We have all seen it…some poor soul staring at their iPod with the look of despair in their eyes, wondering why this beautiful piece of equipment is treating them so poorly. The sympathy immediately goes out to them as we have all been there before. The love/hate relationship formed between our iPods and us has become another acceptable fact of life. We know that deep down there must be some good in our iPod, a way to make this union work as we need and want our beloved iPod to be one with us. Well all can be, as you want with some minor adjustments and tips to get the most from your iPod. Try a few of the following tips and you will be on your way to a happy relationship with your iPod.

Getting the Most Out of Your Battery Life

OK…this is a problem we all have. We grab our iPod and want to escape for a little while with our favorite music and we see that we have almost no battery left! No! Say it isn’t so! Why do you treat me like this, I thought we were in this together? Well, it may not be quite that bad but now you have to listen to the boring conversation going on around you and if you are like me then that is worse than going to my in-laws. Lets fix this. There are a couple of things that we can do right away that will help us get the most out of the battery life in our iPod.

CHARGE IT
The most obvious – Whenever possible put your iPod on charge. Chargers come with your iPod so use it! Use a docking station at work and it will be ready when you need it.

PUT IT ON HOLD
When your iPod is in your bag or purse there always is a chance of it being bumped and turning itself on. This happens all the time and is one of the most common causes of battery drain. Here is how you fix this.

Once your iPod is asleep slide the Hold button (this is on the top of the iPod) to the “on” position so the orange part is visible. What this will do is lock the buttons on the Click Wheel so it will not be turned on by accident and draining your battery. This is a pretty simple operation that will help in saving battery life.

GET CONTROL
It’s time to get control over your backlight. Believe it or not this function uses quite a bit of power so if you do nothing else you should do this to extend your battery life.

Go to the Main Menu, scroll down to Settings using the Click Wheel and select it. Here you will choose Backlight and change the setting to 2 seconds.

Again, this will dramatically improve the life of your battery so make sure you at least use this one tip and it will make your life easier.

What’s Up With the Sound?

There are some things that drive me crazy and one of them is the sound that comes from my iPod. The complaints I hear the most are that the volume raises/lowers for different songs and the quality isn’t the greatest. Well, most people do not know that there are some settings that you can adjust to get the most out of your iPod and get the sound quality you want.

CLICK, CLICK, CLICK
This is almost as bad as someone tapping his or her nails on a desk. When going through your selections you hear the little “click” that is just a bit annoying. Well here is how you fix that.

Go to the Main Menu, scroll down to Settings using the Click Wheel and select it. Here you will choose Clicker and change the setting to Off.

TURN IT DOWN
This is the number 1 complaint I get about the iPod. Since all recordings are not created from the same source you will have the volume levels varying from song to song. This is pretty annoying as that old Ramones song may not be the best quality and you turn it up so you can hear it then you go into something recent and you get blasted out of your headphones, not cool. So here is how you take care of that problem.

Go to the Main Menu, scroll down to Settings using the Click Wheel and select it. Here you will choose Sound Check and change the setting to On.

IT’S LIKE NIGHT AND DAY
Have you ever thought that the sound isn’t that great on your iPod? Well you are not alone. By default the EQ is turned off. By turning this on and selecting the setting that matches your music your listening experience will be much more enjoyable. The difference will be like night and day.

Go to the Main Menu, scroll down to Settings using the Click Wheel and select it. Here you will choose EQ and scroll down to the type of music that fits you and select it. You will be amazed at how much better your music will sound by doing this step.

Well that’s about all the space I am allowed to take so I hope you have learned something that will help you in your relationship with your iPod.
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Bruce Bicknell is a Graphics/Video and Animation specialist who has written articles for Mac Design and ATI as well as being featured on Adobe Premier Elements Training for Adobe Systems and Photoshop Elements Techniques.

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