my friend has this IPOD for sale...

[VA $l!m]

and i'm really thinking of buying it.

mainly because i think i can get it real cheap.
its a 30gbipodvideo and he asked $70 for it, but i think i might be able to talk him down to $50. i looked on ebay and $70 is about the lowest i saw one there.

its not exactly what i'd buy if i was looking for a new one, but since i've sorta been dying to have a PMP as of late, i'm really considering grabbing it up.

though i'm not sure about a few things:
1. he doesnt have any manual or accessories, except for the usb connector. now, from what i understand that should double as an adaptor/charger right?
2. how much pain in the as is it to set up Itunes or whatver it is that i need to get my music on the thing?
3. should i pass on something that is used and i have no idea what real condition it is in besides the fact that it seems to work fine?

[rowjimmy]

For $50-$70.. buy it.
You don't need a user manual. Anything you can't figure out you can ask here or look at apple.com.
Yes, it will charge via the USB cable. You can also buy a wall charger for not a whole lot.

For a quality mp3 player... that's a good deal.

[VA $l!m]

so what about software?

[jephrey]

yeah, I have the 60 (which is pretty much the same) and it's solid.  Even owning one, I'd consider buying another if it was only 50...

If you've been used to doing everything by hand etc and want to continue, you'll have to take some time with iTunes in the prefs to make sure iTunes won't control your music, but then you don't keep the changes you make in iTunes (like album art or tags).  I've decided to work with iTunes and use the tags in order for things to be stored the way I want them, but automatically.  But just to get started, just download iTunes, open it up, check out the prefs, and load it up with some copies of songs to see how it organizes stuff.

[jephrey]

...  Continuing on, it all depends on if you can work with iTunes or if you want to disable those "features" and organize yourself.  I have to say that I was at one time reluctant to let a program organize my stuff, but now I'm happy how it does it. - Partially because I was able to make some minor changes in the way I do things.

[VA $l!m]

 sorry for my naivete, but i've never really used one of these things.

basically what i want to know is if it will be relatively easy for me to figure out the basics on how to get shows and other music from my Hd onto the thing?

[VA $l!m]

oh... and is software free?

[jephrey]

iTunes does it all.  When you plug in your iPod, iTunes will ask you if you want to copy your entire library or certain playlists.  It's fairly easy.

The only issue you'll run into is getting flacs or shns, which can both be converted to any of the formats an iPod will take.

You'll have to determine a few things. - These will also help me answer any questions you may have

1.  Do you want to make a major change and have iTunes control your music library?
 a.  Do you want to manage your live shows separate from ripped or otherwise acquired CDs?
2.  What's your library like right now?  mp3? flac?  other?  combinations?

Quick rundown on how I do it.

iTunes holds all my commercial music.  It's all in apple lossless.  I don't buy mp3s nor do I have more than the few I have because it's the only version of the song I've been able to get.  At the same time, those are all marked and they get put into an automatic playlist so I know which songs I have to replace.  I also only keep full albums (again, if I can get them).  I'm currently trying to replace 80 individual mp3s and flac files (that I don't have the whole album for) and about 15 mp3 albums...  Letting iTunes control that stuff is simple, it gets artwork and you can sort many ways.  Playlists are nice too.

My phish has all been converted to apple lossless and archived that way, but I put it in iTunes to modify it, but then pull it out to archive.  Since that stuff takes up about 700M-1G per show, I rotate shows on the pod.  So I let iTunes control my phish, but only when it's on the computer to be rotated on or off the pod.  I'm liking how it works.

[jephrey]

iTunes is of course free!

[jedifunk]

yeah slim, itunes is hella easy and very intuitive IMO... i say go for it, what have you got to lose?  $50?