5 Great Freeware Apps for the iPod

Even though I do not have an iPod nor do I plan on buying one just yet, I know allot of you do out there. Here is a short little list of 5 applications that will make your iPod work for you.

Senuti
Take a look at the program’s name and then look at it spelled backwards, you got it, it’s like iTunes, but does the opposite, it syncs files off your iPod and sends them to your computer. There are many good reasons that someone would have to transfer music from their iPod back to their computer. There are many good ways to do it, too. Senuti is the only alternative that will give you the power and convenience that you need, wrapped in an interface that is extremely easy to use since it resembles iTunes itself.

iPodBackup
iPodBackup is a shell script-turned-application (via Platypus) that backs up your home folder to your iPod using the open source backup utility rsync. Combine it with Automator and you have fully automated incremental backups to your iPod, for free! You can customize a list of items to be excluded by simply dragging-and-dropping them onto the app.

Book2Pod
Book2Pod is a utility to format large text documents so they can be read on an iPod using the built-in note reader capabilities. It supports documents larger than the 4KB per note limit of the note reader, and makes the 1000 note limit easier to live with. It also lets you organize your collection of electronic books and supports services.

MovieToGo
MovieToGo is a simple batch processing application for converting QuickTime movies into iPod friendly 320×240 H.264 movie files. The Macintosh program, available as freeware from the Digigami web site

iPod-Linux Installers
4th Gen iPods
3rd Gen or older
The goal of these projects is to create an easy to use GUI program that enables Mac OS X user with iPods to install Linux on HFS+ formatted iPods while still allowing users to keep and use the Apple Supplied OS. When installed you can boot into either Linux or the original iPod software. Linux will add higher recording capabilities to your iPod and also a tons of programs, games and extras. Here are a few of the items Linux adds to your iPod, a recording program, calendar, calculator, Invaders, iPobble, Lights, Mine Sweep, Othello, Pong, Tetris, TicTacToe, TuxChess, Steroids, Cube, Matrix and others. Sometimes installation can be hit or miss, but the finished product is worth the effort.

+dwebb