Get the most out of an old iPod

It will never cease to amaze me how quickly the latest, coolest, and sleekest iPod starts to look old, clunky, and just plain obsolete once Apple releases a new 'pod. My fourth generation iPod (yes, poor me, I'm one whole generation behind) just hasn't looked the same since the 5Gs came out.

But there is hope, aging-iPod owners! If you're not happy with your old iPod as it is, there are a few ways you can tweak and pimp your 'pod that should (hopefully) dispell all (or at least some) of that new-iPod envy!

Not all of these little tips are exclusive to your older iPod, but if you're looking to take your iPod's functionality to the limit, a few of these tips should prove very useful.

iPod your trips

If you've got a photo-capable iPod you can use iWay to generate directions for your iPod. iWay integrates with Yahoo! maps to get step-by-step directions to where you're going.

However, if public transport is the way you roll, iSubwayMaps offers downloadable subway maps for cities from Berlin to Hong Kong to New York, all optimized for your iPod.

iPod your dinner

The PodGourmet offers downloadable recipe databases. The original PodGourmet offers 260 gourmet recipes; if animal products aren't your thing, you can get 277 gourmet vegan recipes. The PodGourmet offers a free version of each, along with the full versions for $7.50.

Now that you've got the dinner taken care of, move on to the drinks with the free iPod Bartender. The iPod Bartender offers a whopping 230 drink recipes to match nearly any iPodGourmet recipe you can cook up.

Your iPod controls the world

If you're willing to put in a little time and money (around $25), you can turn your iPod into a universal remote [1G iPod and up] or make your iPod useful for school or work by running presentations. [iPod photo and up]

This functionality doesn't take much more than what you're iPod's already got, but a lot of people don't know that you can also use your iPod as an alarm clock.

Hack your hardware

Of course, nothing makes your iPod seem more dated than busted up hardware. Luckily, the older your iPod gets, the more willing you're likely to be willing to crack it open and take matters into your own hands.

Since your 'pod is a little old, chances are your disk may be pretty fragmented; if so, you might be able to speed up your iPod with a disk defrag. (Note: this has worked better for some than others - personally, I've noticed improved performance after a much-needed disk defrag.)

One thing that unites most iPod-owners, old and new, is scratches. No matter how careful you are, you've probably garnered your fair share of scratches. But with a little know-how and some elbow grease, you can make those scratches a thing of the past.

If you're having battery problems, you've still got some options. Finally, for the real diehards - if all seems lost and your hard drive has failed, you can still get away with a relatively cheap fix (cheaper than a new iPod, for sure) by replacing your iPod's hard drive.

Accessorize your iPod

So let's get down to it - there are a lot of things that you can do to spice up your iPod - a lot of them great, and a lot of them cheap/free. But when it comes to accessorizing, you might have to consider shelling out a little dough (remember, if the alternative is a new iPod, you can do a lot of spending before you've crested the new iPod purchasing price).

The first is the Smartdeck from Griffin. While I have had varying results using the SmartDeck (it doesn't always skip tracks as it should), I can attest to one thing that it has always done well for me: when I turn off my car or stop my car's tape player, my iPod stops. When I get back into my car and my cassette deck starts up again, my iPod starts playing. That alone has been well worth the buying price, which is little more than the price of a regular tape adapter.

The second is the Logitech Wireless headphones for iPod. With a pricetag of $120, these headphones aren't cheap, but they do something for your third or fourth generation iPod or iPod mini that can't yet be done for the 5G iPod - add Bluetooth wireless connectivity with the ability to remotely control the iPod from the headphones. For my money, I'd much rather be able to listen to and control my iPod while it's sitting comfortably in my go-bag than making the big upgrade to the video iPod - but then again, that's just me.

Put the penguin in your 'pod

The iPodLinux Project lets you install and run a Linux OS on your iPod, allowing you to install and run applications/games on your iPod. If you're really looking to hack and expand the abilities of your iPod (including the ability to record audio), the iPodLinux project is a very cool way to go.

Get a new iPod?

As you may have noticed, many of these hacks and tweaks aren't an option for all generations of the iPod. Unfortunately, at some point, if you want more you may just have to upgrade. If you've tweaked and hacked your iPod and you're still not happy with the results, you can always trade a bunch of your old CDs for an iPod.

So there you are - if your old iPod needs a little spice to keep it interesting in the world of the 5G video iPod, give a few of these options a go. That said, I'm sure that there are a lot of you who have found many other ways to squeeze as much as you can out of your iPod, old and new.

