iRock

n an effort to bolster the efforts of Duke’s Center for Instructional Technology (CIT), Recess has scoured the World Wide Web to find novel uses for the freshmen’s new iPods.

First off, to alleviate the iPod’s one-way limitation, you can add SharePod (www25.brinkster.com/ carmagt/SharePod) to the hard drive to enable the transfer of songs from the iPod to any PC (Mac users can get iLinkPod at www.ilinkpod.com). This functionality is useful for sharing files, even with iPod-deficient upperclassmen, and can work as a backup for music and other important data should your hard drive take its final spin prematurely.

You can also synchronize your iPod with News, Sports, Business, Technology, and Entertainment headlines as well as Weather, Horoscopes, Movie Showtimes and even blogs using iPod Agent for the PC (www.ipodsoft.com/ipodagent.-

aspx) or do-everything Mac application Pod2Go (www.pod2go.-com). These services will place small text files in your Notes section, under Extras on the Main Menu, for as many or as few of the thousands of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) information feeds that you choose. Unfortunately, the four kilobyte limit for each Note keeps them from going into much more than superficial detail on the latest anniversaries, assassinations, and epidemics. A function that spreads long texts over multiple Notes is well appreciated but Recess wishes someone would write a program that would allow us to get the racing form from Saratoga onto these things.

It seems as if the first program that comes out for every new form of technology is the Holy Bible. That being said, although the full text of the King James version is inexplicably not available under the title GodPod, you can get it at www.activevr.com/sections/iPod-Bible.shtml.

Another phenomenal little program is only for use on Mac OS X and requires some coin to obtain the full version. But it is worth the pittance if it piques your interest. iSpeak from ZappTek (www. zapptek.com) converts file extensions from .pdf, .doc, .txt, and .html to speech so you can listen to them on the go.

Before you try to add most of these applications, enable disk use of your iPod. This is done in the "iPod Options" menu reached by right-clicking your iPod’s name in the source list while you are synching with iTunes. This will also allow you to transfer files of any format to your iPod for use as a portable hard drive: information you would have known had you cracked the manual, but who has the patience for old-fashioned paper and ink in this day and age?