Bill Jennings said:
Questions:
- I think my home computer has an older USB port on it, not the 2.0 port, will this work to transfer songs?
Work? Yes. Veeeeeeeerrrrrryyyyyyyyy ssssslslllllllloooooowwwwwwwlllllllyyyyyy. USB 2.0 is 40 times faster than USB 1.1, and that makes a huge difference. If you decide to transfer that many songs via USB 1.1, plan on it taking overnight.
[*]I already have 5000 songs on the computer in MP-3 format, can I quickly dump them to the Ipod?
Quickly, within the limitations of your interface. It's not gonna be quick with USB 1.1.
[*]Do I need i-tunes installed on my computer to dump them?
Need? Well, technically no but it is by far the easiest way to do it. Download and install iTunes, drag your MP3 files onto it, plug the iPod in, it'll prompt you to name it and maybe one or two other things, and you're done. Again, if you're going to do the USB 1.1 overnight deal, just make sure that the transfer starts before you go to bed and it should finish just fine.
Basically, I want to quickly put tunes on the Ipod, and deal with learing i-tunes and all the other stuff later after the trip.
Really, there's not much of a learning curve for iTunes. Remember, user interface design is Apple's forte. It's one of the easiest to use programs ever written. The hardest part is figuring out what the various icons on the buttons mean, but they have "ToolTips" (keep the mouse still for a couple of seconds over the one you want to know about and it'll pop up and say something like "Show or hide item artwork and video viewer"). You'll have no trouble with learning iTunes at all.
But, not much you really need to do with iTunes before your trip except get the songs into it which should be a simple matter of dragging and dropping, depending on how you have your songs organized currently. Then, just plug in the iPod and you'll learn what "Plug and Play" *really* means. (And it's not "Plug, wait for Windows to try to figure out what the hell you just plugged in and prompt you for the install CD, install drivers, reboot, and then play"
)
Oh, and... What Jesse said.
And Mike. Aside from tunes, I would recommend you subscribe to some aviation-related podcasts. On the left-hand side of the iTunes window, click on "iTunes Store." The main part of the window will come up with the store content. In the upper-left box, click "podcasts". Then, in the box at the far upper-right hand corner of the window that says "Search iTunes Store" underneath, type "Aviation" or somesuch and you should find a bunch of aviation podcasts listed. The best ones, IMHO:
1. The Pilotcast. (duh.
) The shows are about an hour long and there's 48 of 'em, so you can have plenty to catch up on later. Frequent guests include our own Ron Levy, Dr. Bruce Chien, Tom Downey (and others), AvWeb's Rick Durden, and lots of other notable aviators. Fairly recently, we had actor/director/producer Tony Bill on to talk about Flyboys, Rinker Buck and Master CFI/Hudson corridor expert Doug Stewart to talk about the Lidle crash, and more. Other recommended episodes to listen to first include #18 (with Tom D, very educational), #25 with Rinker Buck (author of Flight of Passage, also available on the iTunes Store if you haven't read it yet), #33 with Blue Angels flight lead Boss Foley, #36 "The Gaston's Episode". Also, we got a ton of positive feedback about my full recording of the flight into Oshkosh Airventure, which is listed as "#40 OSH Update 1 Supplemental" or something like that.
2. The Finer Points. Quickie (6-8 min) episodes that focus on a very specific aspect of flying and how to do it better, from CFI Jason Miller (who did join PoA in the last week or so, I noticed...)
3. Fly With Me and Betty In The Sky With A Suitcase. The former is done by a Delta 777 captain, the latter by a Delta flight attendant. Both are very entertaining and well done, though they don't come out very often. IMHO the first episodes of Fly With Me to listen to are the retirement episode (around #6 or so), and this year's September 11th episode. Oh, and note that Fly With Me actually has two feeds, Fly With Me and Fly With Me X, you should subscribe to both.
4. The Flying Pilot podcast. American pilot who talks airlines, accidents, science, and history.
5. Airspeed, a GA podcast by a Michigan private pilot. Do not miss his latest episode, "First Solo." It's very touching and extremely well done.
What I do is to use the iPod's "on the go playlist" to put a bunch of podcasts and a few tunes in a playlist and let 'er rip. To add things to the on-the-go playlist on the iPod, just find what you want to add and when it's highlighted, hold down the select button (the one in the middle) until the selection blinks.
One last thing to know about the iPod: In the event it freezes up for some reason, the reset procedure some other folks have talked about is quite simple. Hold the select button and the menu button both down for a few seconds until an apple logo appears on the screen. This is the equivalent of the "three-finger salute" on your PC.
Oh, and if you're getting the video iPod (which the 80GB is), be sure to download the Blue Angels video in the Pilotcast feed as well. Pay special attention to the ridgeline crossing, it's way cool.
Hope I've helped a bit.
Hmm, I've got classical, jazz, pop, rap, country, and lots of eclectic stuff in between. Variety is the spice of life, and I like it spicy!