This is the error message:
“…ipod cannot be updated because the required file could not be found”

In my case I had an older iPod (2nd generation) that I hadn’t synced since I had upgraded to iTunes 7. When I connected the iPod (via firewire) I got the above error message, then iTunes would eject the iPod from my system. I figured I just needed to restore the iPod, but seeing as that software is now built into iTunes, and iTunes keeps ejecting the iPod, I was stuck.

Here’s how to fix it.

• Download this 2006 version of Ipod Updater
• Install on a computer without iTunes 7 (or if you want, back up your current iTunes data, and uninstall iTunes).
• Restart your computer.
• Run the updater.
• Choose the restore option
• You’ll need to plug your iPod intall a charger to reset the firmware – hooking it up to a computer won’t work.
• Once completed, hook back up to your iTunes 7 enbabled computer
• It should recognize your iPod now, and you can sync.

Here’s an odd one… Norton Internet Security 2006 for some reason thinks that the iTunes download page on the Apple site is an ad. Consequently, if you have the ad blocking running under their AntiSpam section, you won’t see the big blue button that allows you to download the software.

Solution, turn off ad blocking temporarily. I’ve seen this happen on a couple of other sites as well. So if a page doesn’t form as expected, try turning off ad blocking temporarily – that might be your fix.

Here’s the situation: you have iTunes set up on one computer with all your MP3s, playlists, purchased music, etc., and now you’d like to move said collection of music to a second computer – it’s really easy to do this… for some reason people kinda freak out about it on the net, but I’m gonna show you an easy way to do it… The key is setting up iTunes right in the first place.

1. Preferences/Advanced: make sure the “Keep iTunes Music folder organized” and “Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library” items are both checked. Really, this will make your life so much easier in many regards. If this isn’t how your library was set up, you can change them now. You might have to go under Advanced/Consolidate Library to move everything.
2. Have both computers set up on your network, or have a portable drive you can move from one to the other.
3. Close down iTunes on both machines
4. On the source machine, locate the iTunes folder (PC: typically it’s under My Documents/My Music/). Copy the following files/folders to their same place on the destination machine:
• iTunes Library (Mac), or iTunes Library.itl (PC)
• iTunes Music Library.xml
• iTunes Music (entire folder – this is where all your MP3s live)
5. After everything copies (could be hours for a large library across a home network), start up iTunes on the destination machine. iTunes will take a minute or two to rebuild the library. Once it’s done, all your files, playlists, ratings, last-played, etc. will be there. When you click on a file that downloaded through the store, you’ll have to log-in and authorize your machine – and that’s it. You’re done.

A sample use – I use my Windows XP machine as my primary machine, it’s what I sync my iPod to etc., but I don’t always leave it because it’s loud. But I do leave my Mac Mini on all the time, so I keep a copy of my library on the Mac – that way I can listen to tunes whenever (it’s hooked up to the stereo). When I add songs to the PC, then I’ll just copy over those folders and the XML and .itl files again… it’s pretty easy, and then you have a backup of everything too.

I don’t know about anyone else, but ever since I updated to the latest version of iTunes I’ve been having a really wonky Quicktime experience. It started out with Firefox crashes, but pretty soon if I tried to view a movie in the standalone player, it would freeze if you tried to pause/play or do a video scrub.

Through trial and error the following fix worked for me (Windows XP, SP2).

• • Install the latest version of iTunes
• • Uninstall just Quicktime
• • Download the Quicktime 7.0.3 player (7.04 is buggy, 7.0.2 isn’t compatible with the newest iTunes).

So for now iTunes is happy and Quicktime isn’t crashing.