A few months ago I purchased an iPod touch from a local retailer. The three month exchange period from the retailer expired last month, and right around that time I started having an issue with the home button on my iTouch. The best way I can describe this is that the button seems to be recessed into the device itself. When I click the home button on the iPod, it will read it like a single click sometimes, but like a double click more often (bringing up the music menu if I’m not already in the music application). The intended behavior of this button is a single click will lead you to the home screen, and a double click will bring you to the menu.

I called up Apple tech support and they shipped me out a box to send my iPod back in, and once they received it they claimed it had no problems. WTF? I press the button once and it brings up the music menu!! I tried restoring the device before calling tech support along with taking off the screen protector (in case the button got stuck on it) and neither of those worked. Now I’ve got an iPod on the way that has a faulty home button that Apple claims works properly. Great! Anyone else have this type of issue? I expected Apple to be better about this stuff.. I guess I was wrong.

You can not downgrade firmware in iTunes 7.7, you will need to downgrade your iTunes first.

1. Download iTunes 7.5

2. XP: go to C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\My Documents\My Music\iTunes

Vista: go to C:\Users\USERNAME\Music\iTunes

• Rename  the file iTunes Library.itl to old.itl.

2. UnInstall your current iTunes. Start>Control Panel>Uninstall programs

3. Once iTunes is uninstalled, reboot your PC. Install iTunes 7.5.

4. Plug in your iPod - You will get an  error says something like “iPod can not be used because it requires iTunes 7.7 or later.” Just click ok

5. Now Put your iPod into DFU mode.

• 1. Connect your iPod touch/iPhone to your computer with the USB cable.
• 2. Hold both power and home buttons at the same time and count to 10 (1 onethousand 2 onethousand etc. )
• 3. Let go of the Power button, continue to hold the home button until the iPod/iPhone connects back to iTunes.
  • Be patient it can take some time sometimes while holding the home button. Also if your iPod/iPhone shows the connect to itunes symbol, your are not in DFU mode. It should look like the device is off.

6. Once into DFU mode, hold the shift key then click restore and select the 1.1.4 firmware. ( if you do not have the 1.1.4 iPod firmware you can download it here) (iPhone users - search their site! :))

Once done upgrade back to iTunes 7.7 and delete the iTunes Library.itl and rename old.itl to iTunes Library.itl and you will have all your songs back.

Recently I decided to install Ubuntu linux on my laptop since Windows was giving me a lot of problems and it was getting to be about the time where I reformat all my computers to start out fresh. Instead of reinstalling Windows, I installed Linux.. but then realized that there is no iTunes for linux. WTF!! Searching around on Google, I found an alternate method to sync music to the iTouch wirelessly, however this “erased” all my artwork for my music. When I say “erased”, I mean it just took it out of the iTunes DB located on the iPod touch. I embed all of my artwork into the MP3/AAC files, so nothing is really ever lost unless I delete the song :). Thanks to commenter #34 (Zubin) on http://blog.adaniels.nl/articles/iphone-amarok/, I was able to retreive my artwork and restore it into the iTunes DB located on my iPod. Thanks for the tip!! Here is the comment, quoted below:

actually, artwork DOES work in amarok 1.4.8 (and 1.4.6) if you are using the latest libgpod3. Make sure you have selected the iphone from the Ipod drop-down list in the Devices tab, and then use the ‘update artwork’ option. I have confirmed that this works myself.

UPDATE: It looks like only the first song in an album has the cover art - the rest don’t. I ended up ditching Linux for iPod management and only use my Windows PC at home with iTunes. Hopefully one day they release an iTunes for Linux

Recently I got an iPod Touch, and I wanted to be able to listen to my music without needing an iPod cable. I found the FireFly Media Server for the iTouch in Installer.app, but it wasn’t working as its made for an older firmware and not the one I’m running (1.1.3). After searching around Google, I stumbled across RupertGee’s blog and found instructions to set it up properly. Check it out here. Thanks for posting the instructions, Rupert! Now I can enjoy my music without the need for headphones or an iPod cable

Wow, I can’t believe its been two months since I last updated this blog. Quite interesting actually. I had a phase last semester where I really wanted to blog just so I could put information I found helpful on the internet out in a place where I could easily access it (and others could too!).. and now I’ve noticed that I don’t really search around much anymore for random information. Not sure why that is. I do have some iPhone information I haven’t posted up, but you can go to any other site and find that info as well (such as unlocking an iPhone/iPod Touch, or getting EDGE to work with the iPhone on T-Mobile). Maybe if I get bored sometime I’ll write it out.. sorry for the lack of updates though! Even if I decide to stop updating one day, I’ll keep the blog up for the information that is already on here.

Lately I’ve had a lot of issues with YamiPod. While backing up my music, YamiPod would almost always freeze up on certain songs. Regardless of copying in a batch or one by one, it would continually freeze on these songs for some reason. I honestly have no idea why, but it was getting extremely annoying - with a library of over 5000 songs, backing up takes time and I usually leave it running while I’m not there to monitor it. Anyway, after searching around for an alternative I decided to take a crack at SharePod, another 3rd party iPod manager that offers copying back to the PC from the iPod (and the reverse as well). To test it out, I decided to use the specific songs that YamiPod always jacked up on - and I was extremely satisfied with the result. SharePod copied over those songs with ease - no errors, problems, or missing data whatsoever. I tested each MP3 file the previous program was having issues with and each one was copied successfully from iPod to PC.

Though its not as important, SharePod’s user interface is MUCH nicer as well, and offers something nice to look at unlike YamiPod’s plain Windows 95 look.

