Thousands of people search everyday for “free iTunes codes” ”free iTunes codes” on Google and other search engines. With the way the economy is and money tight I guess everyone is looking for a way to save and downloading music, movies, games and other downloadable things are no exception. Most search results for free iTunes codes will leave you disappointed as sites that promise free downloads really don’t have that much to offer. You have a couple choices when it comes to your downloads. You can try the free file sharing route or you can pay a small one time membership fee for unlimited downloads.

Free file sharing sites are one way you can go. While these types of sites may seem like a good deal at first they can end up costing you both money and frustration as you deal with the effects of these so called free downloads. These types of sites are famous for spreading viruses with the downloads. You had better have good viruses protection to keep your computer safe from all the spyware and adware that many of these downloads have embedded in them. Besides the threat to you computer many of these downloads are of such poor quality that they are not worth the time and effort it takes to download the song, movie or game you want. Many of the downloads on these sites are illegal. While this may not concern you in the least the fact that the downloads are of such poor quality and threaten to expose your computer to a virus should make you think twice before using these type of sites.

Your other choice is to join a membership site which offers you many advantages over the free file sharing sites. Yes these sites will cost you some money up front but with the fierce competition for your business the price is almost laughable for what you get. For starters how about the latest downloads that are virus free. The quality of your downloadable music, games or whatever you have in mind will be second to none. If you have trouble with a download many of these sites have a dedicated support staff that are just a toll free phone call or email away. Some sites even offer online help with any problems you may have with your downloads. With the better sites there is no per download or monthly membership fee. you can get unlimited downloads for life for a one time fee. Paying a small amount up front for the latest quality downloads may be one of the best decisions you ever make. At the very least it makes sense to check it out and learn why free iTunes codes may not be your best bet.

Itunes is the distribution software used by Apple to download mp3 files to their IPod devices. Free music downloads for Itunes would therefore mean free music for MacIntosh computers only, except they also offer a Windows version for the Microsoft PC. The Microsoft world also uses its Windows Media Player to distribute mp3 and mpeg files to PDA and other similar devices to Apple’s IPod.

You can freely download free tunes from the Apple Itunes website. There is website that appears like it might be the grail of free downloads, Napster it allows the registered member to listen to each song in a 2,000,000 catalogue free for five times. After listening to 10,000,000 songs or each song five times, you must take a subscription. However, the subscription fee is pretty decent so most of us can afford it. This will allow you to listen to more songs and download those you wish listen on your IPod or PDA. There is another subscription called “Napster on the Go”, allows you to download your playlist and to refill your mp3 player with unlimited songs for $14.95. That’s what I will call a reasonable fee.

When I hear the phrases ‘music downloads’ or ‘mp3′ I always think about hip hop, rap and rock music. Why is that? My imagination tells me that it is only young people like teenagers and student who downloads this kind of music and that all downloadable music is of this kind. And my impression is that most people think that way too. But I’ll tell you one thing: I couldn’t be more wrong. Itunes and similar web sites are offering all kinds of music for download.

Itunes musical selection presented on their web site covers a more traditional menu. I was able to select bagpipe, gospel, jazz and even Papuan War Chants, something I haven’t been able to for four years. Perhaps Napster is more geared to pleasing the customer rather than the new wave music artist. There selections are alternative, Christian, Classical, Country, Dance/Electronic, Hip Hop, Jazz, Latin, Pop, R and B, Rock, World, New Releases, Recommends, Playlists, Napsterline, FFWD (Brand new artists), and RWND (reminiscence on music and musicians past).

Perhaps what all American websites are cautious about is breaking copyright laws. The entire free music download site scene is some variation of “listen free somewhat; but don’t count on free downloads”! Perhaps Napster’s legal battle has reversed the title of this article to “Don’t you wish there really were free music download web sites?”

The iPod is a compact, small piece of stereo equipment that has in today’s society become very popular due to the fact that it is convenient and has the capability to store massive amounts of information and music. Purchasing an iPod has also become a sort of fad as well, as numerous people, both old and young, have a feeling that they must join the fad and go out and buy an iPod for themselves.

In many situations an iPod MP3 player comes in handy. For example, in addition to music you can store what are known as podcasts from the Internet that can be listened to while you’re outside on the road. Famous for their computer reliability and knowledge, Apple Computer is the manufacturer that produces and holds the patents for this popular device.

Because information can be downloaded from the Internet onto iPods, iPod iTunes are also a significant part of this craze, due to the fact that there are thousands upon thousands of songs to pick from that are available to be downloaded onto your iPod. This is one of the most popular ways to get music onto your iPod that you enjoy listening to.