The self-sustaining iPod

Anyone with an iPod knows that being locked into your iTunes library can be a very annoying thing. And though there are a lot of solutions for working through this, I've never been entirely happy with the results.

What's more, if you're not a big fan of iTunes in the first place (or you're just not a fan of firing up that memory hog just to sync your iPod), it can be that much more annoying when iTunes puts its stranglehold on your iPod.

Unfortunately you can't really get that far with your iPod if you don't use iTunes, right?

Wrong! By the end of this little tutorial, you'll be able to rip a CD, sync the MP3s to your iPod, then play any music off your iPod from any computer without ever having to install anything on that computer - and not once will you have to open iTunes to do it.

That's right - add MP3s from any computer. For example, if your SO insists on ripping MP3s on her laptop rather than straight to your shared library, you can still easily sync her MP3s to your iPod. Or maybe you're on a public computer and you're eager to rip and import the CD you just bought to your iPod. Without installing any software on that computer or ripping any MP3s to its hard drive, you can rip and sync your new CD to your iPod.

What you'll need:

1. A Windows PC
2. An iPod (any iPod, from the shuffle and mini to the photo and video)

Here's how to get your iPod slurping up music from any computer or CD, any time, without installing anything on said computer.

1. Set your iPod as a removable hard drive. If you haven't already setup your iPod as a removable storage device, you can do so by plugging in your iPod and opening iTunes. Go to Edit -> Preferences and select the iPod tab. Next select the Music tab and click on the radio button labeled, "Manually manage songs and playlists." Click on OK.

   This will automatically enable disk use, and it will keep your iPod from automatically syncing (i.e. removing music you've added elsewhere) each time you plug it in. You'll want to keep your photo and video settings the same for the time being. [1]

2. Setup CD ripping.

   Now you'll want to download and install the awesome free CD ripping program CDex. But rather than installing it to your computer's hard drive, you're going to install CDex to your iPod. Assuming you've setup your iPod for disk use, just install it as you would any program and direct it to a folder on your iPod. I'll be installing everything in this tutorial to a folder named, "Lifehacker iPod Pack."

   To rip a CD to your iPod, go to My Computer -> YOUR IPOD -> Lifehacker iPod Pack -> CDex_150 and run CDex.exe. You can now get track names from CDDB (you need to enter an email address to do this) and rip the songs to... you guessed it, your iPod. [2]

   Go to Options -> Settings and select the Filenames tab. Change the Recorded Tracks directory to a folder on your iPod (I've chosen F:\\Ripped MP3s for my directory). Click OK and then click on the "Extract CD track(s) to Compressed Audio File(s)" button (the default compression is MP3). Now CDex will rip the CD tracks to your iPod.

   Of course, at this point you've only ripped MP3s - it's going to take a little more to add them to your iPod's database and start playing them.

3. Sync the music to your iPod. Download and install the free Windows iPod music transfer software, vPod.

   vPod is a program for transferring music to your iPod from Windows. It presents a unified view of all of your music and lets you see what is and what is not already on your iPod.

   vPod is the glue that holds this whole process together (and it's an awesome glue).

   Install vPod in the same folder you installed CDex, again to your iPod. When you've finished installation, run vPod. From vPod, go to iPod -> Select iPod Drive... and direct it to your iPod (e.g., My Computer -> ADAM'S IPOD). vPod will read your iPod's database and populate all of your music organized by Artists, Albums, and Playlists.

   Now you can finish the job you started. Go to File -> Add Files To Library, then select your Ripped MP3s folder. vPod will scan your selected folder and any music that isn't already on your iPod will be populated in the list without a check in the checkbox. [3]

   

   Find your imported music and check what you'd like to add to your iPod (or uncheck anything you'd like to remove) then select iPod -> Synchronize.... Your iPod will be updated with all of your added/removed MP3s. If you ripped your MP3s to the Ripped MP3s folder, you can delete them - they're in your iPod's weird file structure now.

4. Play your music. So you've ripped MP3s and you've synced up your iPod without placing one file on the computer you're plugged into - now it's time to play your songs.

   Download the freeware application Pod Player from iPodSoft, a program designed to run and play music directly off your iPod. The Pod Player is a very lightweight program that loads your iPod's music database and plays any song off your iPod in an iTunes-ish interface (it also allows you to open a playlist externally, if you prefer).

   Finally, as if things weren't already good enough, the Pod Player will allow you to easily extract any songs off your iPod onto the computer you're currently connected to in that oh-so-familiar Artist -> Album folder format.

