For music-loving families

Making iPods work when there are several in one house is not an easy task. Out of the box, it won't help copy a music collection to multiple computers, and it won't help you put multiple music collections on a single computer. But the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg reviews low-cost software programs that can help. For the multi-computer problem, he explains how these apps help: CopyPod for Windows, PodWorks for Mac, and PodUtil for both. For the problem of copying parts of a family music collection to Mom's, Dad's, and Junior's iPods, he suggests a workaround or a $10 utility program called Libra. BTW, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced this week that 42 million iPods have been sold so far, 14 million of them just in the last few months, the Washington Post reports. In the UK, a study by researchers at Leicester, York, and Surrey Universities found that, because of easy and constant exposure to music (via iPods and the Internet), people today don't value it as much as they did in the past. Reporting on this, a commentator at The Register writes that the findings were predictable. "Still, it's good to have it down in black and white, all statistically verified and everything. And it keeps academics off the streets."