I know that’s probably not the correct title to use for this but I couldn’t think of what else to call this blog.
Unlike most of our generation it’s taken me a while to take a look at an IPod everything friends had told me about them made them sound completely pointless – i mean who wants an MP3 player that you can sync with multiple PC’s without continually erasing it. Through my recently little holiday I forced to make a choice do I take my XPS or do I buy and MP3 player, I had a look around and the 160GB IPod seemed to be a good option despite it’s downsides I just wanted something I could store 12000 tunes on so I could swing in my hammock and chill.
So for this purpose the IPod is surprisingly good, now I’m back from hammock duty I want to explore how I can unlock the IPod and sync with multiple computers and even were possible remove MP3’s/AAC’s to free up space without deleting them. e.g. I get a tune of my friend when I get home I want to put it into my library, you can’t do that with iTunes.
So after a couple of hours searching I found a couple of very useful windows applications:
IPOD Access for Windows being my preferred tool, please read the read-me that comes with this tool as some people that have used it incorrectly have lost all their music. Not an issue if you know how to recover files on your PC but if not many tears if you’ve spent years building your library.
Best tip for using it is this: When you connect your IPod be patient and wait for iTunes to open, once it has opened exit itunes and then open task-manager(ctrl+shift+escape) now go to processes and check that itunes.exe isn’t still running on the machine, if it isn’t you’ll be fine and you can now open IPOD Access for Windows…that’s the only tip i need to give you as the software itself is very easy to use with a very nicely written GUI that makes it easy to use, you just need to have a basic grasp of english and be capable of using a mouse 
Since I found this application I’ve managed to synchronise about 6 ipods, prior to me finding this all 6 ipods had different tunes, i now have a 16000 tune library that is made up of 6 of my friends collections….
Disclaimer – I think this may be illegal but I don’t care due to licensing on the tracks themselves but i really don’t care most of my music is illegally downloaded to replace lost CD’s or when I had my Car broken in and I had nearly 200 CD’s stolen. I know I should claim on insurance but an 18 year old’s insurance is pricey enough without a claim for CD’s going through.
Anyway hope this helps I’ll write a little article about Video Conversion for the IPod soon…
Oh and I may review the Ipod touch just so I have an excuse to get and maybe the IPhone as well…