At this point, if you've followed along and installed all of the software, you should have a wonderfully self-sustaining iPod that you can add and remove music from completely sans iTunes. Add music from any music library on any computer, rip and add MP3s to your iPod, and play your iPod's music library on any computer without ever having to install anything.

I know I've been on somewhat of an iPod kick lately, whether it's getting the most out of an old iPod or getting free content for your video iPod, but this time I'm content. My iPod has finally achieved the status of truly beautiful.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The vPod software mentioned later in the article currently supports syncing music only, but the software's author says that a newer version with photo and video support should be released in a month or so.

[2] You don't have to rip the MP3s to your iPod, but in the spirit of doing everything on your "self-sustaining iPod," I'm keeping everything on the 'pod.

[3] If you're only interested in syncing your iPod to the music library on another computer, just select the music folder from the computer rather than your iPod's Ripped MP3s folder.

BitTorrent tips&tricks

Throttle your BitTorrent downloads on a schedule

BitTorrent downloads and uploads can hog a lot of your internet connection's bandwidth, especially if you're sharing popular content. You could just exit uTorrent whenever you want to ensure you've reserved a sufficient portion of your bandwidth for your web surfing and email, but if you're like me, you'll forget to start it back up—meaning you'll end up delaying your downloads (most likely until you want whatever was supposed to be downloading, at which point you will slap your forehead).

To remedy this situation, uTorrent comes with an excellent and simple Scheduler feature that you can access through the Preferences (go to Options -> Preferences, then find Scheduler in the sidebar). Tick the box next to "Enable Scheduler" and you'll see a grid of green boxes light up. The grid runs Monday through Sunday, midnight to midnight (or 0:00 to 23:59), one box per hour. Here's how it works:

• Dark green boxes indicate that uTorrent will download and upload at full speed (or whatever you've set as its full speed).
• Light green boxes indicate limited download and upload rates.
• White boxes indicate that uTorrent will not download or upload any content.

I've always got a little bandwidth to spare on my connection, but I certainly don't want uTorrent hogging my bandwidth while I'm working, so I set the Scheduler to limit speeds from 8am to midnight every day. During the wee hours of the morning, when I'm very unlikely to be at my computer, I open the flood gates and give uTorrent unlimited upload/download speeds. Also, since I try to stay away from my computer for most purposes on Saturday, I keep uTorrent at full throttle. See the screenshot above to see what this sort of schedule would look like.

Like I said, my connection can handle a little bit of bandwidth bleeding all of the time, so when I'm running at limited rates, I set my upload speed to 5 kB/s and my download speed to 15. Handy, huh?

Set global bandwidth limits

If you never want uTorrent to grab an unlimited share of your bandwidth, you can set global up/down limits by going to the Connection section of the Preferences. The settings are fairly self-explanatory—just set your max upload and download rates (in kB/s), or choose 0 to keep the rates unlimited.

Ensure a good share ratio without wasting extra bandwidth

As I mentioned in the beginner's guide, an important part of BitTorrent is sharing, and a good member of the BitTorrent community gives as much as he/she takes. In fact, many sites, especially private trackers, keep a close eye on your share ratio and may even ban you if you don't keep your ratio above a certain point (i.e., if you are a "leecher"). I'm in total agreement of the whole share-and-share-alike attitude, but once I've shared an equal part of what I've downloaded, I don't want to waste too much extra bandwidth on that torrent.

Rather than constantly checking your torrent ratios so you can remove them as soon as they cross the 1.0 barrier, go to the Queuing section of uTorrent and find the "Seed While" section. There you can set a goal ratio for a file you're sharing, then set how much bandwidth uTorrent will allocate to the torrent once that goal is reached (in the screenshot, for example, uTorrent will stop sharing the file after its share ratio reaches 110%).

Protect your file sharing privacy with PeerGuardian2

PeerGuardian2 is an IP-blocking application that keeps a defined list of computers with blacklisted IP addresses from connecting to your computer. For our uses, the intent of PG2 is to keep anti-P2P organizations from tracking your downloads. Before anyone gets a false sense of security, running PeerGuardian2 will not protect you from being spied on outright, and like one reader pointed out last week, an IP blocker is only as good as its blacklist. However, a lot of people still like using PG2 and consider it a good layer of protection—however thin—against being spied on by anti-P2P organizations. In general, there's nothing bad about PG2, so running it probably won't hurt anything (though one reader said it blocked a torrent tracker he was connected to). But if it turns out that someone was keeping track of your BitTorrent downloads, don't blame ol' PeerGuardian2.

