I was telling my nephew Alex about the 23 Things, and showing him this Blog over the weekend. I explained how far I’d got in the programme, and that I’m a bit behind on the Technology Blog. He’d spent some time with me helping me to put some music and audio books on to my shiny new iPod – very patiently, and showing me how to do it, rather than just leaving me gasping as his fingers blurred across the keyboard! He suggested that I should use my iPod as my Technology project, so that’s what I’m going to do!

I have learnt how to set up an iTunes account, including the importance of having internet Broadband to be able to do this. In my innocence, I assumed that an iPod is just like a portable storage device, but with headphones attached, and that I just needed to copy across to it from my PC. Wrong! So I now have an iTunes account, and have learnt how to search for a particular artist and sample tracks from the downloadable albums. I haven’t yet downloaded anything, but Alex reliably informs me that most tracks cost 79p each, unless they are something unusual.
I also understand (in lay-woman’s terms) that I copy CDs to my iTunes account first, and then synchronise this with my iPod to transfer them through the ether to my iPod. I can now choose which tracks to import from a CD, so I’ve edited out some of my least favourite songs. I’m still not sure how I ended up with my Abba Gold CD with song titles in something which looks like a cross between Chinese and Russian, but think of all the fun I’ll have learning which symbols stand for which track!
I’ve also learnt how to delete from my iTunes account, and know that when I synchronise my iPod again, I will lose everything I laboriously copied across if I don’t change from Automatic to Manual synchronisation.
I’ve also learnt, most importantly, how to USE my iPod, and can twizzle the dial now to find what I’m looking for. I’ve also learnt how to customise some of the settings to save power and make each charge last for longer – turning off the Click; turning the brightness down; reducing the amount of time before the screen fades. And I’ve found the volume control.
I’ve enjoyed learning all this, and found it quite a challenge at times. The proof will be in the use, although my other newphew Matthew and I did listen to Stephen Fry reading, with one earphone each……………..