Ricky Says

The iPhone's built-in 2 megapixel auto-focusing camera makes it easy to snap decent quality photos, but the process for copying those photos to your computer using iTunes is clunky and a little different than you'd expect from most digital cameras.

Fortunately it's easy to just copy photos from your iPhone to your PC using Vista's built-in photo importer.

Here's how to copy pictures from your iPhone to Vista without using iTunes:

1. Plug in your iPhone to your computer using the usb data cable that comes with your iPhone. Windows Vista will detect your iPhone and ask you what actions you'd like to take:

2. Click "Import pictures" to start the import process.

3. Enter a keyword tag to let you easily find your pictures after they've been uploaded to your computer.

4. Click the "Import" button to start the import process. You can also choose to remove photos from your iPhone once they've been uploaded.

Once your photos have been copied over to your computer, Vista will open the Windows Photo Gallery that's included with Vista, and will show you the pictures you've just uploaded.

No syncing, no fuss, and no iTunes or extra software required. Just photos copied over to your PC like you'd expect.

Question: I have music that I bought from iTunes that I can't play on my blackberry, or even on my computer with Windows Media Player. Is there a way around this limitation? I mean, I paid for this stuff, so I should be able to play it outside of just iTunes!

Answer: I completely agree with you. If you paid for music, then you shouldn't be limited to playing it in on just your one computer running iTunes (in my opinion anyway).

When you buy songs from the iTunes store, it downloads them to your computer in .m4a or .m4p format. You won't be able to play those songs anywhere else because they have DRM protection built into the music files.

It turns out that there are two legal ways to remove DRM-protection from music purchased from iTunes, so you can play them on other music players like Windows Media Player, WinAMP, etc.

Let's start with the hard-but-free way first, and then we'll cover the easy-and-affordable way.

Approach 1: Make backup CDs using iTunes and then import the CDs back into iTunes.

With this approach, you'll need a recordable CD or DVD for each album that you want to convert. Plug in the CD-R into your CD burner, select the album in iTunes, and choose the File -- Library -- Back up to Disc menu in iTunes 8 (used to be File -- Backup to Disc in older versions, but now the menu is hidden under the Library menu in version 8 and greater).

Once the backup process has finished, then eject the CD-R, put it back into the CD burner, and then import the songs back into iTunes.

Be sure to configure iTunes to use MP3 encoding when importing songs, which will make sure that it imports them into mp3 format that will run on other music players.

Approach 2 (recommended): Convert DRM-protected songs directly to mp3 format using Aimersoft.

Question: I just lost my ipod that had a ton of songs on it. So now I have to buy those songs all over again and load them on my new ipod! Is there a way for me to backup these songs I'm buying, so that if my ipod goes belly up again then I won't lose my music investment?

Answer: Wow, sorry to hear that you lost all those tunes - that can be really expensive!

iTunes does have a built-in backup feature, but it requires you to use a recordable CD for each album. You can access this feature by selecting the songs you want to back up, and then selecting the "File" - "Back Up To Disc" menu in iTunes.

That'll convert your mp3 songs to audio format that you can play from a CD or DVD player, but you'll burn through a LOT of discs for several gigs of music files that live on most ipods.

A more ideal solution would be to back up all of your ipod music to a single location on your computer, and preferably an external hard drive.

MediaPilot has a slick backup feature that lets you backup all of your ipod music to a single location on your hard drive. No recordable CDs or DVDs are needed with this approach either.

Here's how it works.

1. Plug your ipod into your computer using the regular data cable, which should start itunes.

2. Download a copy of MediaPilot, install it and run it on your system.
3. Select the Tools - iPod File Backup menu.

4. Choose a backup folder location and identify how you'd like the backup folders to be organized.

Question: How can I transfer my itunes songs and videos into my Blackberry 8330 curve?

Answer: Blackberry curves let you play mp3 music just like an iPod, and you can transfer songs and videos from iTunes to your Blackberry using an SD Micro memory card and a USB card reader.

Here's the general approach for transferring music files from your computer to a Blackberry:

1. Plug an SD Micro memory card into your computer using a USB card reader.

2. Copy music from your computer onto the SD Micro card.

3. Plug the SD Micro card into your Blackberry (behind the battery) and it will automatically recognized the music files.

Blackberry Curves come with 64 megs of built-in memory, which is barely enough for even a single music album. Fortunately, the Curve also has a memory expansion slot that allows up to 4 gigabytes of SD flash memory - the same amount of storage as an iPod nano.

You can get a 2 GB 3-in-1 microSD/miniSD/SD Kit from Wireless Emporium (shown below), which is enough for about 1,000 songs.

Combine it with a USB card reader (also available for a few bucks at Wireless Emporium), and you'll be able to plug it directly into your computer or laptop and transfer songs or videos to it from iTunes.

The memory expansion slot is located behind the battery, so you'll need to turn off your Blackberry and remove the battery to get to it. The memory expansion slot takes SD Micro flash disks, which are about 1 cm in size.

Question: I have a bunch of music in iTunes on my old computer. How do I transfer my iTunes library to my new computer?

Answer: There are two ways to do this: 1) by manually copying your iTunes music files to an external hard drive and then manually copy them to your new computer, and 2) using a program like iPod 2 iTunes or MediaPilot that let you copy music from your iPod directly to another computer.

I'll cover the manual route first, which is a little harder and requires that you have an external hard drive, and then I'll show you the easy way using just your existing iPod and an inexpensive copy of iPod 2 iTunes.

Manually copy your iTunes library to another computer using a external hard drive

Plug in your external hard drive to your computer. Open Windows Explorer and go to your iTunes music folder. On Vista it's C:\Users\your.username\Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music. On Windows XP it's under Documents and Settings.

Copy the iTunes Music folder to your external hard drive, and then plug the hard drive into the other computer.

Make sure iTunes is installed on the other computer, and just copy the contents of the iTunes Music folder from your external hard drive to the new computer (in the same location as the old computer). iTunes will recognize the files the next time you run it, and you'll be good to go.

Automatically copy your iTunes library to another computer with third-party software

A much easier option if you have all the music on your iPod is to use a third-party program that will copy music from your iPod to your computer (basically using your iPod as an external hard drive).

There are a couple of programs that you can use to upload music from your iPod to any computer running iTunes.

MediaPilot: