Music lovers need a back up plan
By REDMOND CAROLIPIO
THINK ABOUT your digital music library. Awesome, isn't it? If you're like some people, you've taken pride in assembling a bountiful collection of music in your iPod, spending hundreds (and in some cases, thousands) of dollars.
But consider this: with one wrong move or one unfortunate technological gaffe, it could all be gone.
That is, unless you remember to backup your stuff. This might be common sense for a lot of veteran tech users, but the younger, iPod-stacking crowd might not be thinking the same way.
Luckily, there are effective ways to backup your music library and save yourself some unnecessary stress when your son, daughter or another music-loving person in your life gives you the 1,000-yard stare and says, "It's gone!"
One way to go is to configure iTunes to make incremental backups of your music using the "Smart Playlist" feature, essentially creating a playlist of stuff you've added since the last time you backed something up. You also can make lists and backups of stuff you have purchased.
Then you can go ahead and make a backup CD or DVD from that list. The only potential issues arise if you're impatient and don't want to invest the time to make backup discs. You can find a solid step-by-step guide on www.apple.com. Click on "support." Another approach is using one of a litany of programs to plop your songs from your iPod to your Mac and PC. Among the more popular choices are Senuti and CopyTrans Suite, which you can download.
CopyTrans is intricate, giving you the ability to preserve playlists with your settings, rebuild your library, and transfer photos between your iPod and PC. It helps that this program is compatible with the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch.
The only catch is the cost. The package of programs with CopyTrans is about $90, but it's on sale at copytrans.net for about $60. If you just want CopyTrans and the photo program, it'll cost about $50.
For Mac users, Senuti is still the way to go. It shows off the stuff in your iPod and uses an interface that looks like the one you'd see in iTunes. You can either drop songs into the iTunes master library or put them into a folder on your computer. It does a solid job of organizing and preserving playlists.
It's still a work in progress, but you can download it at www.fadingred.org/senuti. The best part? It's free.
