- Toss the PDA
- Using Your iPod as Your PDA
- Storing Data on your iPod
- iPod/PDA Tools for Mac Users
- iPod/PDA Tools for Windows Users
- What's Next?
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Storing Data on your iPod
For the most part, the iPod/PDA is a device for playing data stored on your iPod. There are three main formats in which you can save data on your iPod:
vCard
iCal or vCalendar
Notes
To store data on your iPod, you must have the iPod connected to your computer. Recently I updated Windows XP to the notorious Service Pack 2 (SP2)—with no problems so far, I have to admit—and SP2 even changed the icon on the My Computer screen to make it easy to find my iPod.
If you open My Computer, you'll see the iPod named IPOD; Figure 1 shows how the icon looks in SP2 for Windows XP.
Double-click the IPOD icon in My Computer to open a folder like the one in Figure 2.
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Figure
1 If you're running Windows XP and have installed the new SP2 Service
Pack, your iPod shows up in My Computer as a nifty MP3 Player icon.
)
Figure
2 Your iPod is only a fancy hard drive. Here you can see the folders within
my iPod.
Figure 2 shows the sections where you can store data on your iPod. The iPod_Control folder stores your songs and iTunes information such as playlists. The Notes folder stores text files (see Figure 3).
)
Figure
3 Text notes can be added to the Notes folder. These can then be read in your
iPod Notes section.
As you can see, you can even add folders with notes inside the Notes folder on your iPod.
In the Contacts folder, you can store all of your contacts as a single file, store multiple vCards, or simply list everything in one vCard. The formula is as follows:
BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:2.1 N:Flash;Extending;; FN:Extending Flash EMAIL;PREF;INTERNET:Extendflash@flashguru.co.uk REV:20040530T174351 UID:00000000190645CBE234E84DBBB4D5CBC448D3CC24F76800 END:VCARD
Just repeat this for each vCard. Seems a little overwhelming, right? Well, never fear, I disclose some cheats in the next couple of sections of this article.
The iCal and vCalendar features come with their own collection of gibberish. The good news is that there are a large number of tools you can use to import your tasks, calendars, contacts, and more into your iPod without having to be a programmer.