Popularity Of the iPod iTunes And Its Spread In Modern Culture

As the uses for iPod technology are many in modern society, its primary function or what its most popular for is its ability to download music as well as its storage capability of these small machines. Despite the fact that these devices are small enough to fit into your pocket, their storage capacity is very significant to be able to store thousands of songs at any one point in time. For many people, this is difficult to conceive, however it satisfies the consumers demand for listening to music while on the go at the same time making it convenient and easy.

The fact that you don’t have to carry around a bunch of CDs with you or having to listen to static on a radio station or the commercials that go with it is a significant benefit in the majority of most people’s minds. Many MP3 players, which are usually less expensive, does not have the downloading and saving capacity of an iPod.

Apple Computer’s website makes available the downloads which are called iPod iTunes for people who own the iPod. This website has a selection of thousands upon thousands of different kinds of songs and music for individuals to place on to their own players.

Just as there are those who download legitimately iPod iTunes from this site, there are also those known as “hackers” who have discovered numerous ways to copy the music without having to purchase the iPods.

This form of activity is illegal and has a penalty associated with it, but it is extremely challenging to law enforcement officials to effectively prosecute people who do this due to the fact that the vast amount of people on the Internet today make this activity difficult to track.

Ironically, there are even books published on different ways to hack the iPod’s iTunes website in order to retrieve the music. In this way, it slightly lessens the demand or necessity of having an iPod as it otherwise would have been if this capability were not present on the Internet. Regardless, the popularity of the iPod is still at an all-time high due to its ease of use, high storage capacity and additional capabilities.

“With a unique touch screen and cutting-edge multimedia capabilities, the BlackBerry Storm smartphone makes a great impression as you travel across town or to almost any corner of the world.”

One of the great new features I am starting to enjoy on my BlackBerry Storm is the ability for it to play multimedia files and specifically audio (music).

First let’s take a look at the video and audio formats supported by BlackBerry Storm:

Video format support: MPEG4 H.263, MPEG4 Part 2 Simple Profile, H.264, WMV
Audio format support: MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, WMA ProPlus

Basically, when you buy music from iTunes, it comes with a copyright protection called DRM. These DRM-protected songs are locked so that they only work with Apple MP3 players. That means that if you have a BlackBerry Storm, you cannot use iTunes music.

So, what is the solution? You have to burn a CD. When you do this, the DRM is removed (because the music is converted to a non-DRM-compatible media). After you burn the CD, you can rip it to your PC as an MP3 file which no longer has DRM.

Alternatively, you can use TuneClone. TuneClone makes a virtual CD-ROM drive, tricking your PC into believing that you are burning a CD. Therefore, the DRM is removed without wasting a CD.

Here is a link to a tutorial using TuneClone and iTunes 8:
http://www.tuneclone.com/itunes8-m4p-to-mp3.php

After you get the output MP3 files, you can now begin to transfer them to your BlackBerry Storm:

1. Connect your BlackBerry to you computer via the USB cable.
2. If you have properly enabled your Blackberry as a Mass Storage Device, your Blackberry’s microSD card will show as a removable drive on your computer.
3. Double click on the Blackberry folder.
4. Double click on the music folder.
5. Copy your music files to your BlackBerry.
6. Disconnect your Blackberry from the USB cable and go to the “Multimedia” icon on you Blackberry. You need to disconnect when you use the Mass Storage device method as it disables direct access from the BlackBerry when connected to the PC via the USB cable.
7. Click on the Music icon.
8. Click on the Media Card folder.
9. Select your Music folder.
10. Select your Song.
11. Play and enjoy.

Done.

Most of the people who have bought the songs from outside iTunes environment and have downloaded the songs in to their ipods will not be able to the play the songs. The reason behind this is the songs will be protected by MP4 or AAC formats in order to prevent song duplication or piracy. However, people need not worry on how to covert the song into MP3 format as there is a simple way to do so.

While converting the song, the first that has to be done is to access iTunes program. Now try to convert the song. One of the most commonly found error while converting is that, it says that the protected files can’t be converted in to another format. Now just go and select the convert option and click on edit. Before importing the songs, just look out for the preferences. In this menu, the using of import can be changed to MP3 Encoder from AAC Encoder. Now save the changed settings and try to convert the song.

At this point of conversion, most of the users will still encounter the same error message saying that the protected files cannot be converted. This message is occurred because only unprotected formats like WMA or WAV can be converted. As the songs that are in playlists are mostly will be in the formats of MP4 or AAC and they cannot be converted into any other format using iTunes. As of now, there are 2 options:

- The first option is to burn the songs on to a disk,
- The second option is to download a program so that it converts the songs directly to the format of MP3.

