Ipod, how does it work ?

[<Tripod>]

Pardon my ignorance. . . but how does an " ipod " work, can I download songs from my computer

[<Idude>]

it is a mini harddrive basicly. Then you take some MP3s and put them onto your Ipod and then you have yourself a little jukebox. Some Ipods you can put 10000 songs on there! You can even use it for doc/whatever files and such.

[The Old Guy]

You can load CD's you already own, MP3's you downloaded from the Internet and you can also purchase songs from Itunes.com at either 99cents per song or $9.99 per album.

[ January 14, 2005, 10:43 PM: Message edited by: The Old Guy ]

[JTFCM]

Are they PC compatible? or just MAC? I'm interested as well.

[<apple>]

they are compatible with both.
it's just a hard drive you format with either the windows or apple file system so your computer can read the files on it.
you sync it up with the music collection on your computer using the "itunes" software that is available for both platforms on apple's website (you can use itunes without an ipod as your mp3 player if you'd like to try it out).

since it is basically just a hard drive you can store any type of file on it, though it will only play mp3's (and apple's proprietary music format but we don't need to get into that). there is now a "photo ipod" that will allow you to view digital images on a color lcd screen. of course the obvious evolution would be the "video ipod", but don't expect that for a couple of years.
since ipods are good portable storage a lot of productions are using them to transport footage from the field to the edit suite, which i believe is what they did on the lord of the rings set.

aside from that, another good tidbit of info would be to not wear the distinctive white ear buds in a bad neighborhood because i've known people who have gotten jumped. an easy target and you know the person has a $300 toy in their pocket.