Howdy Howdy,

Im about to go out and get a Gen 5 ipod and just wanted an idea on what software I can use that is good besides iTunes?

I stronly suggest you bite the bullet and start using iTunes.

Why?

Personally I hate iTunes

I highly recommend J. River Media Center with the ipod plugin. I use it with my 3G.

personally itunes hates you

Latest version of Winamp supports iPod, or you could get plugins:

http://www.mlipod.com/index.php

Dunno how good it is etc as I normally use the big fat iTunes.

I"ve used some plugin through winamp for ages. Works well most of the time

Because of the way iPods are set up with their playlist features it would be a waste if you didn't take advantage of them. The best part of my iPod is not that it can carry s***loads of music, but that it tracks what I listen to at home and puts things into very logical playlists that I listen to all the time.

If you are just having crap home made playlists and you like listening to songs completely randomly then don't worry about iTunes.

(Obviously here I am assuming that other programs don't have the same cool playlist features as iTunes. If they do then go for it Ace!)

anapod but it's not freeware =(

itunes is balls, I use http://www.mediafour.com/products/xplay/ adds drag and drop interface into explorer and lets you easily copy both ways as well as build playlists if you're into that sort of thing (personally I dont care for them and prefer just to listen to albums individually). It's $15 US but there's a free trial which should pretty much sell anyone.

I concur, use iTunes, I was using it before I got an ipod, nothing beats it in my opinion. iTunes was the reason I bought an iPod to begin with

itunes is balls, I use http://www.mediafour.com/products/xplay/ adds drag and drop interface into explorer and lets you easily copy both ways as well as build playlists if you're into that sort of thing (personally I dont care for them and prefer just to listen to albums individually). It's $15 US but there's a free trial which should pretty much sell anyone.

iTunes totally changed the way I listen to music. I used to only listen to whole albums, and usually would only listen to one or two albums for a couple of months then move on.

Come to think of it, I hate the way I listen to music now... I get so sick of everything I have. When I buy albums now I put them into iTunes and then don't really get a chance to listen to the album enough to get into it, leaving me only liking a few tracks here and there and not really getting into the "cooler" non-pop tracks on the albums.

f*** iTunes and f*** playlists!!@#!#!$

I would definately give ml_ipod (for Winamp) my vote.

itunes is excellent software, whats wrong with it?

itunes is excellent software, whats wrong with it?

nfi. ive never used other software for ipod synchronisation

Yeah I use amaroK Media player. Its a KDE app for linux. Does the job for me.

What's wrong with itunes? It's inability to deal with large amounts of files, removing and adding them to the iPod in one go.
The massive amount of memory required.

I've never encountered any of those problems^

Is there a way to stop iTunes and all associated programs from running in the background?

Kinda annoys me. :(

anapod also, omg $40

I think iTunes caters for the emo crowd....

Is there a way to stop iTunes and all associated programs from running in the background?

msconfig and ctrl+alt+del. works for me :)