Pod People

By Jerry Pournelle

October 31, 2005

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Column 303 (Continued from the Previous Week)

Enter the iPod

When I updated my Mac it also updated iTunes to the latest version, so now I was set to transfer my space songs, and the first Mosse lecture, to my new 20 GB iPod. Joy.

When you plug in the iPod it's supposed to open iTunes automatically. I was assured of that. In my case it didn't, so I opened iTunes manually. It certainly saw my iPod and asked me to name it, helpfully suggesting "Jerry Pournelle's iPod." I decided on Captain Flint. (Naming happens only the first time you plug in an iPod.)

Some of iTunes is highly non-intuitive, but it's simple enough once you understand. The actual files are kept in one big list in the library. You can then begin to structure that list.

It's easy enough to create album categories (they're called 'playlists') and the like by clicking on the little plus sign down at the bottom of the program, but if you want to create a 'smart playlist' you need to go to the top menu, click file, and select 'smart playlist,' which isn't one of the categories offered down in the program button area. The thing about smart playlists is that you can set up rules, a bit like Outlook, and any songs that satisfy those rules will be put into that playlist.

Incidentally, Peter Glaskowsky tells me that if you do Option-click on the little plus sign you will get the same result. I don't feel so bad about not knowing that since Roland didn't either.

I gave my playlist the name George Mosse and set the rule that any song that had Mosse as artist would go into that. Understand, playlists are shortcuts; there's never more than one copy of the actual file, but the same song can be in dozens of playlists if that's the way you want to organize things. In my case I only had the space filksongs, and the Mosse lectures. I've been adding other items since, including Podcast, but that's all I had when I started.

If you're wondering what a podcast is, you shouldn't feel alone; it's an odd word, and while it's pretty obvious from context that it has something to do with the iPod, it's not quite clear what the term means.

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