About the Author
Scott Knaster has been writing and hacking the Mac platform since the early days. His most recent book is Mac Toys: 12 Cool Projects for Home, Office, and Entertainment (with John Rizzo).

Description:
The word, "hacking" bothered me at first but it certainly got my attention, which of course is the purpose of a book tittle. It has the connotation of "evildoers" trying to break into secure computer system. But the author, Scott Knaster, supports the trend to return "hacking" to its original noble meaning; "Hacking is about innovation, exploration, learning and fun." In the Mac world, hacking involves exploring all the built in features of a system as well as those elements that are not so obvious. In daily life, hacking might be substituting ingredients in a recipe for personal use or taking the scenic route instead of the direct route to work one day. You can even hack the book itself as Wily offers errata at its web site.

The book covers hacks for the iPod® device, iTunes® software and even the iTunes® Music Store interface on both the Mac and Windows® platforms. The hacks range in scope from the very useful to useless and just plain fun. Information is provided to exploit the features of the hardware and software. On the Mac side, Apple Scripts provided added functions for managing a music collection. Numerous web sites are included for downloading the Apple Scripts and other third party applications. The authors frequent humorous remarks makes for an enjoyable read while learning this personal music and voice delivery system.

Chapter by Chapter
As you might expect the book has two parts; hacking iPod and hacking iTunes. Plus there is a third part which includes four appendices. Each chapter begins with a bulleted list of topics to be covered and concludes with a summary paragraph of what was presented.

Strengths
Its a good book for the Mac owner who has been using iTunes and iPod for a while and wants to explore additional features of both the software and hardware on the Mac or Windows platforms. Even if not read from cover to cover, the expansive table of contents and complete index help to zero in on a topic of interest. There are even chapters on accessories for the iPod and your Mac to get tunes off the computer and into your home entertainment system. This expansion includes Apples' Airport Express and even playing music on your TiVo.

There is lots of detailed information on burning CD's and DVD including audio compression techniques. How about 13 hours of MP3 audio on one CD. Author Knaster gives a plug for one of his other books on how to render classic LP's to digital format for inclusion in iTunes and on to your iPod. Going past being just a music player the book provides information on expanding the Personal Digital Assists aspects of the iPod. With the help of iSync the iPod comes out of the box with the ability to display your calendar and contact list plus a few games. With a hack or two it can display movie reviews and directions to the theater.

I've been using a second generation 20GB iPod refurbished by Apple for about a year. I use it mostly for talking books while mowing the lawn on a ridding tractor. The iPod keeps a bookmark so that I may return to the spot where I have stopped listening. It keeps the bookmark after a connection to the main Mac and download of additional material. I've been pleased with the battery life and capacity. Audio books can be from one to twelve hours or more in length. Several tape cassettes and CDs would be necessary to hold the equivalent information. On long automobile trips I've tried the iTrip® FM transmitter on the car radio, but about every fifty miles or so you can drive into an area that has a FM station that overwhelms the iTrip frequency. The iTrip is fine for a house or workshop where a radio in each room can be tuned to the same iTrip station. For a long car trip the cassette tape adaptor is a better choice for getting iPod tunes into the car radio.

Weakness and Limits
Although Appendix C details the applicable versions of iPod and iTunes which are discussed in the book, it is not always clear what computer system chip is needed to support the corresponding system revision. For example a G4 Mac is needed to run the iDVD® portion of the latest edition of iLife®. Text-to-speech applications are not discussed nor are the techniques to provide your own narratives for insertion just before a music track.

Reviewer: Tif Bailey Tif Bailey is a graduate electrical engineer from the N. J. Institute of Technology. Downsized from General Electric Schenectady after twenty-five years he became a contract technical writer for several firms in the capital district of New York. Moved back to this area to love and care for elderly parents. He's been a Mac enthusiast since the Mac Plus.

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© 2004 by Tif Bailey & MLMUG
Posted 11/23/04
Updated xx/xx/04