iPod Hack: Load eBooks onto your iPod

Another outtake from the Wired How-To issue...
For flights or long commutes, why lug both an MP3 player and something to read? An iPod can be both.

Step 1: Set up Notes. Enable your iPod as an external hard drive by plugging it into your computer, starting iTunes, and selecting the Preferences option under the Edit menu. Once inside, select the iPod tab and click the button "Manually manage songs and playlists." Now you can access the iPod from Macs or PCs like you would any external hard drive or USB memory stick. (Visit Apple's site for a more thorough explanation.)

Step 2: Get books. Visit manybooks.net, which offers over 11,000 free titles, each downloadable as a zipped folder of 4-kilobyte "chapters" (the largest text file size the iPod supports). You won't find recent blockbusters like The Da Vinci Code; the site features only works no longer protected by copyright. But that includes a few thousand years worth of literature. You can also read any material available in digital form by cutting and pasting it into a text file and uploading it to the iPod eBook Creator site at ambience.sk/ipod-ebook-creator. The site formats the text and returns a collection of chapters like those you get from manybooks.net.

Step 3: Load up and read. Drag the chapter files into the Notes folder of you iPod. Tip: You can create a folder in Notes with the book's name to hold all chapters. Now disconnect your iPod, and under its main menu select Extras and then Notes. Navigate the book folders and individual chapters just as you would albums and song tracks.