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NZ Macguide Issue 11
It's dark when I wake. I reach for my iPod and slip it out of its case. Flicking the Hold switch to the right, I check the time on the brightly lit display: 5.30. As usual I've woken before the alarm can start playing my Top Rated playlist through my stereo speakers. While I eat breakfast I check my email. NewsScan Daily has arrived [http://www.newsscan.com ]. I don't have time to read it now so I convert it to speech for later. A new client wants an appointment, so I add it to iCal and make sure I have their contact details in Address Book. I remember that we need more milk and bread so add them to my shopping list. Now I plug the iPod into my computer and let it synchronise iTunes, my calendar and address book. I export the shopping list to iPod Notes. While it's plugged in I do a quick backup of my Documents folder. That's about 1.5 gigabytes with over 23,000 files and nearly 3000 folders. Whew! Luckily with the high speed FireWire connection it takes only a few minutes, which gives me time to take my breakfast dishes back into the kitchen. Time to walk the dog. Coat, hat, shoes, lead, iPod, earbuds, remote - finally we're ready. Oops - it's a bit windy today, and I need to up the volume. Good thing I plugged in the remote as it makes it easier to do those small adjustments - no risk of fumbling and dropping my precious iPod. NewsScan Daily has several interesting articles. The 1300 words remaining after I chopped out the bits I didn't want to hear has turned into about eight minutes of listening. Too short for a dog walk, but I'd converted a few other newsletters into spoken word the other day so I listen to some of them too, along with the news items I'd grabbed. With the rest of the morning rituals out of the way I pack my PowerBook into my bag, and set out in the car to see a new client. Before the windscreen has even demisted I'm sick of the wars, violence and conflict being discussed on the radio. Out comes the iPod and dock, which I plug into the cassette adapter waiting in my car stereo. Oh, quickly wind down the volume - the dock pumps out sound much more powerfully than the headphone jack.  | Now I can listen to soothing music as I drive, instead of stressing about wars in other countries or violence in our own. After a short journey I'm nearly there, but need to check the exact address. I pull the car to the side of the road and press the Menu button on the iPod. After navigating to my Calendar I choose today, and then the appointment. This allows me to see the note I added in iCal with the address and instructions for finding the house. Once at my client's place I need to pass on an update file and some free software. Out comes the iPod again, with the FireWire cable, and I connect in to her Mac. After a few moments I've transferred the files to her computer, and also passed on a couple of movie trailers and a few of my own photos so she can have a bit more fun with her new machine. After that session I realise I have some spare minutes, and can call another client who needs to see me. I check their number in the Contacts on the iPod. There are a few minutes to fill in before they can see me, so I play a quick game of Solitaire (on the iPod of course) while I wait, though I also quickly check my ToDo list in readiness for the afternoon. Finally I head home via the supermarket. The shopping list's on the iPod, so I shouldn't forget anything. A few more hours work, and finally at the end of the day I can go to bed. My eyes are tired from reading and working on the computer screen all day. That's not a problem, though. I've bought a couple of Audible Books and a pair of comfortable headphones and can lie in bed and listen to a book. Sometimes I put the iPod in its Dock and plug the Dock into my stereo. The sleep timer makes sure to switch the iPod off if I nod off while still listening. Ah, the iPod. It's so much more than a music player! You Have Control
The iPod is so easy to operate. All iPods have a Select button with a scroll wheel around it. The first two generations of iPods have four buttons in a circle around that, while the third generation (3G) iPod has a row of four buttons between the scroll wheel and the screen. Those four buttons are Previous, Next, Menu and Play/Pause. On the top is a Hold button. If it's in the Hold position, none of the other buttons work. This is very handy when you're carrying the iPod around and don't want to accidentally switch it on or off, or jog the buttons. If the iPod (3G only) is off, then switching the Hold button to the release position will switch it on. If the hold button is already in that position (on older models) press any button to switch on the iPod. To switch it off, press the Play button firmly for