iPod Mystery, iTunes Question

iPod Mystery: Why can't I use my iPod buttons with my gloves on? (On the coldest days, I've even tried unsuccessfully to use my nose—but I think the problem there is that I have a Generation 3 iPod with an iSkin, so the fingerholes are a little smaller and set farther in than usual, and my nose is not as agile as my finger.)

iTunes Question: Is there a way to make two songs always stay together, even when doing a shuffle? I have lots of live CDs, where the tracks sometimes have to be divided at arbitrary points, and it's disconcerting to hear a song being introduced at the end of one track, and then suddenly it shuffles over to a completely different artist and song. I would want to permanently join certain pairs of songs that really need to be heard successively.

Comments

[blork]

I don't know about the iTunes thing, but my girlfriend had a similar problem with her iPod (trouble driving it with mittens on), so I got her one of those airClick remote control things. It's great, because she just drops the remote into her mitten and she can control it without taking them off -- assuming she can figure out what buttons to click just by feeling them!

This thing:
http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/airclick/

[Karen]

Thanks, I'd never heard of the AirClick. I use my iPod exclusively in the car, using the iTrip to play my music through the radio. So it's not as though it's such a hardship for me to slip off my glove when I want to skip a song, but still...!

[Jon]

Hi Karen

I have a 3rd gen ipod too and I think that the controls are heat sensitive.The touch pad of my notebook computer does the same thing-it has to be a warm finger,not a pencil's eraser or something.

There is a great (and free) music editing program available called Audacity.It may be a little more work than you want to put into it,but I think you could splice your tracks together.Not sure if the program is compatible with Apple's AAC format,but if you have the cd you should be able to rip ,edit,then add to itunes.

-Jon

[Karen]

Thanks for the tip on Audacity; I might check it out. Or I might just continue to suffer through some abrupt song transitions. ;-)

[scott]

Audacity seems likely to work for music ripped from store-bought CDs, but unlikely to work for iTunes-downloaded ones. Unless! Unless you first burned the music to CD and then ripped it back to the computer. Then it probably would work. The issue isn't whether it can handle AAC; maybe it can, but the more salient question is whether it can defeat the DRM embedded inside iTunes-downloaded music. I wouldn't bet on it.

[Loren]

It is possible to join tracks from a CD as you rip it into iTunes. Select the tracks you'd like to join and choose "Join Tracks" from the Advanced menu before you import the CD. If you want to join preexisting mp3s, etc. from your library, there's a promising piece of shareware called "iTunes Join" from 3AM Software. Once installed, it resides in your iTunes scripts menu and is pretty straightforward.

[Karen]

DUH! Why didn't it even occur to me to look under the menus??? So I could just re-import those songs from the CDs. Or I'll look into iTunes Join. THANKS!