It was 17 degrees outside as I was leaving for work. Brr! Here are some nifty iPod tips I have discovered for you.
Use Smart Playlists Smart playlists are one of the great features of iTunes / iPod. You define search criteria of your playlist, not the specific songs for the playlist. Once the Smart playlist is defined when you add new (or remove) music the playlist is automatically updated.
Name your playlists smartly I keep several categories of playlists and I like the different categories grouped together. For instance, I start some playlists with “-” at the beginning of the name and some with “!” at the beginning of the list. For This way, all of the “-” named playlists group together and the “!” ones group together. Handy! One great Smart playlist I added was “-Audiobooks” (defined as “Genre” “is” “Audiobook”) so I can quickly find any non-Audible.com Audiobooks I have.
Recently Added Playlist iTunes comes with a “Recently Added” Smart playlist. This is a nice way to quickly find content you recently added.
Add items to the Main Menu Under Settings | Main Menu you can add items that are normally buried a couple layers deep right to the main menu. I have added Playlists and Podcasts to my main menu for quick access.
Listen Faster Audible.com audiobooks can be played back faster than normal. Under Settings | Audiobooks you can speed up or slowdown the playback speed of Audiobooks. Try it on faster (or slower), you might like it!
Use Compilations In the iTunes menu Edit | Preferences | General you have “Group compilations when browsing” checked. On the Advanced tab you should check “Keep iTunes Music folder organized”. Mark the tracks of your mix albums (like Soundtracks) as “Part of a Compilation” in iTunes . Finally, on your iPod enable Settings | Compilations. This is a great feature.
Don’t Shuffle MP3 Books If you have audiobooks in MP3 you should merge them to one or two files, tag them, finally under iTunes Get Info | Options set them to “Remember playback position” and “Skip when shuffling”.
Fall Asleep Get yourself an external speaker system (ranging from $10 to $500, depending on the bells and whistles), start playback (I use an audiobook or a shuffle of my “-Meditation” playlist), and then set the sleep timer under Extras | Clock | (pick your clock) | Sleep Timer.