Free at last, free at last….
October 15th, 2006Thank Ubuntu, I am free at last.
This might seem like an odd proclamation, but it’s true — with an Ubuntu Live CD and an add-on, I am now free to use my iPod however, whenever, and wherever I choose. What a novel concept — to be able to use something you own, under the conditions of your choosing!
When I headed out the door on this long business trip, I did one last synch of my iPod to the iTunes on our Mac, and I grabbed a few back up discs of our music. On this trip, I have a laptop to use — not mine, and one that is very locked down by the sysadmin folks. No iTunes for me.
That was fine — at first. I found a way to load my profile onto a friend’s computer, and did an update that way. Nice, but really, it’s an imposition on the friend, being as I have to use his machine to do this.
The one good thing to come out of it was solving one of the stumbling blocks I had — I was able to reformat my iPod for Windows, to FAT32.
Today, fed up enough to try it again, I done back into the Ubuntu CD I carry with me always (it is the saving grace for when a computer dies but you need to go in and salvage all of the files, work, and data on the hard drive) to try and freshen up the music on my iPod. Some tinkering, some time in Google, and I had gtkpod loaded and the iPod-a-updatin’.
With the Ubuntu CD, an external HD of music, and someone — anyone’s — computer to boot from, I can do just about anything with my iPod now. As geeky as this sounds, I am so unbelieveable happy to have reached this point. Long business trips? Vacations back to Iraq? No problem. I am set. Computers — who knew that they were still useful?
