Making Your Music MobileWith all this great music, you aren't likely to want to limit your listening pleasure to those times when you are working at your Mac. There are two ways in which you can make your iTunes music mobile: by creating your own music CDs or by using a portable MP3 player. Using iTunes to Create Custom Music CDsWith a Mac and a supported CD recordable drive, you can use iTunes to create your own music CDs. These CDs can contain specific playlists you can then listen to in your car, on portable CD players, and so on. CAUTION If you have a CD recording application installed on your Mac, such as Adaptec's popular Toast, you might have trouble getting iTunes to record CDs. If you experience problems when you attempt to record CDs using iTunes, remove any other CD writing applications you have installed. The general steps to use iTunes to record a custom CD are the following:
NOTE The process of recording a CD is more commonly called burning a CD, which is the terminology iTunes uses. Steps 1 and 3 have to be done only once, so after your system is properly configured, you can easily burn subsequent CDs. Configuring Your CD Recorder in iTunesBefore you can burn a CD, you need to ensure that your CD recorder is properly configured:
Each time you burn a CD or DVD, it is burned in the selected format. If you want to change the format of a disc, just use the previous steps to select a different format. TIP You should back up any music you purchase from the iTunes Music Store. A great way to do this is to periodically burn the Purchased Music playlist onto a CD, or after your music collection grows such that your purchased music won't fit on a CD or DVD. Burning an Audio CDWhen your system is configured properly, you are ready to create the CD:
CAUTION Use CD-R discs for audio CDs you create rather than CD-RW discs, especially if you will be using the CDs you create in noncomputer CD players. If you create an audio CD using a CD-RW disc, you probably won't be able to play it using any CD player except the one on which you created it (which wouldn't be very useful). When iTunes records your playlist to a CD, it first translates the music into the standard Audio CD format (assuming you elected to create an audio CD rather than an MP3 or data CD, of course). The application translates each of the songs on the CD prior to burning them. This process takes several minutes to complete. Watch the display area for progress and status messages. When it is done, iTunes begins recording the CD. CAUTION The spinning Burn CD icon gives you a clue as to how fast data is being transferred to the CD recorder. The faster the icon spins, the higher the data transfer rate is being achieved. If the icon slows considerably or stops altogether, you might experience errors because data isn't flowing fast enough to keep the CD burning process fed properly. If this happens, quit all applications that might be accessing any disks on your Mac and make sure that you aren't playing any music in iTunes. This ensures that the maximum amount of system resources is available for the CD burning process. You can also lower the burn speed to reduce the data flow requirements doing so often alleviates this problem. Depending on the speed at which your recorder works and the amount of data to record, this process can take only a couple of minutes or quite a while. When it is complete, iTunes plays a sound to indicate that the process is done. The CD you created is mounted on your Mac and is selected as the current source.
Using iTunes with an Apple iPodAlthough the Apple iPod is an MP3 player, it is much more than most MP3 players. Whereas many MP3 players are limited to 64MB or 128MB of memory, the iPod includes its own hard drive with 10GB, 20GB, or even 40GB of storage space. This means you can store an entire music collection on the iPod (about 10,000 songs for the 40GB model), which eliminates the chore of selecting a small subset of your library to take on the road with you. The iPod uses the FireWire interface to communicate with your Mac, so data transfers to and from the iPod much more quickly than it does with most other MP3 players (because most use USB 1, which is much slower than FireWire). In addition, iTunes is designed to make managing your mobile music with the iPod even easier than it is with standard MP3 players. For example, you can set up the iPod so it is automatically synced with your iTunes music collection, including the songs in your Library, playlists, and so on. Additionally, iPods can play music in the AAC format, which means you can also take music with you that you purchased from the iTunes Music Store without any additional steps. NOTE You even use an iPod to display your contacts and appointments. The iPod's only downside is its cost, which is higher than that of many MP3 players. At press time, the iPod costs $299 for the 10GB model, $399 for the 20GB model, or $499 for the 40GB model. However, if you consider that the iPod is actually a very small FireWire hard drive and includes an 8-hour rechargeable battery, its price doesn't seem as high. Also, keep in mind that you would have to buy many, many memory cards for most players for them to even approach the amount of music you can store on the iPod. Another nice feature of the iPod is that its battery can be recharged through the FireWire port. So, you can recharge your iPod just by connecting it to your Mac. iTunes is designed to keep the iPod in sync with your music Library. Here's how:
TIP iTunes contains a complete online help system for the iPod. To access it, select Help, iPod Help. When an iPod is connected to your Mac, it is mounted on the desktop and is available as a source in the Source pane (see Figure 16.23). You can work with an iPod as a source in ways that are similar to other sources. Figure 16.23. When an iPod is connected to your Mac, it appears on the Source pane.As you add music to your Library, create playlists, remove songs, and so on, you should keep your iPod current with your iTunes Library. You can control how this is done by setting preferences for the iPod using the Player Options button, which looks like the iPod itself. When you click this button, the iPod Preferences window opens (see Figure 16.24). The options you have in this window are explained in the following list:
Figure 16.24. The Player Options button enables you to configure how your iPod is synchronized with your iTunes music library. |