Mike DelGaudio

I’ve been trying to help a friend work on her website, and got this message. Once you get labeled as a computer geek, you get these questions all the time.

On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 10:11 AM, xxx xxxxxxx wrote:

Mike,

BIG QUESTION??? PC or MAC? I have a new apple computer that I hate. It is supposed to be for the [business --ed], but no one knows how to use it since all the staff has PC. do you have a preference, mac or pc?

I find the switch from PC to Mac to be one of the most frustrating things “regular” computer users do — because it often does not live up to false expectations. The novice to intermediate user hears how wonderfully easy and intuitive a Mac is, then buy one, and sit in front of their shiny new computer and go “huh? Now what?” There is this mystique that OSX is just so obvious to use, and everything is just where you expect it to be, but really, that’s a myth. You need training on it, just like any other equipment.

Once you get accustomed to one way of doing things, it is really hard to break out of it. I know I experience this all the time when I have to use a Mac — I just can’t find things where I expect them to be. When switching between OS’s I tend to have better luck finding things on Gnome / Ubuntu than on a Mac. Maybe that just indicates who the developers of Gnome were trying to target their product for.

Even something like the Ipod suffers from the same thing. I’ve heard time and time again how “intuitive” the Ipod is, but I have had to tell far too many people who have handled mine how to turn it on, turn it off, change the volume etc… I think people interchange intuitiveness for experience. Once you have learned how to use any ipod, it is reasonably intuitive to use. But I have watched people stare at that dumb little machine to try and figure out why it won’t turn off, even after they switch the hold button back and forth a hundred times. Even after having the thing for a long time I don’t successfully turn it off first time, every time. I think that borders on inexcusable.

In my opinion the design of the ipod (at least the “classic” — I’m trying to avoid the iPhone) actually gets in the way of a good user experience. Even something as simple as changing the volume shouldn’t require thought and explanation. Just try to change the volume on your 5g ipod while playing a game of solitaire on the train. Intuitive, indeed.

I wish there was an alternative that had as many accessories as the iPod. I would switch.

I keep my MP3 library on an external drive, and sync iTunes to my iPof form there. So, when my external hard drive kicked the bucket after a power outage, I rummaged around the interwebs to see if there was a way to get the files off my Ipod and Back into iTunes.

So far I have had good success with iDump.

Here is how I recovered the music.

First, I had to get get a new external hard drive. Bummer. Luckily the prices have come way down since the last time I purchased one so I was able to get a much larger drive for the same money.

Next I downloaded iDump (Windows only, Free). They have a “just .exe” version, so there is no install. Just click the EXE and go.

I hooked up my iPod, then watched for ITunes to appear, and closed it as fast as I could after it opened. Since my Liabrary was gone from the drive, I wanted to make sure I tunes didn’t go and scrub the files off the iPod too. I don;t know if that would’ve happened, but I didn’t want to risk it.

iDump found the iPod and after a few seconds it displayed a list of all the files on the device.

Here is where a keyboard shortcut helps…. iDump, by default is set to NOT copy a file unless it is selected in the list. My list had around 2700 files. The Developers at iDump don’t seem to have a heads-down way to select a file, you have to click it with the mouse (boo!) BUT, if you want to recover EVERY file on the iPod as I did, you can CTRL+A to select all files.

Go over to the output options Tab and make sure that it is set to pull all the right file types off, and if you want the copy to go unattended (thich means you can set it to overwrite or skip files already on the disk.

Then click “Start Copy”

I did find that some files did not copy, apparently as a result of characters in the filename that iDump didn’t care for. Luckily these were all podcast files for me, so no great loss.

Best of all, since this is a zero-install app, I can put it on my iPod so if this happens again (and I’m sure it will!) I can grab the files again.

Do you have a better solution? Let me know in the comments.