Put It on Your 'Pod
You have to remember that your iPod is really a portable hard drive that just happens to be able to play music. With that said, you can store all sorts of stuff on your iPod. If you are big into digital photography, you might want to store digital images on your iPod. The easiest way to do this is to drag and drop images from your computer right onto your iPod. You will see your iPod as an available hard drive from the My Computer icon on your desktop.
More hard-core photographers might be interested in the Media Reader kit from Belkin. The Media Reader attaches directly to your iPod and allows you to transfer files from your digital camera right onto your iPod. So, imagine this: You are at the county fair and the prize bull goes on the rampage. You start to frantically snap photos like a madman. Then, oh no! you camera's Flash memory is all used up (and you curse yourself for not upgrading), but you have your 40Gb iPod and your Belkin Media Reader kit. In no time at all, you have moved all your images from your camera to the iPod, and you can start snapping. Later you can move all your files to your computer when you next sync up. The timing is perfect as the prize bull is about to charge the mayor.
The iPod will store any file format. The only restriction you have is hard drive space. I know from my own experience that my 'Pod has more hard drive space than my laptop computer. When I travel, I am always concerned that someone is going to steal my computer. It is not really the computer that I am worried about, but what is on the computer. This happened to a friend of mine, and it took him a long time to replace his lost files. Now I back up my hard drive from my laptop to my iPod. I keep my iPod with me. When I travel, if someone were to steal my computer, it would be a real nuisance, but I could live with it. Then when I get to my destination, I simply patch my iPod to either a Firewire or USB 2.0 computer to find all of my work.
The iTunes and iPod combination packs a greater one-two punch than Windows Media Player or any MP3 Player. The two tools are extremely easy to use and do their job very well. All I need now is to be able to download movies through iTunes and hook up my iPod to a TV to watch my latest flick!