iPod manager NOT iTunes

[shocker-z]

My very nice director and hi wife decided to get all us engineers and other staff a 4GB iPod nano for Christmas (and free beer at his bar ) and i was wondering after using iTunes for 10 minutes is there any decent Logical ipod programs which make sense unlike iTunes because I've already had enough of the damn thing.


Liam

[busta]

Its unusual to hear criticism of iTunes. Its generally considered to be one of the most user friendly programs around. What exactly are you trying to do/ having problems with?

As far as I know alternatives are fairly thin on the ground.

[shocker-z]

Not stugling just don't like the program in general, like menu's appearing/disappearing when you connect/disconnect the ipod.. can't configure jack all if the ipod is disconnected too. maby it's just one of them things that i need to just use and get use to but off the first 30mins using it I'm not keen on it.

Just wondered if there were any other programs that were out that were better.


Liam

[Bodo]

Despite it being unusual to hear criticism on iTunes, there's quite a large list of alternatives for the ipod on Wikipedia. Many of them even allow extracting music other than iTunes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparis

For music management on Windows, I recommend Foobar2000:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foobar20

[PJR]

I would recommend spending a bit more time with iTunes to be honest. Its not perfect granted, but I find it very good none the less. I expect you just need to get used to it, then you'll appreciate it as most other people do.

P,

[pjskel]

You're having a problem with options not being available that relate to the iPod when the iPod's not connected?
Alrighty then!
First, add music files to iTunes by dragging and dropping, or simply open Preferences from the menu options and under Advanced tab, select General and tell iTunes which folder all your files are to be found.
Next, if importing from CD, choose Importing tab and tell iTunes you want the files to be MP3 and whatever bitrate you want (with 4GB, probably best to opt for 128 if you want as many songs as possible to choose from, otherwise 192).
Now, create Playlists by selecting the + button at the bottom left of the main window - click OK to save Preferences.
Now, you can drag the songs from the Library display into the playlists you've created.
Now, with the iPod connected, open Prefs once more and set the options to how you prefer them. Personally, I wouldn't bother with sync on conection since it'll try and sync the whole Library, so you're best to set it to Manual.
If you spend even 10-15 mins reading the Help section, you'll get an idea as to what each function does what and whether it's worth enabling or disabling.
Using iTunes is really straight forward and just as easy to get to grips with as the iPod is itself.
Any questions, search here or ask if it's not been answered already.
None of the iPod nor iTunes operations are rocket scientist grade knowledge based - a chimp could use it after a bit of playing around with it.