a few moments. Use the scroll wheel to move around in the menus, and press the Select button to make a selection. Press the Play button to start a track playing, and Pause to pause it again. Also use the scroll wheel to alter the volume while a track is playing. The Menu button takes you back to the previous menu. Previous and Next allow you to move around between songs, dates, addresses, notes etc. Nice lighting The backlight works a little differently between the older models and the new model. On the new model just switch the iPod on or press a button and the backlight comes on. On the older models, you need to hold the menu button for a moment. There are of course many settings you can control. Each model has a Settings screen to allow you to configure the iPod to suit yourself. Apple also supplies a good iPod Users Guide as a PDF. I find I sometimes need to reset the device by holding both the Menu and Play buttons for a few moments - you should do this if it's behaving oddly (this kind of reset doesn't harm your music or other information). If you're listening to music or the spoken word and want to scroll to a place earlier or later in the track, press the Select button once and a small diamond will appear in a horizontal bar. Scroll clockwise to move the 'playhead' to later in the track, and anti-clockwise to move it to an earlier position. In the third (latest) generation iPods, you can press the Select button again while the track's playing to give the track a ranking. It will bring you to a screen with several grey stars. Scroll clockwise and the stars turn black. One star indicates you like the track a little while five stars indicate that you like it a lot. Changing the ranking as you go helps you know which tracks you've listened to. Another feature of the 3Gb iPods allows you to select the name of a track or playlist, and hold the Select button until the item you've selected flashes twice. That indicates you've added it to a special On-the-Go playlist which will be stored in the iPod's memory until the next time you synchronise it. Turn text into speech
I copy and paste the text into Tex-Edit Plus (US$15), my text editor. I remove the headers at the start of the newsletter and chop off all the copyright and subscription information at the bottom. An Applescript removes most of the URLs in a flash. I remove these things because I don't want to listen to long information about how to subscribe or unsubscribe, and because there's nothing more tedious than listening to some long URL (I can't click on anything and surf while the text is on my iPod. If there's something I want to follow up on, I do it from my Mac later). Once it's been tidied up I copy and paste it into iSpeakIt (US$9.95) and press the Transfer to iTunes button to convert the printed text to spoken word. I give it the filename of 'Newsscan (date)'. A few moments later, iTunes pops open and my newsletter appears in my News smart playlist. While I have iSpeakIt open, I also grab the Sci/Tech, Entertainment and Health stories from Google News. Shopping List
My shopping list is a VoodooPad file (US$10) I keep on my desktop. While the iPod's plugged in, I choose Export to iPod Notes from VoodooPad's File menu.  | You can set the Voice in System Preferences | Remote Control
The two larger-capacity iPods come with small remotes. The remote also has a Hold switch and buttons for Volume, Play/Pause, Previous and Next, plus a cunning small clip to allow you to clip it to your clothes. It doesn't, however, have a Select button. The Remote's particularly handy if your hands are damp, as otherwise it's impossible to operate the scroll wheel for volume changes. Choose your own Voice
My chosen voice is Victoria, and slightly speeded up. To set this voice I open the System Preferences and go to Speech. I click on Default Voice, and select Victoria from the list on the left. Then I slide the Speed slider a little to the Faster end. I press the Play button to test out my choices. Solitaire
While the second generation iPods had only the Brick game, the third generation iPod has Brick , Parachute and Solitaire built in. You move with the scroll wheel and shoot or select with the Select button. Even I can play these games. Audible Books
Audible Books has daily audio editions of magazines and papers such as The New York Times and Scientific American . There is also an extensive collection of audiobook best sellers and classics by authors such as Tom Clancy, Mary Higgins Clark, the Dalai Lama, Stephen Hawking, William Shakespeare and Jane Austen. These books are easy to add to iTunes and your iPod - and you can burn them to CD too. They don't use computer-generated voices, but professional actors and readers. © Parkside Media 2003
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