iPod: The Missing Manual, 6th Edition

Chapter 10. The iPod as Personal Assistant

The early chapters in this book are all about showing how your iPod works and how to fill it up with music, movies, photos, and more. But if you think that’s all the iPod can do, think again. That gorgeous color screen is happy to display a copy of your computer’s address book and your weekly calendar. If you’re looking for a handsome timepiece, the iPod can function as a world clock when you’re on the road and as a stopwatch when you’re on the track.

If you’ve got a Nano, a Shuffle, or a Classic iPod, you can use it as an external hard drive for hauling around monster files like PowerPoint presentations or quarterly reports between computers. So if you’ve mastered the iPod’s AV Club functions and are ready for new challenges, this chapter shows you even more ways to use your iPod.

Use the iPod as an Address Book

Putting a copy of your contacts file—also known as your computer’s address book—onto your iPod is quite easy, as long as you’re using recent software. Windows people need to have their contacts stored in Outlook Express, Outlook 2003 (or later), Windows Contacts, or the Windows Address Book (used by Outlook Express and some other email programs).

Mac folks need to be using at least Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and the Mac OS X Address Book (shown here), which Apple’s Mail program uses to stash addresses in. You can also use Entourage 2004 or later, but you first have to link before you sync: in Entourage, choose Preferences and click Sync ...