Book Review
iPod: The Missing Manual. 7th Edition.
By J.D. Biersdorfer with David Pogue
Pogue Press/O’Reilly. 2009. 284 pages.
Around Thanksgiving time I upgraded my iPod Mini (remember those?) to a new Nano. That’s like waking up today after having been in a coma since mid-2005. Hey, everything is different now.
The Missing Manual helped get me up to speed. It showed me, for example, how to
- change a song’s file format, for example, from mp3 to AAC or AIFF
- set the iPod’s more than 20 EQ presets
- find and add lyrics to song files
- import address book contacts, calendar information, and text files, and
- customize the Nano’s main menu
No matter which model you have, you’ll find help here. The iPod classic, Nano, Shuffle, and iPod Touch all receive lots of discussion.
Author J.D. Biersdorfer is co-author of The Internet: The Missing Manual and the second edition of Google: The Missing Manual. She has written the weekly computer Q&A column for the New York Times since 1998. Co-author David Pogue is the weekly tech columnist for the NY Times, a correspondent for CBS News Sunday Morning, and creator of the Missing Manual series.
Their writing is clear, friendly, and sometimes humorous. Page layout is quite attractive and screen shots and illustrations big and colorful.
The 21st-century incarnation of the juke box, iTunes, receives five chapters, including discussions of ‘power moves,” playlists, navigating the iTunes store, and viewing videos.
Other chapters discuss viewing photos on the iPod, using the iPod as personal assistant, surfing the Web with iPod touch, connecting the iPod to external speakers and home entertainment system, and what to do when the iPod doesn’t work.
More information is available online as well. Go to MissingManuals.com, click on the “Missing CD” link, to find a list of links to resources including shareware and freeware mentioned in this book.