By burning a CD with either the Nero or any other CD burning program is one of the safest and easiest ways. However, it may take long period of time and is a drawn-out process. To write on the CD, you have to just insert a blank CD in to the CD drive, burn the songs that are in AAC format into a normal CD format and rip them to the system’s hard disk songs that are MP3 format.  This process of CD burning may take lots of time and as many as only songs can be burned on to a CD in order to keep up the exact quality of the songs in any kind CD. Do remember that the CD you use for burning has to be an audio CD but a Data CD or MP3 CD or an AAC CD.

Using some of the file converters that are downloaded from internet is quite a risky method. It is risky because the file converters that are downloaded from the internet often affect the entire coding of some of the protected formats negatively. Some of the files are corrupted in such a way that they totally unreadable. However, this way of doing is the fastest way of converting the files. In this way of converting the users have to just drag and drop the songs to get converted.

iPods and iTunes seem to be a match made in music heaven. One is a virtual jukebox. The other is one of the most popular music players around.

iTunes was started by Apple in January of 2001 as an application for playing music. It acts as a link between your computer and your iPod, connecting your computer to the iTunes Music Store where you can purchase music and movies for personal use. It is free to download and compatible with Macs and some Windows operating systems. New iPods are also carrying the program.

With the iTunes program, you can run many things from your computer. You can purchase and organize your favorite music and movies into play lists, burn your own CDs for personal use, and download music to your iPod. You can also use it for playing music on your own computer or other mp3 player.

The Play List is one of the best features for iPod users. Besides being able to organize your music, you can also set play lists on different settings to play your music. You can have it go in order of download or on a mix. Mixes can be set just to play songs from a certain part of your play list or from the entire thing. A Party Shuffle will play popularly rated songs at a greater rate than those that received a lower rating or none at all.

For example, a four star rated song will have a higher chance of getting played during the shuffle time than a two star rated song. You can add and delete songs as you want, or even have your iPod get automatic updates of new songs as they come up. You can organize your play list in a variety of fashions: by genre, by artist, by popularity, or by personal favorites.

In June of 2005, Apple added pod casting. This feature allows access to Apples official pod casts, as well as the ability to download different types of videos. This feature makes it possible for anyone to pod cast, from putting college lectures on your iPod to family movies. Pod casting has become a popular way of information sharing between iPod users.

In October 2005, Apple introduced an updated iTunes that made it possible to download movies to your iPod. You can get everything from the latest theatrical releases to television shows, to new movie trailers. Download them to your iPod, and you have an instant personal entertainment center to use anytime and any where.

The iTunes Music Store allows iPod users to buy and download music and movies from their computer to their iPod. Millions of songs have been downloaded this way since it opened in April 2003. You can preview music or check ratings there as well.

Downloading music from your computer to your iPod is easy to do. There are a variety of ways to do this.

Dragging allows you to drag tracks from your play list on your computer to your iPod. In the Portable window, click on the iPod under Attached Portable Devices and just drag music from the play list to your iPod. Or you can select an entire play list the same way and drag it over. This works best if you are just moving one song or one play list.

For large groups of songs, it may work easier to sync library, as this will download all music to your iPod. Again in the Portable window, you should click on the iPod. Under the Options menu there is a Sync tab with Complete Library Sync. Or you can use the same function but select Selected Play list Sync instead and select the play lists that you would like to download.

The sync features can also be set to be done whenever you plug your iPod into your computer. To set this up, under the Sync tab check the box Automatically sync on device connection. Your music will then be automatically downloaded whenever your iPod is hooked up.

With iTunes, you and your iPod have access to all the music and movies that you could ever want – or that your iPod could ever store. It is just one more way to personalize your iPod exactly how you want it.

The Problem

It is probable that in your home, more than one person owns an iPod / MP3 player of some description. It is also probable, that one person seems to have been delegated the task of updating everyone’s iPod and managing iTunes.

If you are reading this article…it is probable that you are at least fairly computer literate, and therefore probable that you are that lucky, lucky person in your household.

Sure, being the sole manager of your household’s music has its advantages – you have complete control of your music, you can update your own iPod whenever you want, and I suppose with some clever deviations from the truth you could loosely call yourself a DJ, a sure way to pick up girls in your local club.

However, once your mates start asking why the hell you have the latest McFly album (which you innocently downloaded for your girlfriend / sister / roommate) on your iPod…a better solution is needed.

The Proposal

If you have even a basic wireless network in your home then there is a simple solution. By using what is known as a ‘Network Attached Storage” (NAS), you can attach a hard drive to your home network, on which you can store all of your music.

When you used any of the computers in your house, they would detect the NAS as another hard drive on your computer, meaning that from any PC in the house you could:

Play music

Download music from the iTunes store or other (totally legal, of course) places

Create a new playlist for your iPod

Synchronise your iPod

Sound appealing? If so read on!

The Possibilities…

There are many ways to add a NAS device to your home network – the main one I will discuss here is the simplest – you buy a NAS device, problem solved. These are relatively new, especially to the home market. If you take a look at http://www.scan.co.uk/ you will see a number of them ranging from £86 to £650. None of them there are particularly bad, but personally I use the Western Digital’s MyBook series and have had no problems with them. The instructions you need to follow however will be almost identical regardless of which product you buy in the end. For more info on choosing a NAS please look at the “Choosing a NAS” section at the end of this article.

The Solution

Once you have purchased a NAS (I like that acronym…) you simply plug the Ethernet (usually yellow or blue) cable into your router or modem. If you have a PC connected to the router via Ethernet, as opposed to wirelessly, don’t worry – you don’t need to plug the NAS into the computer directly.

It is beyond the scope of this article to cover plugging the NAS to a plug – if you need help, give your household Microwave company a call…they seem to specialise in telling people how to plug things in (for legal reasons you may have to lie and say its your Microwave by the way….you could try running the term “Network Attached Storage” by them but…)

Anyway – when you power up your PC, the NAS should be pretty much plug and play – the NAS will show up as another hard drive (viewable from My Computer) or possibly a network location, depending on how it was designed.

Either way, now all you have to do is move your music to the new hard drive. First, go to iTunes, click the Advanced tab and then click “Consolidate Library” – this will simply make sure all your files are in one place (My Music for Windows by default), so if you have downloaded files to random places over the years, it will move them to My Music.

Now close iTunes and simply move or copy your music folder into it from your local drive. Once this is done, you may want to delete your local copy to save space, and so you can be sure iTunes is no longer using the ‘old’ library.

Now to add the new library to your home computers simply go to File (in iTunes of course) -> Add folder to library -> select the folder you just copied everything to.

You can now install iTunes on all PCs in your house, and link them to the NAS!

Extra: Choosing a NAS

NAS devices can be a simple “hard drive in a box with an Ethernet port bunged on the back” affair – in which case the only real factor in making a decision is getting a balance between cost and space.

I would recommend you be generous with the storage capacity – a 320gb model is little more expensive than a 160gb in most cases, and it will obviously allow for future expansion of your (totally legal) music library. In addition, you can also use it to store documents, backups etc in the future.

These basic models will typically cost between £80 and £120. If you stretch the budget a little further, you can get the excellent “Asus WL-700gE NAS Appliance” (http://www.trustedreviews.com). This is not only a NAS device, but also a router with firewall, and acts as a “media and print” server – so you can connect all your PCs wirelessly to one printer, and stream TV etc. It can even be used to download files without a computer running through the night! I have not used it myself, but it has excellent write ups.

As stated earlier in the review, if you are looking for a simple NAS box, I’d recommend the Western Digital MyBook series, but LaCie and other companies also produce good devices.

If you have an old hard drive lying about, you should be able to find an adapter to give it an Ethernet port, but by the time you have bought that and an enclosure for it, it would probably be more cost effective to just get a separate NAS device.

If you have any questions , feel free to contact me at james AT pimp-my-ipod DOT com – this is my first article here but I intend to post more and maintain my existing ones to keep them up-to-date.

In this case, we are talking about the Itunes and Ipod relationship.

Unlike most countries, Norway has a unique way of enforcing its laws in this regard. The country appoints an “Ombudsman” to rule on various issues such as whether a company is or is not complying with the laws of the country. The current ombudsman has ruled that Apple violates the law because Itunes cannot be used to download to Nokia and Microsoft products to name but a few. So, is Itunes going to be blocked in Norway now? No. The company has until October 1st to make changes that allow other products to receive downloads from Itunes. How Apple goes about this, of course, is going to be the interesting development.

Obviously, the Norway ruling is not good news for Apple and its incredibly popular Itunes-Ipod product line. Then again, how big a hit could losing the Norway market be? Probably not a big one, but more bad news may be on the way. Other countries in the European Union are now reviewing the ruling and considering adopting it. If Apple faces this problem across all of Europe, you can bet it will move quickly to modify Itunes.

