If you're considering buying an MP3 player, you've probably noticed that you've got about a million options for players to buy. Searching online or in stores, you've found that you could buy everything from a barebones player with a tiny screen that costs less than a nice dinner to things the size of small laptops with more features than most computers packed 10 years ago.

Making sure you get everything you need when you buy an iPod isn't as simple as just going into the Apple Store, grabbing a music player off the shelf and paying. There are some other purchases you should make to ensure you get the most out of your iPod experience. There are thousands of accessories for the iPod, from speakers to cases to headphones to car kits. What you need will really depend on how you plan to use your iPod, but here are a few ideas for what you should buy to make sure you're full equipped to rock.

Upgrading from an older iPod model to the latest, most wonderful, and cutting edge iPod can be an expensive proposition. Plus, you've got a perfectly good iPod on your hands, so can you use that to your advantage to cut the cost of your new toy?

This site contains a number of documents labelled "101." Just like in a college course, these documents are introductions and overviews to everything you need to know on a particular topic. Each page has a collection of links to specialized information in the site about each of these topics.

For many users, iTunes is a great program for managing songs, videos, and connections with their iPods. However, some users are frustrated by iTunes's limitations or want to add features such as the ability to move songs to and from their iPod. These users need programs that are iTunes alternatives.

When you rip songs from CD in iTunes, you can choose what file format you want the songs to be saved in. Different file formats have different strengths and weaknesses - generally trading the size of the resulting file for the sound quality of the music. The two most common file types in iTunes are MP3 (Defintion) and AAC (Definition), though iTunes also offers Apple Lossless Encoding, AIFF, and WAV (these last two are high-quality, uncompressed file types used for CD burning. Avoid using these in iTunes unless you really know what you're doing and have a good reason).

It's widely said that AAC files - the native format of iTunes and the iTunes Store - sounds better and takes up less space than an MP3 of the same song. Anecdotally, I've long believed that this is true, but wanted to put the proposition to a more strict test in order to better help you decide which file format to use for songs in your iTunes library and on your iPod. So, to conduct this audio file format shoot out, I decided to encode the same song three different ways: as a 128 Kbps AAC file, a 192 Kbps MP3, and as a 320 Kbps MP3 (the higher the Kbps rating, the bigger the file, but the better the quality as well - at least in theory).

When you buy anything from the iTunes store - a song, an album, a video, an audio book - you are able to play it on up to 5 computers. The computer you bought it from is the first computer authorized to play that file. Here's how to authorize other computers to play the file.

Songs moved from CD and bought from iTunes are automatically categorized by genre, artist, and more. Sometimes, though, you'll want to change these listings. Here's how. Difficulty: Average Time Required: A minute or two

So, you're the proud owner of a fancy new iPhone. Not only is the iPhone a great toy, it's also a very useful productivity tool. You're really going to enjoy it. You may be asking yourself, though, where do I begin? Even if you've had an iPod in the past, the experience of setting up and using the iPhone is a bit more involved. This page gives you quick access to the articles on this site that you'll find most useful in the early stages of setting up and using your iPod.