How to control your computer with your iPhone

It's a phone, it's an iPod, it surfs the web, and it finds the closest restaurant serving fried calamari. If you hack it, you can install killer third-party applications. But in addition to all of that, the iPhone is also a killer remote control. You could spend hundreds of dollars on a multimedia remote with a touchscreen interface, glorious album art, and all of the fixings, but if you've already got an iPhone, you really don't need to. Today I'll show you a number of ways you can use the iPhone to remote control everything from iTunes playback to your Windows or Mac desktops.

Control iTunes Playback

Probably the most practical and generally useful application of the iPhone-as-remote, there are a handful of tools that let you remotely control iTunes playback with your iPhone available for both Windows and Mac PCs. The one thing they have in common: They all work inside the iPhone's Safari browser.

Remote Control iTunes with Signal (Windows/Mac)

Signal is a shareware Windows and Mac application. Not only is Signal the most attractive iTunes remote solution, but it's also the easiest to set up (with the exception of Telekinesis, which—although it's not as attractive or feature-rich—is extremely simple to set up). To get started, just point your browser to the Signal homepage and grab the free demo. Once installed, point your iPhone's browser (or any browser, for that matter) to http://yourlocalIPaddress:3569 to get started.

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The demo isn't that crippled, especially considering you still get nearly as much and sometimes more functionality with the demo version as you do with the full versions of the other freeware solutions for iTunes remote control. When you're searching your library, it displays "Please Register to View" for every third item. That means you can get a good look at what the application can do and can decide whether or not you're interested in purchasing a license for a somewhat steep $29.95. I'm not sure it's worth all that, but it really is chock-full of impressive AJAX-y goodness and uses virtually the same interface as the iPod's Now Playing screen.

Remote Control iTunes with iPhone iTunes Remote (Mac):

If you prefer to go the open source route, iTunes iPhone Remote is a Mac application written in Python and AppleScript that runs a simple web server (like the rest). To install it, you need to install the AppleScript Python module from SourceForge and then download and extract the latest release (linked at the bottom of the page). Unzip the folder, then navigate to it in Terminal and type python run.py. Then just point your browser to http://yourlocalIPaddress:8000. From here you can navigate your library, play and pause music, and adjust the volume.

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It's still a little barebones and not everything works perfectly (it's not as polished as Signal), but it works pretty well and it's free. Additionally, the developer says a new version is in the works to be released in about a month, so it could improve dramatically.

Remote Control iTunes with the PSP Remote App (Windows):

If you want to go open source for Windows, you can try something like this previously mentioned iTunes PSP remote control hack, which is just running a web server and optimizing the display for a small screen—which means it could be ideal for your iPhone. To use it, you'll first need to set up a personal web server (or install the server in the linked howto). Then, after copying the appropriate files to the appropriate directories, you'll point your iPhone browser to http://yourlocalIPaddress:81/iTunesRemote.php.

The problem with this one is that it's really not optimized for iPhone display, but it's also open source, meaning that if you want to roll up your sleeves and dive into the HTML template and CSS file, you could potentially get a pretty good layout worked out.

Remote Control iTunes, Launch Applications, Browse Your Files, Snag iSight Shots, and More with Telekinesis (Mac)

Aside from iTunes remote control capabilities (which are currently limited to play/pause, track seeking, and volume adjustments), the open source application Telekinesis can launch applications and files or serve them up to your iPhone—once again, though Safari.

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After you install it, you can access Telekinesis at http://yourlocalIPaddress:5010. You'll see the launch page, from which you can browse and launch applications (apps will launch remotely on your computer), snap a shot with your iSight camera, browse and launch files from your documents folder (actually, you can easily browse to any folder on your hard drive and launch pretty much any document), and even serve files that your iPhone can handle—like images—directly to the phone.

Remote Control Your Desktop with VNSea

Last, if you've followed along with our instructions for installing third-party iPhone applications, you can use Installer.app to install a VNC client called VNSea. If you've set up a VNC server on your home computer, you should be able to use VNSea to connect to and control your home computer just like (or at least sort of like) you're sitting in front of it. Keep in mind, though, that VNSea is currently in very early stages of development, and it froze up on me a lot when I was testing it out. In a bit more time, though, it's sure to be an excellent remote desktop solution.

