Nike + iPod: Upload workout data before restoring your iPod

Posted by george on August 7, 2011 1 comment

To upload your workout data from iTunes:

  1. Make sure you have the latest version of iTunes installed.
  2. Connect your device to your computer. iTunes will open automatically.
  3. If this is the first time you connect an iPod or iPhone containing Nike + iPod workout data to your computer, iTunes asks whether you want to automatically send your workout data to nikeplus.com.[Send Workout Data to NikePlus.com?]
  4. Clicking the Send button will allow iTunes to automatically send your workout data to nikeplus.com everytime you sync your device.
  5. If you haven’t created a nikeplus.com account yet, click Sign Me Up and follow the onscreen instructions. Otherwise, once you are on the nikeplus.com website, select Save Your Runs.

To send your workout data wirelessly to nikeplus.com, please see the user guide for iOS 4.1.

Additional Information

Note: To reduce the possibility of losing any workout data, you should upload your workout data as frequently as possible.

For detailed instructions on how to upload your workout data, see the iTunes Help page entitled “Viewing and saving your Nike + iPod workout data.”

* nikeplus.com maintains a record of your previously uploaded workouts. Restoring your iPod nano, iPod touch (2nd generation) or iPhone 3GS does not erase any previously uploaded workouts on nikeplus.com. The workout history for an iPod touch (2nd generation), iPod touch (3rd generation), or iPhone 3GS is included in the backup and can be restored.

Backing up your music files in iTunes 4

Posted by george on August 6, 2011 No comments

Backing up your music to a CD or DVD

You can burn a data CD or DVD with any of the songs and spoken word content in your iTunes library. You might want to do this to make a backup copy (or archive) of all your audio files, or to transfer them to another computer.

To burn a DVD, your computer should have an internal SuperDrive and Mac OS 10.2.4 or later. Some third-party DVD burners may also work. You can store about 650 MB of files on a CD, and about 4.7 GB on a DVD.

To create a playlist of your entire library

  1. Open iTunes.
  2. Click Library in the Source list.
  3. Click the Browse button or choose Show Browser from the Edit menu.
  4. Make sure “All” is selected for Genre, Artist, and Album.
  5. Click any single song, then choose Select All from the Edit menu.
  6. From the File menu, choose New Playlist From Selection.
  7. Type a name for the new playlist.

Note: If you don’t mind re-importing your other music from your CD collection, you can just back up yout iTunes Store and Audible content by creating a smart Playlist that contains all songs and audiobooks with Kind set to Protected AAC audio file or Audible file as shown here:

To burn a data CD or DVD

  1. Open iTunes.
  2. From the iTunes menu, choose Preferences (Windows: From the Edit menu, choose Preferences).
  3. Click the Burning button.
  4. Choose Data CD or DVD as the Disc Format.
  5. Click OK.
  6. Create a playlist that includes all the items in your library (see steps above), or all the items you want to back up to the CD or DVD.
  7. Select the playlist you want to burn to the CD or DVD, then click the Burn Disc button.
  8. Insert a blank CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, or DVD-RW disc, and click Burn Disc again.

Any audio files in the playlist (MP3, AAC, AIFF, WAV, Audible) are copied to the CD or DVD.

Tip: You can only burn a CD or DVD from the songs in a playlist. If the playlist contains more songs than will fit on a single disc, iTunes will notify you and will give you the option to use multiple discs. You can see the size of the selected playlist at the bottom of the iTunes window.

Data CDs or DVDs will work on your computer, but will not work in most CD/DVD players.

You can make regular, incremental backups of your music (that means only backing up what has changed).

Restoring music files from backup:

To add music files back into your iTunes library from your backup discs:

  1. Insert the disc into your computer. The disc shows up in iTunes.
  2. Click the disc in the Source list.
  3. Click the Browse button in the upper right to make browsing the disc easier.
  4. Locate the songs, albums, artists or entire genres you are missing.
  5. Drag the missing files to Library in the Source list.

