of your upload either at the bottom of the main window (as a progress bar), or in the track list (in the form of icons turning to green).

When the upload is complete, you’ll have a directory (or, if you selected the appropriate options, an iTunes Library) full of your iPod music.  With only a few button clicks, you have now transferred your iPod’s entire music library to your computer.  We didn’t need to search the iPod for its hidden directory or even use a file browser!

Advanced Copying Methods

If you decide to pay for a PodUtil registration key, you gain access to the features in the “Advanced” tab of the “Copy Settings” window.  These features, although not necessary for most users, are incredibly powerful for music management enthusiasts.

PodUtil’s advanced copying features enable you to specify a custom directory structure and filename format for the files that are copied from the iPod.

To try it out, enter into the “Copy Settings” window and choose “Advanced” from the pulldown menu.  You will be presented with options for “Path” and “Filename.” To the far right are pull-down menus for popular choices here, and the option to input your custom template.  While this system for templates may look a bit daunting at first, it really isn’t.

For example, a Filename template of ‘{%Album} - {%Track} - {%artist} ({%size}).{%extension}’ will yield a filename such as:

Dark Side of the Moon - 4 - Pink Floyd (5.1MB).mp3

Use the built-in advanced options as a template for your ideas, and be aware that you can also use these tags as well.

(Keep in mind that these advanced File and Pathname features are superfluous if you ultimately plan on importing all the music into iTunes, and you have iTunes set to “Keep my Music Library Organized.")

Conclusions:

PodUtil, as you have likely found already, thoroughly fills a void in Apple’s feature set with regards to copying music from the iPod to a computer.  Not only does it offer many features, it does so in an elegant interface that allows any user to easily transfer gigabytes of music and even import it all into iTunes to finish the job.

While we feel PodUtil is top-notch software, we once again urge our more advanced readers to try several freeware and shareware options to see which package best serves your needs.  Regardless of the software solution you choose, take comfort in knowing that several easy methods for recovering the music from your iPod that you once thought

Feel free to discuss your experiences with various iPod->Computer copying programs in the comments below!

Enjoy!

Read More......

Download.com Review of PodUtil

Download.com Review of PodUtil

iPod owners may quickly discover that removing music from their devices is not exactly an easy venture, but PodUtil makes quick work of this daunting task. The program takes a few minutes to scan your iPod for songs, then arranges them in an iTunes-like structure. Functionality-wise, you won't find much beyond the basics. After selecting the music you want to remove, you simply choose a destination on your computer and hit the Copy button. You also can opt to dump your music directly into iTunes. Besides its limited feature set, our main complaint is the application's sluggish scan speeds. Though PodUtil certainly is not the most feature-rich program available, it does exactly what it promises in a convenient and user-friendly manner.

With version 4.mumble of iTunes, Macintosh no longer supports copying songs from a person's iPod to their hard disk. They're obviously scared of going anywhere near the DMCA.

This is annoying for many reasons, mostly ethically (the DMCA is a terrible law and should be tested and fought, not anticipated), but also practically. There are good reasons why one might want to move one's data from an iPod to another device. For example, mere mortals can't replace the batteries on iPods; instead, the whole gadget has to be sent in. So, either you have 20 spare Gigs somewhere (more than the size of my entire hard drive when I first acquired the iPod), or you make a backup of your data before sending it out, or move it to a new iPod as a whole. Except you can't.

Or, say, you start out using an iPod on a Windows machine and then make that "switch" to a Mac they're trying so hard to get people to do. Well, the Mac version of iTunes uses a slightly different filing system for its data, and, while it can play the Windows data, it can't convert from the Windows version to the Mac version. All it can do is reformat the entire iPod and then put a new version on it.

So, you can't get your old stuff out, and you can't upgrade your iPod. Every time iTunes loads, it offers you to "upgrade" the software on the iPod, where "upgrade" means that it will delete all your music.

That's an annoying trap, but one can live with it (and those offers of upgrades can be turned off).

Things got worse for me the first time I actually bought music via the "iTunes" online store. They don't tell you this before you pay, but the protection claptrap around the songs is incompatible with the old iPod versions. The music can't be moved onto the iPod unless the iPod is upgraded, and that, of course, deletes all your music.

I wrote a nasty letter to Apple (where, I'm sure, it is ignored with great style even as we speak), and googled for workarounds.

Podutil is one of the tools you could use to do what Apple says you can't and refuses to keep doing for free. You run it, it either figures out correctly what iPod you have or you tell it, it scans the iPod, and then copies the music you own from one device you own to another device you own.

Yay.

Two gotchas:

• It's shareware. You can test it, and if you're really cheap, you can limp along, but otherwise, it costs ten quid. There's a payment thing with a British bank that lets you pay with your US credit card, no problem.