Now I’m testing out to see if it will copy my entire library without a problem. Currently it is about 20% done, so I’m leaving it on overnight (though it won’t take more than another hour) and hopefully will wake up to good results. I’ll update this post with what happens!

A few posts ago, I wrote an article on how to download YouTube videos using Firefox with the GreaseMonkey add on. Now, we’ll cover how to download videos from Facebook. A lot of the text was similar, so instead of creating a completely original post I copied and edited my original post.
First, you will (obviously) need a Facebook account and you will need the Video application installed in order to watch any videos. The application is created by Facebook, so its a trustworthy application.

I’m not aware of any websites that you can use to download Facebook videos - you will need to go the software route. Personally I don’t see this as a downfall at all, because I can simply click “Download Video” while watching it without having to remember a lengthy URL of any sort. Also, I find it worthwhile because Facebook videos are generally better in quality (bit rate).

Let’s begin!

1. After installing Firefox, get the Grease Monkey add on - located here - you will need to restart Firefox after installing this add on.
2. Download and install the Facebook Video userscript - located here
3. Once the script has been installed, simply go to Facebook and find a video you like - underneath the player, to the right is a “Download Video” link (if it doesn’t show up, restart your browser). The link is located under the large “Share” button. Once you click the link, you will be offered an FLV file - find a place on your hard drive to save it and press OK. You’ve successfully downloaded your first video from Facebook!

But.. you can’t play this video in most players! You need some kind of FLV player, such as the one found here, or you need to convert it to a different format. I personally use Videora iPod converter to convert all types of video to iPod format, but you could easily use Quicktime Pro to convert or any other major conversion software. Just Google both programs to find the relevant websites. Once you’ve converted it, pop it into iTunes, transfer it to your iPod, and enjoy your new video!

I’ve recently started putting more videos on my iPod, and I’ve gotten tired of trying to find these videos on P2P programs and other various areas. As I frequent YouTube a lot, I thought there would be a way to download them from the site, however YouTube doesn’t offer a download service. So I decided to look around and find some way to download them, and I came across a bunch of crappy articles about it (though I must admit, a few were really good and helpful).

To sum it up, there are two ways to download.

A) Without any additional software - simply visit a site such as http://www.keepvid.com and you can download a YouTube video there in FLV format (you will need to rename the file you download). The only issue with this way is that if you frequently visit YouTube or other video hosting websites, its hard to keep track of all the URL’s. This is where the next way comes in handy.

B) With additional software. If you’re not using Firefox already, I suggest switching to it because its a LOT better than Internet Explorer.. and you need it for this method

1. After installing Firefox, get the Grease Monkey add on - located here - you will need to restart Firefox after installing this add on.
2. After completing step 1, you need to install the Download YouTube Video userscript located here
3. Once the script has been installed, simply go to YouTube and find a video you like - underneath the player is a “Download Now” link (if it doesn’t show up, restart your browser). If you click this link, it will offer the video to you with the extension .htm - just download it, and once it’s finished rename the file to have the .flv extension. You’ve successfully downloaded your first YouTube video!

But.. you can’t play this video in most players! You need some kind of FLV player, such as the one found here, or you need to convert it to a different format. I personally use Videora iPod converter to convert all types of video to iPod format, but you could easily use Quicktime Pro to convert or any other major conversion software. Just Google both programs to find the relevant websites.

That’s all you need to download and convert YouTube videos - next time, Facebook!

For a while, I had a problem using my iPod Video 80 GB as a hard drive on my laptop. At first, it worked perfectly fine, but after I hooked it up to a friend’s computer to share some files (not music, and he runs Windows 2000), I couldn’t seem to access it again on my laptop. I run Windows XP Home on the laptop. Keep in mind that I could still access my songs using iTunes, I just could not use the iPod as an external hard drive (disk use, as Apple calls it). I kept getting “E:/ Access is Denied” when trying to view using My Computer.

I could, however, access the iPod as a hard drive on my PC. My PC was using Windows XP Professional edition, so I wasn’t really sure what the issue was. I decided to call Apple’s tech support, and after spending a half hour on the phone with them they told me that the issue was with my computer. Funny, seeing as how I could use my friend’s iPod as a hard drive just fine on my laptop, I just could not use my own. After coming to the conclusion that Apple’s tech support sucks, I decided to find another solution.

At this point, my PC was starting to exhibit the same problems as my laptop did in the beginning - at first, the iPod would be seen as a hard drive, but then it could not be accessed. I could still bypass it by a simple trick using Windows Explorer, which I won’t go into detail with (unless someone wants me to). Now it was really getting to my nerves, as I had files on there that I really needed. Using my Windows Explorer trick I backed up those files, however another issue popped up - what about my music?

Now I was really frustrated, as I have over 30 GB of music on my iPod, and although I had most of it backed up on my computer I wasn’t completely sure I had it all. Thankfully, after a little bit of research, I found YamiPod - Yet Another iPod Manager. Using this simple (but spectacular) program, I was able to back up all my music to my computer.

After completing the backup (which took a little while, about 45 minutes to an hour), I restored the iPod to factory condition using the latest iPod firmware available through iTunes. I decided to restore it using my PC and test it on my laptop to see if it now worked as a portable hard drive again. And it did! I was extremely excited that it started working at this point, so I loaded up all my music back onto the iPod and all the backed up files. Several weeks later, its still running great with no problems.

Looks like I won’t be hooking up this iPod to any computer other than mine again (or call Apple’s tech support again)