The first option is a little expensive; buy a new BMW. Almost all new BMWs are equipped for you to hook up your iPod to the stereo. It's quite smart, as all you have to do is connect it to a jack in the glove compartment and it will play through the speakers as you control track selection from you steering wheel. This means you can skip between Janis Joplin and Queen without ever taking your hands off the wheel: entertaining, safe driving!

Of course, if you are one of the millions who cannot afford a BMW, you could do what I'm doing. As an impoverished reporter with a 10 year old car old, I only have a radio. I love music but hate the stations in northeast Wisconsin, but after I bought my iPod, I was sitting on the passenger side of a friend's car and discovered that he was listening to his MP3 Player through his car speakers.

Aghast, I demanded to know how. As it turns out, there's a great product called an FM transmitter that you can connect to iPods and most other MP3 players, enabling you to play music through an FM signal broadcast to your stereo. Like a gift from heaven!

One such item, the iCarPlay*, broadcasts to eight different channels and plugs into your power supply in the car and then into your iPod. No batteries required and your iPod gets recharged! The quality of the broadcast is sub-22KHz but that's ok, as radio is broadcast at the same level. Armed with one of these, my karma returned and for the first time in 10 years, I could listen to my entire music collection in the car. It's not a BMW, but it rocks!

A great alternative is a Griffin iTrip FM Transmitter*, which sits on the top of your iPod. With this you can broadcast a signal from any radio, not just your car. The downside being that it uses power from the iPod, reducing playtime.

A finishing touch for your car might be a decent place to put your iPod. The BMW stores the iPod in the glove compartment. Mine slides around on my car seat and a couple of times, it's nearly landed in my coffee. However, if you have a drinks holder in your car, you can now get a device that fixes to a coffee cup holder.

When You Have Listened to Song Number 19,999
One day you may tune in to the last song on your iPod and realise that it would be cool to get something else to listen to. The iPod is great for listening to music but why not expand your cerebral muscle as well? The Apple iTunes Store has an extensive book collection, including audio versions of best-sellers such as The Da Vinci Code to classics such as Huxley's Brave New World.

Blogging Meets Media and Becomes Podcasting
Building on the success of RSS, (Really Simple Syndication - more commonly known as 'blogs'), is Podcasting. A Podcast is essentially the same as an RSS XML-formatted feed. The only difference is that it works not only with textual information, but also files such as MP3.

You will need a Podcaster reader and links to special Podcasting feeds. The best one I have found is at Podcasters.org, which has links to Windows, Mac and Linux readers. Be warned however, this is experimental stuff. The current release of the Windows Podcaster tool is only on 0.11, and is quite unstable. If it works, it's great. You can add in a Podcast XML feed, such as 'Evil Genius Chronicles' and the tool retrieves the feed and all content. In next to no time, you have a collection of MP3s on your hard drive.

Podcasting would be a way to broadcast news content as it happens to all subscribers in the same way that blogging does today.

Whatever happens, you may have heard it herefirst!

The Future of the Mobile iPod
Whether you are listening to tunes, Podcasting or catching up on the news, it's clear the iPod is not just limited to music. It's extremely portable and with add-on devices you can easily expand what your iPod is capable of.

Steve Jobs has said many times that the iPod is successful because you can do things and listen to music at the same time. If you spend a lot of time commuting by train or car, as long as you can keep your hands on the wheel, there is no reason why you cannot rock, as well as roll!

For more iPod tips, try: Secrets of the iPod by C Breen, Peachpit Press ISBN: 0321304594, £15.99