A note about copyright
iTunes software may be used to reproduce materials. It is licensed to you only for reproduction of non-copyrighted materials, materials in which you own the copyright, or materials you are authorized or legally permitted to reproduce. If you are uncertain about your right to copy any material, you should contact your legal advisor. See the iTunes Store Terms of Service for additional information.

How to back up your media in iTunes 5 or 6

Posted by george on August 5, 2011 No comments

Backing up your iTunes library to a CD or DVD

You can burn a data CD or DVD with any of the songs, videos, and spoken word content in your iTunes library. You might want to do this to make a backup copy (or archive) of all your media files, or to transfer them to another computer.

To burn a DVD, your computer should have an internal SuperDrive and Mac OS 10.2.4 or later. Some third-party DVD burners may also work. You can store about 650 MB of files on a CD, and about 4.7 GB on a DVD.

To create a playlist of your entire library

  1. Open iTunes.
  2. Click Library in the Source list.
  3. Click the Browse button or choose Show Browser from the Edit menu.
  4. Make sure “All” is selected for Genre, Artist, and Album.
  5. Click any single item in the list, then choose Select All from the Edit menu.
  6. From the File menu, choose New Playlist From Selection.
  7. Type a name for the new playlist.

Note: If you don’t mind re-importing your other music from your CD collection, you can just back up yout iTunes Store and Audible content by creating a smart Playlist that contains all songs, videos, and audiobooks with Kind set to Protected AAC audio file, Audible file, or Protected MPEG-4 Video file as shown here:

If you also want to backup podcasts, you would need to set the smart playlist to include Podcast is true.

To burn a data CD or DVD

  1. Open iTunes.
  2. From the iTunes menu, choose Preferences (Windows: From the Edit menu, choose Preferences).
  3. Click the Advanced tab.
  4. Click the Burning tab.
  5. Choose Data CD or DVD as the Disc Format.

  6. Click OK.
  7. Create a playlist that includes all the items in your library (see steps above), or all the items you want to back up to the CD or DVD.
  8. Select the playlist you want to burn to the CD or DVD, then click the Burn Disc button.
  9. Insert a blank CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, or DVD-RW disc, and click Burn Disc again.

Any media files in the playlist (MP3, AAC, AIFF, WAV, Audible, MP4) are copied to the CD or DVD.

Tip: You can only burn a CD or DVD from the files in a playlist. If the playlist contains more than will fit on a single disc, iTunes will notify you and will give you the option to use multiple discs. You can see the size of the selected playlist at the bottom of the iTunes window.

Data CDs or DVDs will work on your computer, but will not work in most CD/DVD players.

You can make regular, incremental backups of your media (that means only backing up what has changed).

Restoring files from backup:

To add files back into your iTunes library from your backup discs:

  1. Insert the disc into your computer. The disc shows up in iTunes.
  2. Click the disc in the Source list.
  3. Click the Browse button in the upper right to make browsing the disc easier.
  4. Locate the songs, videos, audiobooks, albums, artists or entire genres you are missing.
  5. Drag the missing files to Library in the Source list.

Additional Information

A note about copyright
iTunes software may be used to reproduce materials. It is licensed to you only for reproduction of non-copyrighted materials, materials in which you own the copyright, or materials you are authorized or legally permitted to reproduce. If you are uncertain about your right to copy any material, you should contact your legal advisor. See the iTunes Store Terms of Service for additional information.

How to back up your media in iTunes 7 or Later

Posted by george on August 4, 2011 No comments

To reduce the number of discs needed for a backup, iTunes can perform incremental backups (only items added or changed since the last backup).

* See this post to How to back up your media in iTunes 5 or 6.

Backing up your iTunes library to a CD or DVD

To burn a CD (CD-R or CD-RW), your computer must have a compatible CD burner. To burn a DVD (DVD-R or DVD-RW), your computer must have a compatible DVD burner. Check in iTunes Preferences to see if a drive is compatible. See below for steps.