At the end of the day, the ruling of the ombudsman in Norway may look like the usual unwanted government intervention. In truth, it is probably a good move. As consumers, we should want as much flexibility as possible with the things we pay for. If Itunes can be accessed through more products, it can only be a good thing.

Convert M4P, AAC, M4B, WMA, AA, etc on Windows:

Step 1 Choose target format and output folder

On the main window of NoteBurner, click the Settings button, a dialogue box will pop-out:

Browse to choose a file folder for storing the converted songs; choose MP3 as output format;check the ID3Tag options;click the OK button to save the changes

Step 2 Create playlist to contain songs for converting to MP3

You can burn the already existing iTunes playlist, or create a new playlist, and then add selected songs to the playlist for converting to MP3:

Choose the menu File > New Playlist, or click the addition sign to create a new playlist;select songs or audiobooks in your iTunes library; right-click on the selected files, choose “Add to playlist > (The playlist you create)”

Step 3 Choose NoteBurner as CD burner, and then burn the playlist

Click on the Burn Disc button to start burning the playlist.

In iTunes 8, before the burning starts, you will be prompted to choose CD burner. You should:

* Choose NoteBurner Virtual_CD_RW as the CD burner  

* Select Audio CD as Disc Format  

* Check the “Include CD Text” option

Convert M4P, AAC, M4B, WMA, AA, etc on Mac OS X:

Unbeatable fast conversion speed: less than 20 seconds for a four minutes song (Using virtual CD-RW drive)

Following is an instruction on how to use NoteBurner for Mac with iTunes 8 or later to convert any DRM protected music files (such as M4P, M4A, M4B) and unprotected music (MP3, rax, MP4, RA, snd, OGG, aif) to plain MP3 or AAC format. With a Virtual CD-RW drive installed in your computer, you can easily get your DRM protected music or audio files converted to plain MP3 or AAC files.

1. Choose Output Format and Output Path in NoteBurner for Mac

Go to top-left NoteBurner > Preferences…, a window will appear as below:

From here, you can select the Output Path where the converted audiofiles will be located at, and the desired output format from MP3 and AAC, and Quality. If you want the Update reminding message as well, check the option of “Check Updates on Startup”.

2. Create a New Playlist and Add iTunes Music here

Go to menu File > New Playlist in iTunes to create a new playlist to hold all music and audiobooks you want to burn. Right-click on the music in music library and audiobooks in Audiobooks library to choose Add to Playlist and choose the list have created. Press Shift or Command key to add more than one file to the playlist at one time.

3. Burn This New Playlist in iTunesAfter you add all music and audiobooks to the playlist you created, go to that playlist, and click the Burn Disc button at the bottom right of iTunes to start the burning. You may need to wait for a moment to let the iTunes and NoteBurner for Mac start working. If you don’t want it to continue, just click “x” to stop burning.

4. Select NoteBurner as  CD Burner for iTunesIn the Burn Settings window, select “NoteBurn Virtual CD-RW” as the CD burner, and please also check Audio CD and Include CD Text which will enable the converted music to carry relevant information, such as title and artist of music. Then click OK to proceed.

Once all selected files are burned on virtual disc and converted successfully, you can right click on the music and select Show In Finder to check the converted audio files in the output folder. Or if you want to edit the tags for these converted files, you can select Edit Tags, or press the Edit Tags button on top right of the interface to operate.

Zen is the first Creative player that supports unprotected AAC format, so you can enjoy up to 8,0001 of your favorite CD tracks that you’ve ripped through iTunes software. Zen also supports iTunes Plus tracks from the iTunes store, in addition to MP3 and WMA music tracks. It is also compatible with music subscription services such as Napster To Go and Rhapsody.

However, as the music purchased from iTunes Store is encrypted with DRM, you cannot directly play it on your Creative Zen. iTunes allows you to burn the protected AAC(M4P) files to CD-R or CD-RW disc to make a standard audio CD:

1. Insert a CD-R or CD-RW disc into your CD-ROM drive.
2. Burn your playlist to make an audio CD.
3. After the audio CD is successfully burned, insert the disc into your CD-ROM drive again. Then you can use iTunes or Windows Media Player to import the music tracks on the burned disc as MP3 or WMA files.

Or you can get some software to help you. I use TuneClone M4P Converter to do this. Though not free, it is very well worth a try. It generates a virtual CD drive to help to remove DRM from iTunes and convert the M4P music to MP3 or unprotected WMA format, which is compatible with your Creative Zen.

Here is the tutorial as to how to use TuneClone to convert iTunes M4P to MP3.