PC-based iPod owners, here’s a tip for you. As I’m sure you know, 1.1 of the iPod software can store contacts as part of it’s storage. They show up in the menu as a storage item; depending on your software, you may or may not even have automatic synchronization for the contacts. I didn’t want anything automatic, of course being an untrusting Geek, so I wanted to figure out to get my contacts on the device on my own. It’s simple actually: the iPod wants vCards (.vcf’s) and Outlook can export them, if you ask it nicely.

As I’m sure you know, 1.1 of the iPod software can store contacts as part of it’s storage. They show up in the menu as a storage item; depending on your software, you may or may not even have automatic synchronization for the contacts. I didn’t want anything automatic, of course being an untrusting Geek, so I wanted to figure out to get my contacts on the device on my own. It’s simple actually: the iPod wants vCards (.vcf’s) and Outlook can export them, if you ask it nicely. Here’s how I did it:

• Selected all of my Contacts in Outlook

• Off the Action menu I selected “Forward as vCard…”

• A new e-mail will appear with all of the Contacts as .vcf attachments

• Select them all and drag them somewhere else

• Now you can drop them to the Contacts directory on your iPod

That’s it. Pretty simple, really. And it works. Most of the “key” fields from the contact comes over; since the iPod is read only, you don’t have to worry about importing the .vcf’s – it’s export only. If anything should happen with the new Calendar items (from iCal on OS X 10.2) I’ll have another update!