It has been been a month or two since I have hooked up my old 60GB 5th Generation iPod to my Mac. This was the Video iPod that first came out in 2005. When I first bought it I actually used it on my 17" Windows PC laptop initially instead of on my Mac since my PC had USB 2.0 and my Mac G4 only had USB 1.1. I did not want to wait like I did ever time I synced my iPod Shuffle. I had the Original iPod Shuffle that was like a stick of gum and was 1GB in size. It was not worth it to meto buy a USB 2.0 PCI card for my G4 at the time since FireWire (400) was a superior interface for transferring data. At that time FireWire 800 did not exist.Eventually I bought a USB 2.0 PCI card– primarily to sync my iPod to my Mac. The original iPods could be synced via FireWire. Apple discontinued the FireWire port future iPods such as my 5th Gen.
Since I first started off using my iPod with my PC, it is a "Windows Formated" iPod. "Mac Formated" iPods can not be hooked up to Windows machines since Windows does not know how to read the Mac HFS+ file format. I believe my iPod is formated in DOS Fat32. Most windows PCs today use the NTFS file format system. Most digital cameras and other non-windows machines use the DOS Fat 16 or DOS Fat 32. The major diference between Fat 32 and Fat 16 is the fact that Fat 16 can only format a drive up to 2GB. The old Nikon D1X, for example, could only format its media (CF Cards) in Fat 16 and therefore any size card in the D1X, whether it be a 2GB card or an 8GB card would only show up as a 2GB card.
I'm digressing.
The biggest problem with my 5th generation iPod formatted in "Windows" was the fact that I could not update the Software on my iPod from my Mac. I use VMWare's Fusion to run Windows on my Intel Mac but never installed iTunes on the virtual machine.
People still debate whether one should be on a Mac or a Windows OS system. For me the choice is quite clear– one needs to be on both. The greatest advantage to being on the Mac is the fact that it is not an either or scenario. You can be on both using virtualization software. VMWare also supports other operating systems such as: Apple Mac OSX Server, Linux, Novell Netware, Sun Solaris, and Other such as MS Dos, FreeBSD, FreeBSD 64-bit, Other, and finally Other 64-bit.
I digress again– but I promise for the last time in this post.
Today I was blown away by the fact then when I hooked up my iPod to my Mac, iTunes asked me if I wanted to update the software on my iPod. I first thought– wait, this can't be. This iPod is a "Windows" formated iPod, it probably will not work. I figured I'm done with my income taxes, so what the heck, I'll give it a try and if I waste a day fixing my iPod, oh well. It updated and everything is working fine.
Now for the better news– for all of you iPhone users, you probably are aware that the iPhone OS version 3 will be released this Summer. I still do not have an iPhone. I did not like the fact that it would not allow you to cut and paste or do searching. My 6 year old Palm Pilot Tungsten T does and I have been happily using it to date. After iPhone OS 3 comes out, it may convert me over to the iPhone.
If anyone has a sick iPod, I came across this iPod repair website. Fortunately I have not had to use them, but I thought I would pass the link on incase you do. It is worth clicking on the link even if you do not need to use them to see the photos. I got a chance to see the different parts of my 5th Gen iPod and how much they would charge me for them. I now know that I can get a new battery for my this 5Gen for only $19.99 on sale from $21.99.
Until I Blog again, remember not to take life too seriously and make sure you tell someone that is close to you how much you care for them.
Thanks for reading,
John :)
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