How do I make my iPod work with USB2?

[OneIsNotPrime]

Yesterday, my dad was in town and was showing off his new iPod, portable speakers, external battery supply, etc., to all of us. The he surprised me and my two siblings by taking us to the apple store and buying us each a 20GB iPod and iTrip!!! (Sorry, I thought that deserved three exclamation points.) Anyway, amid all the excitement, I forgot to ask if these were USB ready out of the box (we all have Windoze machines). Is Apple's iPod dock connector to USB 2.0 + FireWire cable the best solution to this? Is there a cheaper, working, third party solution, or will any USB cable do? Any help would be appreciated. I can't wait to play with this thing! Thanks,

Josh

[Horrortaxi]

You need a special cable--$20 from Apple. It has the dock connector on 1 end, then splits to a USB and a 6 pin firewire (which you then plug into the charging block) so that you can sync and charge at the same time.

[Lanbrown]

Another solution would be a FW card in your computer and sync that way.

[OneIsNotPrime]

Thanks for your help

[Opteron]

A PCI Firewire card will be cheaper than the USB2 cable from apple. Plus then you can use all kinds of other fire wire components.