The Blogosphere

I don't actually know how many random people read my blog. I have it in my head that it's the friends and family who say things like, "Hey, I read on your blog that you..." more than anyone else, and that's JUST FINE with me.

There are a couple of blogs that I read which are written by people I don't know at all. The ones on ivillage don't make me feel like I'm invading people's personal space, because ivillage sort of markets the blogs and encourages people to read them. These bloggers become quasi-celebrities to me, and I think you all know how I feel about celebrities.

I'm realizing how angry or frustrated a lot of other bloggers are, and I'm trying to get that out of my system, and I won't go browsing through various links that lead to new blogs (although I'm digging Crafster) and will stick to reading just the couple that seem somewhat pre-approved.

In other news, my iPod is alive and well. After setting it aside in January with shouts of, "I don't have time to deal with iTunes!!," it's back in almost-full action. I've transferred my precious collection of carefully cultivated songs from my odd little cd collection onto my laptop and even successfully added some new ones. I was pleased at myself for being able to rip from the iPod to the laptop...but I still have issues with iTunes.

iTunes is an interesting piece of software that holds a lot of potential for patient people, but these are my main problems:

1) It takes up WAY too much memory and is slowing my previously lightning quick computer down to more of light jog

2) It doesn't work well with Windows. Most of the time iTunes will see my iPod...but not always..and this whole problem started when iTunes decided to delete every single song I had in my "library." For the last five months, I've been terrified of plugging my iPod into the computer and having all of those songs deleted, too.

3) iTunes confused me enough that I was willing to live with the songs I had added up to that point and just not add anything new

It's not iTunes' fault, but I am "me" and that the thought of not being able to add new songs made me annoyed enough that I just shoved the iPod into a desk drawer and didn't think about it until this weekend.

And so, my little iPod is back, and I happily enjoyed a short work out while listening to Gavin DeGraw's, "Charity," Yolanda Adams', "Victory," and Faith Hill's, "Fireflies." I told you it was a short workout.

To tie this all together, if there are any random people who read this blog - or if any of my friends know the answer - can someone please tell me how to stop iTunes from taking up so much memory on my computer? Is there another software that will work with my iPod that, perhaps, won't take over the laptop?