  If you don't pay the ten quid, it pops up a dialog box every 200 songs and asks you for confirmation. This pretty much keeps you from being able to just do something else for a while while the snarfing of songs is going on. It's annoying. So, if you're planning on paying anyway, pay early.

• By default, any errors in reading from the iPod make it abort the copying process with an error message. I had errors. Lots of them, like, 113. And there's really not much you can do about these; I mean, if Macintosh cared, we wouldn't be having this conversation, right?

  So, you want to find that setting and switch to the "continue" setting instead of the "the sky is falling" setting.

Other than that, everything seems to work as it should. Nice little utility. While catching up after an error abort, it even knew to skip files I already had - although that pop-up every 200 skipped files was still there to twist my arm until I paid up.

Once you have your music back, you can import it into the Library (on disk). The playlists and ratings will be lost, and there will be much useless duplication from one file on a disk to another file on the same disk, unless you turned that off.

If you fork over the money early (I think you need to pay for it, but of course, now that I have paid, I don't want to go back and test the unpaid state), you can tweak the copy to automatically add the copied files to iTunes and import the playlist into iTunes as well, with an optional prefix. There's a little format language for the filenames, even. The playlist import didn't quite work for me - the prefixed thing ended up being the name of my iPod, not the name of the playlist.

The thing that sucks most is that I can't seem to get my ratings back, but compared to the damage that would have been done otherwise, this is fairly mild.

Read More......

EphPod

More images

EphPod Editors' Rating Performance 8 Features 8 Service & support 6 Installation & setup 5 Interface & ease of use 5 Full Review Readers' Rating 0% 0% Rate this product List price Free Check Prices

Full Review

Troy Dreier July 10, 2002

EphPod makes your Apple iPod work with a PC. Beyond that, this application is a mixed bag. Although it includes some worthwhile features that Apple and XPlay do not, including contact syncing, EphPod has a lot to learn about ease of use. If you're a do-it-yourself type, EphPod's intricacies won't trouble you. However, if you want software that works without a lot of fine-tuning, turn to XPlay instead. Both XPlay and EphPod require software that lets your Windows PC recognise and mount Mac drives. Whereas XPlay comes with its own solution, MacDrive, built in, EphPod requires you to install either MacDrive or DataViz’s MacOpener. Although EphPod is free and comes bundled with a 15-day MacOpener demo, a full version of MacOpener will set you back $39.95 (~£26) -- a special price for EphPod users. Despite the tidy EphPod/MacOpener bundle, the two-part installation caused major problems in our tests. Once we installed the full version of MacOpener, for example, we couldn't get it to load, despite repeated reboots. Once we finally got both EphPod and MacOpener running, we had to adjust several controls in each program in order to synchronise our iPod and see its songs. Once you're ready to go, simply plug in your iPod and launch EphPod. Sadly, the EphPod interface looks about as elegant as a spreadsheet. The top of the cramped screen shows the basic iPod menus (Playlist, Artist, Songs and Contacts, along with a new item, Recent). Click one, and you'll see its contents displayed to the right, in the same window. The lower half of the window lists all the songs on your iPod in a large grid. Unfortunately, adding songs to that grid is painfully unintuitive. You can't drag songs directly into the playlist; instead, you must click the Add Songs button on the toolbar. If you create a new playlist -- there's no button to do so; you have to right-click in the playlist window, then select New Playlist -- and you want to add several songs simultaneously, you must select the playlist in the top window, highlight the songs you want to add in the bottom window, right-click the songs, then select ‘Add songs to playlist’. Although the EphPod doesn't look sophisticated, it’s strong on features. The software takes advantage of your 5GB or 10GB of iPod storage space and lets you synchronise contacts from Microsoft’s Outlook or hold any contacts in vCard format (in a special Contacts menu option on your iPod), so you can use your iPod as a makeshift PDA. If you're using Outlook, EphPod can automate contact syncing, too. EphPod can also grab the text from any Web page and load the content into contact forms, somewhat like AvantGo. EphPod also includes a built-in function that lets you download music from your iPod to your computer -- something that iTunes and XPlay both prohibit. This feature makes sharing music between computers extremely easy. If you need help outsmarting EphPod's unintuitive interface, you'll find a fair bit online. The EphPod Web site provides help documents, a link to user groups and a direct email link to the developer, who answered both of our test queries promptly and helpfully. Despite EphPod's rough spots, we think it could surpass XPlay in the future, thanks to its wealth of features. If you're after ease of use above all, stick with the more commercial XPlay. But if you have the patience and own a PC that's dying for some iPod action, give this home-grown application a try.

Read More......