K | IPod / IPod

The 80GB iPod looks like a good replacement for my crippled Rio Karma.
This discussion mentions Cucusoft for a program to convert DVDs to iPod videos.
This discussion mentions Makayama's video converter, an apparently FREE iPod video converter from Videora, and Red Chair for bypassing iTunes.

Anapod Explorer: OmniTome (manual) • Learning and Using Anapod

Questions

Is there a way to get notes (text files) bigger than 4KB, or more than 1000 of them onto the iPod? (Obviously a hack involved.)
How do I connect the iPod to the PC and still be able to use the iPod while uploading stuff?

Notes

You can upload text files (up to 4KB apiece, and no more than 1000 of them) into the iPod's Notes folder. The Notes program understands a very few HTML tags: <title>, , and , and <a href="note filename here"> -- so you can't have bold or italic text or different fonts, but you can create links between notes, or links to songs or playlists. [References: Macworld, Apple support, KenichiMaehashi.]

Actually, this developer's guide suggests that you can create miniature multimedia presentations with notes. In addition, 5.5Gen iPods can have links to photos and videos as well as to songs, albums, and playlists. (You could create a custom interface to your albums or playlists, though of course you'd be creating a static page that you'd have to update if you wanted to change the music accessible from the page.)

Save space

Don't use <title>. Just give each file a short, reasonable, readable name.
Avoid , , and . Just use normal newlines to separate paragraphs. (The Notes preference LineWrap needs to be "false" for this to work; by default, it is.)
Apparently the <a href> tag does require doublequotes. (I haven't seen any statement yet that says this outright, but every example I've seen so far has doublequotes.)

Photos

The screen display is 320 x 240.

External software

iPodWizard for changing the graphics, font and strings on all iPod models with a screen. (Forum.)

Installing software on the iPod

There are a number of ways of "hacking" an iPod, but I'm most interested at the moment in installing software on the iPod, so I can do more things with it. I'm curious as to how much you can do with the iPod, considering that the "keyboard" is a circular touchpad with five buttons embedded in it.

Linux

You can install Linux on your iPod (but note that iPodLinux does not yet support 5.5Gen iPods like my 80GB beast). Its default graphical environment is named Podzilla.

If you can install Linux, you can:

Rockbox

Rockbox is an alternative to iPodLinux. Currently it supports 30GB and 60GB 5.5Gen iPods, but not the 80GB. (It seems to be mainly a way to apply visual themes to the iPod. The goal of Rockbox is apparently to make the iPod a better music player, while the purpose of iPodLinux is to run software.)

Albums

I'm thinking that I want custom albums on the iPod because in many instances a real album has only two or three songs I want to carry around, and apparently the album is one of the three primary ways the iPod has of organizing songs. A playlist would be a custom arrangement of songs, but an album would be a kind of default arrangement -- in this case a kind of personal best-of collection.

The result might be that I keep two versions of an MP3 -- one for the collection at home, and one for the iPod.

I now (2007-01-30) have two such albums on my iPod: "The Disco Years" and "Mind Movie Music".

1970s album
- Carl Douglas "Kung Fu Fighting"
Eighties album
- Michael Sembello "Maniac"
- Mike + the Mechanics, etc.
- Dead or Alive "Brand New Lover"
- Billy Ocean "Caribbean Queen" (different feel though)
- Miami Sound Machine "Conga"
- Shannon "Do You Wanna Get Away"
- Irene Cara "Flashdance...What a Feeling"
- Kool & the Gang "Get Down on It"
- Laura Branigan "Gloria"
Soul album
- Barry White
- Luther Vandross
- Jenny Burton "Bad Habits"
Diva album
- Gloria Gaynor
- Chaka Khan
- Teena Marie