I dont need to import dates, news, address book, etc to my Ipod. All I ever wanted to do was to upload tunes to my ipod and if needed, download tunes off my ipod and transfer/copy them to a hard drive. What I use is Winamp with the mlipod plugin installed. The plugin also does id tagging, ratings, playlists,etc. Go to winamp's website and look for the mlipod plugin for more info.