Skywalker,
Your snide, simple-minded, and self-absorbed response was wholy unappreciated. The degree you earned in computer science from the 2 year correspondance school hardly entitles you to take that sort of condescending tone with anyone. Clearly, I'm an outsider in your world of home-made beat-off movies, alternative angles of Britney Spears "Toxic" video and geek jargon. But I posed a legitamate question. If it revealed my ignorance on the subject, it served its purpose. I'm trying to learn about my iPod, and I'm starting from the ground up. I'm pretty sure referring to Apple as Mac does not justify character assassination. Please take a moment next time you'd like to flex your nerd muscles on an internet message board and think about being a descent human being.
Further, I do believe that there is a way to unlock the iPod, or unsynchronize it so that you can simply upload iPod contents to any Mac, in addition to the method you described--using a program like File Buddy (or any other of the hundreds of programs to which you made reference) to make visible the music files on the iPod. I found that process rather tedious. I'll quote a post I read on another sight:
"You can use any utility that lists invisible files to copy data (music) off of your iPod for transfer to another computer whose iTunes has not been "registered" to your iPod.
1. Plug in your iPod to the Mac
2. If the iPod has music on it that has been synchronized from another Mac, iTunes asks you if you want to re-register the iPod. Select No. Selecting Yes will remove the songs from your iPod and sync it with the Mac you are connected to. If this Mac does not have any music on it, an empty iPod is the result. (bummer)
3. Run a disc utility like FileBuddy (shareware, available from download.com or shareware.com) Since the iPod is still mounted as a drive, FileBuddy will recognize it and allow you to list the files on it. The iPod stores MP3's as invisible files.
4. Select all of the invisible MP3 files on the iPod and copy it to a folder on your local hard drive.
5. Have FileBuddy make the files visible.
6. Quit FileBuddy. Quit iTunes. Unplug the iPod from your Mac.
7. Move the now visible MP3 files into your iTunes music folder.
You have now copied songs from your iPod to the Mac. The next time you plug in the iPod and run iTunes, you will get the dialog asking you if you wish to resync to this Mac. As long as you copied all of the MP3's from the iPod, you can now safely select Yes since the contents are now the same and the music will be untouched. The iPod will now be registed to this Mac.
Note: If you connect the iPod to the original Mac that you synced your music with, iTunes will ask you if you wish to register the iPod, since it is no longer tied to that Mac."
Regards,
Beau Barron