The process of transferring music to your favorite portal device can be frustrating. Let's face it, whether it's the famous Ipod or even the widely popular Playstation Portable (PSP), there are restrictions that need to be understood, and steps that need to be followed properly to transfer songs on to either music platform.

So how do I download music to my Ipod?

Downloading music from your hard-drive to you Ipod is done with the program called Itunes. This program comes with your Ipod purchase or can be downloaded at http://www.apple.com. The software is vital because it not only allows you to purchase from the popular Itunes music service, it's also the only way you can transfer songs onto your Ipod.

So let's look into the Itunes software, and more specifically, the Itunes library that is used to transfer songs from your hard-drive to your Ipod. You'll find it on the left hand panel of the program. Your library contains all your songs, movies, and podcast that you want to transfer over. Through the Itunes library, you'll be able to use their drag-and-drop feature for easy and fast transfer to your Ipod.

Before we move one to the next step, it should be made clear that songs that are downloaded from P2P clients might not show up on the Itunes library. You must add them manually, because you will not be able to transfer any songs until they are integrated into your Itunes library. Doing this is simple. Click on file>add file to library, locate the file you want to add, and press enter to complete the process. There is also the 'add folder to library' function which allows you to transfer a whole folder of songs into the Itunes library. This is quite handy to have if most of your songs are stored in one place on your hard drive.

Alright, let's get back on track here. You know the proper steps in which to keep your Itunes library updated now, and the last step is a breeze. Plug in your Ipod to the USB port in your computer, and you'll notice the new option to add songs from your Itunes library to the Ipod. Click and drag your files into the Ipod transfer screen and then you're done! You're now ready to explore the wonderful world of music without the burden of a large cumbersome computer to haul alongside you!

Downloading music to your PSP

The common misconception about the PSP is that it's just to play old Playstation games. It's not. More and more it's being used as a great alternative to an MP3 player, and the quality is just as good. There are however some drawback in the PSP that can make downloading music to your player extremely frustrating.

Lets get down to the drawbacks first, and what you need to know to start downloading files onto your PSP. The first is that some file extensions will not work. For example, every song downloaded from the Itunes music service will not work on the PSP because the .m4a extension, which is associated with Itunes, is not compatible with the PSP. Furthermore, if you're a user of another popular music service such as napster, you'll find that music downloaded from their service has restrictions placed on their files that will also not work with your PSP.
There are a few options to work around that. The first way to get around this problem is with the use of an audio conversion program. This software will convert a format such as the .m4a extension to an extension that is compatible with your PSP like the .MP3 format.

Currently, the only extensions that work with the PSP are the MP3, AAC, and WMA formats. Before you proceed on, make sure that your files end in the proper extensions!

The next step is to make sure your memory stick, which is where your songs will be stored, is formatted properly. It's a fairly simple process. Turn on your PSP, go to system settings, and then format your memory stick. A music folder should automatically appear that will be used to place your music in.

From that point, connect your PSP to your computer, via a USB connection. Once that's done, a new diskette folder should appear in your 'my computer folder', in which to drag and drop music files to play on your PSP.