Tony's Tips

I'm Tony Bove, and welcome to my tips and techniques. I learned many of these tips over the years researching various editions of iPod and iTunes for Dummies and iLife for Dummies, and over the last three decades working with digital media as a producer, musician, and high-tech consultant.



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Tips on Using iPods iPhones and iTunes — including managing multiple iTunes libraries, synchronizing iPods and iPhones with iTunes or MobileMe, enabling an iPod as a hard drive, creating playlists directly on your iPod or iPhone, and more.

Tips on Importing and Managing Media Content — including importing records, tapes, photos and videos into iTunes, organizing photos, transferring large media files to others, converting DVDs and videos for your iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV, and more.

Tips on Managing Contacts and Calendars — including using iCal on the Mac or Microsoft Outlook on Windows.

MusicMatch Jukebox for Older iPods (PDF) — A PDF (portable document file) of Bonus Chapter 3 from the 5th Edition of my book, iPod and iTunes for Dummies. This bonus chapter explains everything you need to know about using MusicMatch Jukebox on Windows to organize playlists and synchronize early-model iPods (third- and fourth-generation).

Kick Out the Jams-GarageBand Overview — GarageBand turns your Mac into a portable recording studio with built-in instruments, special effects, thousands of pre-recorded loops, and the wisdom of at least one or two recording engineers. You can use royalty-free loops in your songs, play the synthesized instruments supplied with GarageBand (and add more from extra instrument packs), and even plug in a real guitar and use GarageBand's built-in amplifier simulators. You can also use its vocal features to quickly assemble podcasts.

Changing Windows Media Player Settings to use other players — Learn how to disassociate media file types from Windows Media Player (WMP), thereby liberating them to be used with other players. WMP automatically takes over all media on your PC, installs Microsoft's rights management, and spies on your music and video folders. It looks for new things to stuff into its library without your knowledge — unless you intervene by changing its options during the setup process or right after installing it. Here's how.

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