If you need to create a compelling tour guide or interactive learning aid, you can use your iPod's Notes capability for surprisingly effective results.
Kit required An older iPod with Dock Connector- not an iPod touch.
Time Depends on complexity of the presentation.
Goal To create an interactive guide tor use on an iPod .
Skill level Intermediate .
The Pod is more than just a music player. With a little work it can be made into an interactive tour or lesson guide.
You can insert video, audio and images to your guide. Creating it is simply a ease of getting tn grips with your content and iPod tags.
The iPod is primarily a portable music device, but this doesn't mean you should confine its use to such a one-dimensional pursuit. The increased size and quality of the iPod screen has enabled a number of new and interesting ways to use the device.
The Notes capability of the iPod has been available for a long time now, but it's hardly a feature that will get regular use. With a little work, however, the Notes option can put an iPod to work in a very effective way. If you've ever been to an historic monument or museum, it's likely that you'll have been offered an audio guide to help you navigate your way around. You can use an iPod to create a similar but much more interactive presentation that would really
impress. You don't have to limit yourself to interactive audio guides, either: the Notes section can also help make lessons more interesting and, best of all, it doesn't require all that much work.
All you need is an iPod with a Dock Connector, but you'll get more use and interactivity from more recent iPods with colour screens and video capabilities. If you want to create truly professional interactive documents, you can use applications such as GarageBand to create podcasts or vodcasts to extend the Notes feature's usability. Pictures, text, music and video can all be put to good use with an iPod guide - and, best of all, it's really simple to do.
STEP 01 GETTING STARTED WITH NOTES In order to use Notes, your iPod has to be set up for use as a storage disk as well as a music player. Connect your iPod to your Mac, and click on the devices and then on the Summary tab. Go to the Options area and click the Enable disk use checkbox.
STEP 02 DISPLAY ONLY NOTES It's a simple process to lock the iPod so users can't navigate away and use the other features. Create a new file in TextEdit, make sure it's a plain text document and then save it as Preferences. Type <meta name="NotesOnly" content="true"> in the body of this document. Copy this document to the Notes folder on the iPod.
STEP 03 RESTRICTIONS It's obvious that too much text on an iPod screen will be a bit overwhelming for most users, so it's best to keep your text down to shortish chunks. Another reason to limit text is that text files are limited to 4KB. This equates to about 1000 words. As we'll show later, you can link together a number of text files to create longer presentations.
STEP 04 ORGANISING THE NOTES FOLDER To keep things in order, it's best to think about how your notes will be organised. Give your tour an appropriate folder name and store all your notes there. If you have multiple languages or versions, store them appropriately, too.
STEP 05 CONTROLLING THE NOTES INTERFACE The Notes folder will contain any images you need as well as the main folders. To hide these and provide only a link to your tour folder, you need to create a Jinx file. Open a new Text Edit document, type <A HREF= "/YOUR FOLDER NAME">Begin tour</A> save this as main.Linx and put it in the Notes folder.
STEP 06 LINK TO NOTES If you've created a long document, you'll need to split it into smaller documents so it doesn't go above the 4KB limit. You link these together by placing the following text at the bottom of each document: <A HREF="NAME OF NOTE TO LINK TO"> Next Page </A> Now when the user reaches the end of the text file, they simply dick on the link to move on.
STEP 07 LINK TO PICTURES Each text note can link to any Jpeg image. This is great if you want to put an image of what you're describing at the toot of the note and not affect the 4KB limit. You need to copy the images you want to use to the top level of the notes folder. Next, type <A HREF="Vimage name">Link title</A> into the note from which you want the image to link.
STEP 08 LtNK TO AUDIO One ot the most compelling features here is the ability to Link to audio stored on the iPod. This time, you don't have to copy the audio to the Notes folder. Type <A HREF= "SONG=TRACK NAME">LinktoTRACK NAME</A> into your note. Make sure the TRACK NAME is replaced with the name as it appears in iTunes.
STEP 09 LINK TO VIDEO if you want to go one better than plain old audio and text, you can link to videos stored in iTunes. Again, it's simply a case Of putting a link in the note where you want it to appear: <A HREF= "Video=VIDEO TITLE"> Link to VIDEO TITLE Music video</A> When the video finishes, you'll be returned to the note.
STEP 10 CONTINUE SHOWING NOTE If you've included a link to an audio file, it will play in the normal manner, showing the album art and title, if you'd rather it continue to show the note, you need to add a new meta tag to the Preferences file from step 2. Type <meta name="NowPlaying" content="false"> and save the file. Now audio will play without displaying album artwork.
STEP 11 NOTE TITLE By default, the iPod will display the filename of each text document, if you wish to give a note a different display name than the document title, all you have to do is type a title tag info the note. For example, type <TITLE>NEW NAME</TITLE>, save it and the iPod will display this name rather than the document's actual title.
STEP 12 PODCAST ALTERNATIVE If the idea of typing glides and linking them all together is a bit much for you, you can use GarageBand to offer an audio alternative. All you have to do then is create an audio link as described in step 8.
.
Kit required An older iPod with Dock Connector- not an iPod touch.
Time Depends on complexity of the presentation.
Goal To create an interactive guide tor use on an iPod .
Skill level Intermediate .
The Pod is more than just a music player. With a little work it can be made into an interactive tour or lesson guide.
You can insert video, audio and images to your guide. Creating it is simply a ease of getting tn grips with your content and iPod tags.
The iPod is primarily a portable music device, but this doesn't mean you should confine its use to such a one-dimensional pursuit. The increased size and quality of the iPod screen has enabled a number of new and interesting ways to use the device.
The Notes capability of the iPod has been available for a long time now, but it's hardly a feature that will get regular use. With a little work, however, the Notes option can put an iPod to work in a very effective way. If you've ever been to an historic monument or museum, it's likely that you'll have been offered an audio guide to help you navigate your way around. You can use an iPod to create a similar but much more interactive presentation that would really
impress. You don't have to limit yourself to interactive audio guides, either: the Notes section can also help make lessons more interesting and, best of all, it doesn't require all that much work.
All you need is an iPod with a Dock Connector, but you'll get more use and interactivity from more recent iPods with colour screens and video capabilities. If you want to create truly professional interactive documents, you can use applications such as GarageBand to create podcasts or vodcasts to extend the Notes feature's usability. Pictures, text, music and video can all be put to good use with an iPod guide - and, best of all, it's really simple to do.
STEP 01 GETTING STARTED WITH NOTES In order to use Notes, your iPod has to be set up for use as a storage disk as well as a music player. Connect your iPod to your Mac, and click on the devices and then on the Summary tab. Go to the Options area and click the Enable disk use checkbox.
STEP 06 LINK TO NOTES If you've created a long document, you'll need to split it into smaller documents so it doesn't go above the 4KB limit. You link these together by placing the following text at the bottom of each document: <A HREF="NAME OF NOTE TO LINK TO"> Next Page </A> Now when the user reaches the end of the text file, they simply dick on the link to move on.
STEP 12 PODCAST ALTERNATIVE If the idea of typing glides and linking them all together is a bit much for you, you can use GarageBand to offer an audio alternative. All you have to do then is create an audio link as described in step 8.
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