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Have you ever had your Windows crash on you with all your movies and songs. The only place where you have them are in your iPod. So how do you copy your iPod movies, songs and pictures to your new computer. Often you may also want to transfer some songs in your iPod to another computer. Apple or iTunes does not allow this. iTunes has evolved this policy so that the music companies do not lose out due to piracy. But we users are often in a soup because of this. Fortunately, there a few workarounds that will save you heartbreaks. Here are some must-have software that you need to extend the capability of your iPod.

CopyPod

CopyPod and CopyPod Photo are backup and recovery programs for your iPod, whichever version you might have. With a few easy steps you can retrieve your music, ratings, playlists, photos and videos to your PC. CopyPod is a lifesaver when you are sending your iPod for repair, and in case computer or hard drive crashes. You can try out CopyPod for free, but after a while you will need to buy it to continue to work with the program. Be warned, there are no Mac versions of their software as yet. Windows users, go get it from www.copypod.net. The good news is it works on Vista too.

YamiPod

Mac users need not be disheartened. For all you Mac freaks, there is Yamipod. With this program you can copy songs to your iPod and from your iPod to your Mac. Other useful features include the ability to import lyrics, which you cannot do right now with iTunes. Yamipod is supported in Mac OSX, Linux and Windows.

iDupe

Another must-have software for the iPod users is iDupe. iDupe identifies duplicates and dead tracks in iTunes in a smart way. New versions of iTunes have a “Show Duplicates” command. But it is of limited use. First, you cannot remove a duplicate while keeping one version of a track. Secondly, iTunes does not identify duplicates accurately.

For instance, I may want to keep a different version of the same song with a different bit rate. iDupe also identifies songs with the actual files missing, commonly known as dead tracks. It is a shareware program. You can find it at http://www.kainjow.com/woodenbrain/sw/iDupe/iDupe.dmg.tgz

iDump

A good freeware program for Windows users who want to dump their songs to a PC is iDump. It comes with an installer so you should not have any problem installing it.

Senuti

Mac users too need some free software. So for all of you Mac users there is Senuti 0.33. It is a lightening fast application to transfer songs to your Mac from your iPod. Installing Senuti is similar to installing most Mac OS X applications. Download the disk image from the download page at http://www.fadingred.org/senuti/. If a Senuti window does not open automatically, double click the downloaded file. Next drag the Senuti application to your Applications folder. Finally, “Eject” the Senuti disk image, which has an icon of a drive. The Senuti disk image will still be present in your download folder (probably on your desktop). You can drag this file to the trash, as it is no longer needed.

Xilisoft

This application is absolutely necessary for those with video iPods. It is the best iPod video converter in the market. It is worth the $30 you have to spend to get it. It converts video formats including AVI, MPEG, WMV, MOV, RM, RMVB, DivX, ASF, VOB, 3GP to iPod video MP4, MPEG-4 with the perfect output quality. In addition, it can convert audio files including WAV, WMV, MP2, AC3, RA, M4A, OGG, AAC, APE etc to iPod MP3, M4A, AAC. Moreover, it supports output of new video iPod 30G/80G MPEG-4 video at 640 by 480 resolution, provides APE and CUE decoding, audio CD ripping, multithreading and batch conversion. The wizard mode, zoom and split functions were also added. All conversion processes are very fast and easy to handle. Buy it from www.xilisoft.com.

Those who are satisfied with a little loss of quality for them there is Jodix. This too does an okay job, but I still prefer Xilisoft. Don’t worry, Jodix does not contain any form of malware, like spyware, viruses, trojans and backdoors. If you are not a perfectionist go for Jodix at www.jodix.com

Media Monkey

A lot of us like to keep our pictures, movies and songs in an organised manner. For us there is MediaMonkey. It is free. It catalogues your CDs, MP3, and other audio tracks. Then it looks at it and intelligently tags, renames and reorganises them. Another bonus of this program is that it rips CDs, converts audio file formats, and easily creates mixes.

Send in your computer related problems to askdoss@abpmail.com.

This column will appear every fortnight.