So you've had that iPod for five years and haven't actually put any of your music on the device because you didn't know how to take music from a CD, and put it on your computer using iTunes? Lucky for you, someone has sent you this guide which will show you step by step how to take music from a CD, and "rip" it to your computer.

We're going to go through each step, including installing iTunes, setting it up, and ripping your first CD. Skip toward the end of the guide if you've already set up iTunes on your computer.

Phase one: Download and install iTunes

The first thing you've got to do is download iTunes, if you don't have it already. To do that, head to this link and click the big "Download Now" button. A box will pop up and ask you to run, save, or cancel.

Click save, tell it where you want to save the file, and the download will begin.

After the file is done downloading, click "run" and the iTunes installer will launch.

A "security warning" will pop up, but just click "run" once again.

Now simply follow the prompts to install the software. No big questions being asked, simply click next through each one.

The software will then install, and will take a few minutes to do so. The next in the setup process is to actually launch iTunes. A software license agreement will pop up, just click "agree" and the iTunes setup assistant will launch.

The iTunes setup assistant will ask you a bunch of questions that you may or may not understand. If you don't understand the questions, don't fret, you can simply continue through the process without hurting anything.

Now, iTunes will load and you'll see the main iTunes screen.

Phase two: Configure and rip a CD

At this point, let's talk about the actual process for "ripping" a CD. While it might sound a tad violent, "ripping" a CD just means to extract the digital audio from the CD and put it on your hard drive. Let's head to the preferences panel of iTunes, by going to the Edit menu, and clicking Preferences.

We're going to set up some of the preferences for importing audio, so click the "import settings" button.

There are a few different settings that can be used for your audio. If you're using an iPod exclusively, we recommend using the "AAC Encoder" option at "High Quality." As we talked about in our in-depth codec guide, AAC is a newer and more efficient codec than MP3, and will sound better with less space taken up.

If you're using an MP3 player that's a little bit older, and a non-name brand, to be on the safe side you could switch the encoder type to MP3, which is the most compatible format around. Most portable media players will play back MP3, and newer ones will be compatible with AAC.

Click OK on that dialog box, and in the preferences window you'll notice an option that'll ask you what you'd like to do with CDs that are inserted. We like the option to automatically start importing the CD, but you might want to have iTunes ask whether you'd like to start "ripping" the CD after you insert it.

Click OK to close the preference window. Now, insert an audio CD into the drive. If you've previously inserted a CD, you'll notice on the left pane of iTunes an entry for "Devices" that has a CD listed. Click that entry, and you'll be taken to a track listing of the CD.

iTunes will connect to the internet and automatically try to get the tracknames from the internet. If you're ripping a popular CD, the tracknames will likely automatically fill in. If you're ripping a custom CD, select the track you'd like to rename by clicking on it. Then, right click and select "get info."

A new window will pop up. You can click the "info" tab and rename the track, or change any of the relevant details.

Once you've got the tracknames displaying, all that's left is to head to the bottom right corner and click "import CD."

iTunes will then start copying the data off of the CD, and import it into your iTunes library. Now simply connect your iPod, and the music will automatically sync to the iPod. For an added bonus, head to the Advanced menu, and select Get Album Artwork...; this  option will automatically connect to iTunes and download the appropriate album artwork, if it's available.

If you've got any other questions about how to do some basic computer tasks, be sure to leave a comment on this post and we'll get your questions answered or add it to our list of upcoming guides. 

[Image: Alvaroruza]