To create your backup disc

  1. Choose File > Library > Back up to Disc.
  2. Select the option you want from the resulting dialog and click Next.

    The two options you can select from are: 

    • Back up entire iTunes library and playlists
    • Back up only iTunes Store purchases

    Whichever of these two options you choose, note that you can also choose “Only back up items added or changed since last backup” to perform an incremental backup.  Finally, you’ll be able to choose the drive settings (such as which optical drive to use and the speed of the burn process).

  3. Insert a blank disc (CD or DVD) into your computer’s optical drive. iTunes will scan the disc and begin burning.

    4. Note: If the disc you insert does not have enough space to hold all of the content you will be backing up, a dialog will appear asking whether you wish to backup to multiple discs.
    Items in file will not fit on one disc dialog
    You can click Continue to start the burn process.  iTunes burns the number of items that fit on one disc and then asks you to insert subsequent discs to continue burning the remaining files.

    Note: If you have a file in your iTunes Library that is too large to fit on a blank CD, iTunes will prompt you to insert a blank DVD instead.

Don’t eject a disc while a backup is in progress.

Spoken programs purchased from the Audible.com website are not backed up.

Discs you create using the iTunes backup feature can be used only to restore; they can’t be played in a CD or DVD player.

Restoring from a backup disc

  1. Open iTunes.
  2. Insert your backup disc.
  3. iTunes will ask whether you want to restore from this disc. Click Restore.

Additional Information

Make Regular Backups of Your Music in iTunes

Posted by george on August 3, 2011 1 comment

You can use a Smart Playlist in iTunes to make regular, incremental backups of your music, videos, and spoken word media (audio books).

If you have an optical drive that can burn a CD or DVD, you can make regular backups of your iTunes library including music, audiobooks, and movie files.

To make an initial backup of your library, follow the steps outlined in “How to back up your library in iTunes 5 or 6” or “iTunes 4: How to Back Up Music“.

Once you have backed up all of your existing iTunes library, take note of the date and time you completed the backup and then continue with the following steps.

Create a playlist of content you’ve added since your last backup

  1. Open iTunes.
  2. From the File menu, choose New Smart Playlist.
  3. Configure the Smart Playlist so that it includes all content with a Date Added that is after the date of your last backup.
  4. Click OK.
  5. Name the Smart Playlist something like “Backup Playlist”.

Burn a backup disc of all the files you have added since your last backup

  1. Open iTunes.
  2. Open iTunes Preferences.
    • Mac OS X: From the iTunes menu, choose Preferences.
    • Windows: From the Edit menu, choose Preferences.
  3. Click Advanced (iTunes 5 or later).
  4. Click Burning.
  5. Click Data CD or DVD.
  6. Click OK.
  7. Select Backup Playlist in the Source list.
  8. Click Burn Disc.
  9. Insert a blank disc. If you have added more files since your last backup than can fit on one disc, iTunes can burn them onto two or more discs.
  10. When iTunes finishes burning the disc, eject it and write the current date on it.

Next time you do a backup

  1. Open iTunes.
  2. Select the “Backup Playlist” in the Source list.
  3. From the Edit menu, choose Edit Smart Playlist.
  4. Change the date to the date you wrote on your last backup disc and repeat steps 1 through 10 above.

Only want to backup purchased files?

If you only want to backup content you purchased from the iTunes Store, you can configure the Smart Playlist to only look at the Purchased Content playlist as shown here:

Then follow the burn a backup steps above.

Restoring files from backup:

To add music files back into your iTunes library from your backup discs:

  1. Insert the disc into your computer. The disc shows up in iTunes.
  2. Click the disc in the Source list.
  3. Click the Browse button in the upper right to make browsing the disc easier.
  4. Locate the songs, albums, artists, videos, audiobooks, or entire genres you are missing.
  5. Drag the missing files to Library in the Source list.