I noticed in another post you said you couldn't change the orders of songs in a playlist. This drove me crazy one evening, and took me hours to figure out, so I share your pain. It's simple, but at the same time, it's not.
Within the playlist, click on the little title bar above the track numbers. In my version of iTunes, it turns blue and there's a little up or down arrow when that column is selected. Then you can drag and drop to re-order songs. For some reason, if you've got Artist or Album or any of the other columns selected, it won't let you drag and drop to change song order.
1. I guess we have different versions of iTunes. But the option is in there, somewhere, or at least has been in every version of iTunes I've used. Unfortunately I'm not sure where the menu option is in your version. Here's what it looks like in mine: http://static.flickr.com/40/123294516_3190bf2eff_o .jpg
I also think (but I'm not sure) that you're changing a setting on the iPod itself when you do this. So you may also have a different version of the software for your iPod and that's why the menu is different. I note that your screenshot shows a 1.1 in the corner of the iPod menu, whereas mine says 2.3.
2. I was just trying to be helpful. I'm really sorry you've had problems with iTunes and you have every right not to like it. I don't even like it that much. (I hate that you have to have a music file saved on the iPod as data - not music - in order to be able to take it off the iPod - IOW, to use the iPod like a flash drive. But I still think that might a DRM/industry pressure thing and not an Apple thing.)
You can turn off the auto-sync. Just go to Edit --> Preferences and select the iPod tab. Select "Manually manage songs and playlists"
I use three different computers to manage the songs on my iPod, and none of them have the same music on them. My work computer barely has any, save a few albums I've bought from iTunes. My home computer is brand new and doesn't have much music on it yet. My boyfriend's computer holds pretty much our entire music library.
It's also billed like one, so if you bank charges an ATM fee you'll get one. Hence this mode isn't used very often.
No. I've had check cards from various banks over the past 10 or so years - and I've never been charged ATM fees for using the card in debit mode. In fact, if I need cash I'll often just go to Walgreens or some other retailer that gives cash back and buy a pack of gum or something and get cash back, rather than pay a fee to use an ATM. (For those not familiar with cash back, basically the retailer charges the debit card for the purchase plus the amount you want back in cash, and just gives you the cash from the register.)
That said, I will probably start using the card only in credit mode from now on, to avoid being caught up in this PIN hack thing. My guess is given how successful this hack has been (read The Consumerist to see how it has become more and more widespread by the day) there will only be more security breaches of this type. If Walgreens ever gets hacked, I'm screwed because there's one on the first floor of my office building that I visit (and in which I conduct debit transactions) almost daily. The other bonus to signing rather than using your PIN is if you have a rewards check card, you only earn the rewards for signed purchases, not debit transactions.
That's hilarious - I'm in Chicago too and the exact same thing happened to me. Postcard offering AT&T cable and internet, call up, "not available in your area yet". "When will it be ready?" "Call back every month to find out the status. Oh, but don't bother calling until spring because they aren't burying lines in winter." I find it a little bizarre that a company would spend money to print and send postcards to addresses that they must know aren't in the service area yet.::shakes head::
Anyway, I went with SBC DSL for about 3 years and just last weekend switched to Comcast. Our voice service on the SBC land line is really terrible quality; sometimes the calls are so scratchy you can't hear the person on the other end. And SBC refused to fix them even though I've paid for the "Line-backer" thing, which supposedly should cover it. We did manage to harass them enough to get the part of the line replaced that we used for DSL, because we were losing our connection daily; but we had to pay for the service call. ("Line-backer doesn't cover DSL service calls, only voice service calls." I paid $5 a month for 3 years to those jerks and they couldn't come out and fix a problem that was preventing me from using the service I was paying for. To make it worse, we were stuck in a contract for the cheap DSL until just this month so we couldn't switch.)
We may well have jumped from the frying pan into the fire by switching to Comcast (and we plan to drop the land line altogether and get SunRocket VOIP too). But the one time we had a problem with our digital cable, Comcast was very helpful in checking things remotely and then sending someone on a Saturday when it was needed to fix the problem.
