cold turkey

Terri,

When it comes to mp3 players, there's the iPod and there's everything else. Look for a refurb at the Apple Store. You'll find the link at at the lower right hand corner of the store page, under Specials.

- Paul -

if you're using iTunes, you don't have a lot of choices.

Like Paul said, I'd look on the Apple website for a refurb one. Sometimes they have really amazing deals on them.

It's always possible you could revive your current iPod, but you'd probably need to shell out some bucks for diagnosing the problem, only to discover it was fatal anyway. I trust you've already walked through the support sequence at [url]http://www.apple.com/support/ipod/[/url].

I'm guessing you're not willing to wait a couple weeks and get an iPhone? 8)

tc>

There's always the low tech solution. My iPod did not survive switching from a Mac to Windows. While it's away at the iPod hospital, I am burning CDs off iTunes. Lots of CDs . . . .

[quote="terrih"]I've been cut off from my podcast addiction... my iPod has developed a hardware problem. (dropped it on the floor one too many times, I expect).....Terri[/quote]

Terri:

Sorry to hear about the demise of your iPod. I have a couple of suggestions. After looking at the steps that tcomeau suggested, surf on over to [url]http://www.ifixit.com/[/url]. You will find very detailed guides for fixing iPods and other Apple products. Additionally, they sell replacement parts for your iPod.

The thing is - you run into a cost issue with fixing a dead iPod. Do you buy a new or refurb one, or fix the one you have and while doing so get very close to the cost of a new/refurbished one.

I have 2 (digital audio players) DAPs - a Sandisk Sansa and an iPod (2nd gen) Shuffle. I don't use iTunes at all anymore, because it won't talk to my Sansa DAP.

My current setup for managing podcasts is through the use of MediaMonkey [url]http://www.mediamonkey.com/[/url]. I added a plug-in that downloads the podcasts I want and best of all, the software understands that i have multiple DAPs and will sync my stuff to each.

If you are looking for another way to manage podcasts, I highly recommend using the Juice podcast receiver[url]http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/[/url]. I use this for managing a ton of podcasts that I usually burn to CD.

I hope this has helped. Let us know if you need to pick more brains. The M-T community is full of great ideas and helpful professionals.

There [u][b]is[/b][/u] life outside of iPods. [i]Juice[/i] (Google: Juice podcast software) is a great Windows-based app for downloading podcasts. There are tons of very inexpensive flash-based MP3 players out there that can be plugged into a USB port. Then it's simply a drag and drop to put whatever podcasts you want on the player.

Not quite as slick as iTunes/iPodding...but it works well.

CC

Hi everyone,

i am using Juice to download alls podcast, put them in an small 2GB USB stick an put in in the mp3-CD-TUNER of my car, which has a usb port.

This is not as stylish as an ipod, but quite convenient for driving.

Teela (I'm Teela's dad) has a Shuffle, and when she listens to stuff that needs to be in order she uses a smart playlist and loads the shuffle with just the contents of that playlist. She used that approach to learn the songs for [i]Beauty and the Beast[/i] and [i]Les Miserables[/i].

So you could load up just your recent podcasts, and even leave it on shuffle. It might be really amusing to go from [i]MT: Personal Scent[/i] to [i]The Onion Radio News[/i].

2nd generation, new 1GB Shuffles are $79, and you can find the older stick-of-gum half-GB Shuffles for 20-30 bucks on Amazon or eBay.

This might be a simpler (and cheaper) alternative to burning a lot of CDs.

tc>