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Money online...quick and easy money from home

The process is easy! You simply click a link and view a website for a few seconds to earn cash.
Some days you will have more clicks available, some days you will have less. You view websites in a few seconds via the "Surf Ads" page. Once the few seconds is up, you'll either get a green tick sign or a red 'X'. The green tick sign means you've earned money for the visit and the 'X' means you have not earned money for the visit. You'll get red X's when you have more than one website from the "Surf Ads" page open. When this happens, you get no credit. You can earn even more by referring friends. You'll get paid $0.01 min for each website you personally view. Payment requests can be made every day and are processed through PayPal or Alert-Pay. If you have the minimum amount accumulated, you can click on your account balance within your stats area and it will submit your request.

AWSurveys: $4 for every survey, $75 cashout
Companies spend Billions of dollars a year trying to convince consumers that their products are the best and to buy their products and services. They achieve this by getting an understanding how people think and shop. Knowing this, companies are willing to pay you for your opinions. Overall your opinion could help the companies to upgrade their products and services.
We periodically post new surveys. They are based on age, gender, etc. We normally E-mail when new surveys are available, but please check back regularly for new survey opportunities for some might not be E-mailed. Please do not E-mail asking for more surveys for this will not increase your survey amount.
One of the advantages of taking surveys online is that you can do them at your convenience. That is one of the best parts about surveys and why it's the easiest way for the average person to make some extra cash. You can do it at your own pace. If you have an extra 30 minutes in the morning before you go off to work, you can do a few surveys then. If you have any other spare time throughout the day you can do them and earn money. The great thing about this is that if you get busy with other things and don't have any time to do surveys for awhile, that is okay. You are can decide when you want to do them. You can do surveys when it's convenient for you.

Spainbux: $0.01 per click, $10 cashout

Hits4pay: $10 for sign up, $0.02 for each validated email that you read, $25 cashout

Wordlinx: $0.01 per click, $10 cashout

Bux3.com: $0.05 Sign-up Bonus, $0.01 per click, $10 cashout

Bux.to: $0.05 Sign-up Bonus, $0.01 per click, $10 cashout

Just-Click: $0.01 per click, $10 cashout

MyLot: get paid (cash!) for your valuable contributions

Fast.sc: up to $0.01 per click, $10 cashout

DailyClicks: $0.01 per click, $10 cashout

PaidClicks: up to $0.01 per click, $10 cashout

Closet-Clickers: get pait to click and read mails

AdverCash: up to $0.01 per click, $12.5 cashout

TitanClicks: $0.01 per click, $10 cashout

AGEBUX: $0.01 per click, $3 cashout

PayToClick: $0.01 per click, $10 cashout

BuxSense: $0.01 per click, $1 cashout

KingBux: $0.01 per click, $10 cashout

ClickEarnMoney: $0.01 per click, $10 cashout

SuperBUX: Earn a very generous $0.03 per link clicked

Easy.tc: $0.05 for sign up, $0.01 per click, $10 cashout

Click4Ads: only $1 cashout

PopularBUX: Get Paid to visit, read & visit, complete offers(Signups) or Promote the site: min $0.01 per click, sign up, $5 cashout

UsaBUX: $0.01 per click, $9.99 cashout

WolfBUX: $0.01 per click, $0.02 per premium click, $10 cashout

Gold5Plus: $0.01 per click,$8.99 cashout

SebasBUX: $0.01 per click, $10 cashout

DevClix: $0.01 per click, $10.75 cashout

ClixNcash: $0.01 per click, $10.75 cashout

Power-Mails: read mails and get paid

PolishBUX: $0.02 per click, $1 payout

LibertyBUX: $0.15 for sign up,$0.01 for click, $15 payout

Zbest4bucks: $0.01 per click, $10 cashout

PornoBUX: $0.01 per click, $25 cashout

YayClick: $0.005 per click, $10 cashout

ClickSalary: min $0.01 per click and mail, no payout

BuxZone: $0.01 per click, $0.5 payout

HiperBux: $0.03 per click, $5.99 cashout

ShareBux: $0.01 per click, $1 cashout

Cash-Truck: $0.01 per click, $10 cashout

BUXEURO: €0.01 for click, €7.99 cashout

What is PayPal?
PayPal is the payment processing solution that we use to pay members. Your PayPal address is the e-mail address you use to register with PayPal. You can get a free PayPal account at http://paypal.com. If you have a business account with PayPal, they charge a 2.9% transfer fee plus an additional $0.30 base fee when you receive funds.

What is Alert-Pay?
AlertPay.com, a privately owned and managed company founded in 2004, is an electronic wallet (e-wallet) payment system enabling any business or consumer with email to send and receive internet payments securely, quickly and cost-effectively. With its office headquarters in Montreal, Canada, AlertPay is available to users all around world.