Isn't it at least telling the iPod to start spinning the hard drive to access the database? I'm asking an honest question since I admit I don't know how the thing works.
iTunes does no such thing. It merely downloads the music to the player for storage, control, and later playback by the player. i.e. An iPod cannot be reasonably compared with directly controlling a "player piano".
When I bring my iPod to work every day and connect it to my work computer, I use iTunes to select which songs to play through my computer speakers. Since these songs reside only on my iPod, it is most certainly controlling the music device. When I push Play/Pause/Skip in iTunes, the song on the iPod is played/paused/skipped. In fact, I'm not even sure you can control the iPod through its own interface when it is plugged in to the computer. The display just reads Do Not Disconnect or OK to Disconnect.
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I noticed in another post you said you couldn't change the orders of songs in a playlist. This drove me crazy one evening, and took me hours to figure out, so I share your pain. It's simple, but at the same time, it's not.
Within the playlist, click on the little title bar above the track numbers. In my version of iTunes, it turns blue and there's a little up or down arrow when that column is selected. Then you can drag and drop to re-order songs. For some reason, if you've got Artist or Album or any of the other columns selected, it won't let you drag and drop to change song order.
I also think (but I'm not sure) that you're changing a setting on the iPod itself when you do this. So you may also have a different version of the software for your iPod and that's why the menu is different. I note that your screenshot shows a 1.1 in the corner of the iPod menu, whereas mine says 2.3.
2. I was just trying to be helpful. I'm really sorry you've had problems with iTunes and you have every right not to like it. I don't even like it that much. (I hate that you have to have a music file saved on the iPod as data - not music - in order to be able to take it off the iPod - IOW, to use the iPod like a flash drive. But I still think that might a DRM/industry pressure thing and not an Apple thing.)
You can turn off the auto-sync. Just go to Edit --> Preferences and select the iPod tab. Select "Manually manage songs and playlists" I use three different computers to manage the songs on my iPod, and none of them have the same music on them. My work computer barely has any, save a few albums I've bought from iTunes. My home computer is brand new and doesn't have much music on it yet. My boyfriend's computer holds pretty much our entire music library.
No. I've had check cards from various banks over the past 10 or so years - and I've never been charged ATM fees for using the card in debit mode. In fact, if I need cash I'll often just go to Walgreens or some other retailer that gives cash back and buy a pack of gum or something and get cash back, rather than pay a fee to use an ATM. (For those not familiar with cash back, basically the retailer charges the debit card for the purchase plus the amount you want back in cash, and just gives you the cash from the register.)
That said, I will probably start using the card only in credit mode from now on, to avoid being caught up in this PIN hack thing. My guess is given how successful this hack has been (read The Consumerist to see how it has become more and more widespread by the day) there will only be more security breaches of this type. If Walgreens ever gets hacked, I'm screwed because there's one on the first floor of my office building that I visit (and in which I conduct debit transactions) almost daily. The other bonus to signing rather than using your PIN is if you have a rewards check card, you only earn the rewards for signed purchases, not debit transactions.
Anyway, I went with SBC DSL for about 3 years and just last weekend switched to Comcast. Our voice service on the SBC land line is really terrible quality; sometimes the calls are so scratchy you can't hear the person on the other end. And SBC refused to fix them even though I've paid for the "Line-backer" thing, which supposedly should cover it. We did manage to harass them enough to get the part of the line replaced that we used for DSL, because we were losing our connection daily; but we had to pay for the service call. ("Line-backer doesn't cover DSL service calls, only voice service calls." I paid $5 a month for 3 years to those jerks and they couldn't come out and fix a problem that was preventing me from using the service I was paying for. To make it worse, we were stuck in a contract for the cheap DSL until just this month so we couldn't switch.)
We may well have jumped from the frying pan into the fire by switching to Comcast (and we plan to drop the land line altogether and get SunRocket VOIP too). But the one time we had a problem with our digital cable, Comcast was very helpful in checking things remotely and then sending someone on a Saturday when it was needed to fix the problem.
Isn't it at least telling the iPod to start spinning the hard drive to access the database? I'm asking an honest question since I admit I don't know how the thing works.