With the top of the line iPod equipped with a 40 GB hard drive -- a respectable size for a laptop -- the natural instinct is to find out ways to fill it all up. Music alone probably won't do it. I have more than 3,400 songs on mine, which iTunes calculates would take 9.3 days to play, and I still have more than half the 40 GB free. Nature abhors a vacuum, and so to peripheral makers, so vendors were quick to think up ways to use the space.

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The always enterprising folks at Belkin, aided by an iPod software upgrade from Apple, came up with two ideas: use the iPod as a voice recorder and as a repository for pictures from your digital camera. These devices only work with the newer (3G) models, older version don't have the necessary inputs.

Belkin's  F8E461 Media Reader for iPod ($105) is an Apple white plastic box, a little smaller than the iPod, with slots that let you insert CompactFlash, SmartMedia, Secure Digital (SD), Memory Stick, or MultiMediaCard (MMC) cards from your camera. A built-in cable connects the unit to the iPod dock connector

The concept here is that while traveling your desire to take pictures may exceed the capacity of your camera's flash memory card. Rather than going out and buy a new card, assuming you are near a store, you can simply take advantage of the fact that an iPod is, after all, a portable hard drive and download the picture files to it. (To take advantage of this, you need to have set the iPod on your PC or Mac to "enable disk use," which is an iPod preference setting in iTunes.)

You the memory card out of the camera, insert it into the reader, and then plug the reader into the iPod's dock connector. The iPod is programmed so that when the device is attached, the "Photo Import" function automatically triggers. The software lets you choose whether to move or copy your pictures to the iPod. When you are back at your computer, you hook up the iPod to sync with your computer in the usual fashion, use Windows Explorer or Mac's Finder to open up the iPod's data files and your pictures will be there in a neat clone of the file structure on your camera card.

Note that the iPod only serves as a storage medium; there is no photo viewer hidden away somewhere.

In addition to the media reader, Belkin is rolling out a new piece this summer that lets you skip the step of taking the card out of the camera and just simply connect camera iPod for file transfer. Only some digital camera will support this, so check on compatibility.

The voice recorder idea no doubt reflects the popularity of iPods with students. Instead of using your player to tune out your lectures, tape them instead.

While Belkin F8E462 Voice Recorder for iPod ($35)'s was first into this product area, it now has strong competition from Griffin Technology's' new iTalk ($40).

Both are small rounded small rectangular devices containing a microphone and a tiny speaker that plugs into the iPod headphone jack. Griffin's edge comes from the fact that its speaker is a little bigger and, thus, the sound is a little better. The iTalk also has a headphone pass-through jack so you can listen to your music without removing the recorder unit.

As with the photo feature, the iPod software is set up to recognize when the device is plugged in, and it automatically activates its "Voice Memo" capabilities. The controls allow for pausing a recording, stopping, starting a new one, replaying, and deleting. The recordings are in .wav format and thus can be transferred to your PC if you wish.

One thing to beware of: the recordings are found initially through the iPod's memo structure. However, when you sync with iTunes, the recordings get moved into your music library (in a "Voice Memo" playlist). The idea is to let you readily play the voice recordings through iTunes. Unfortunately, however, this is not highlighted in the documentation for iTunes or the recording units, and it should be. When you go back into the voice memo menu on the iPod, the recordings no longer show up there, leading you to think that they have been erased until you finally find them in along with your music. This, frankly, is not one of the better ideas in iTunes -- it should be a preference that could be turned on or off.

All-in-all, the voice recorders is a useful addition to an iPod that lets you leverage your not inconsiderable investment in the player.

(c) 2004 Al Gordon.

In addition to his computer interests, Al Gordon is a principal in the Boston-area strategic consulting firm, Mary Fifield Associates, www.maryfifieldassociates.com

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You can reach Al Gordon at:

al@tnpcnewsletter.com