Help - I need more than 1000 Notes of 4000 characters

Question

The 4000 character limitation of Notes and the limitation of 1000 Notes and the length of time it takes to load in Notes make using iPod notes very limiting. I've experimented with a few other options which I explain below, BUT MY QUESTION IS does anyone have any other suggestions on how to work around the 4000 character limitation?
Here is what I have found to be alternative options:
Split your notes into 4000 character blocks using the split command (open Terminal and type "man split" to read about the command)
Install Linux on the iPod. This worked with my older iPod but there isn't a Linux for the newer iPod yet.
Using Contacts "note"
Summary: Uses a manually created Contacts file to store text of up to 243,185 characters in length. If creating files manually requires special formatting for linebreaks. Compatible with music playback and iTunes sync.
Contacts are stored on the iPod according to the vCard standard. vCard stores contact entries in vcf files. A single vcf file can contain any number of vCard entries. The iPod firmware looks for the vcf files in the iPod Contacts folder. The Contacts folder can contain any number of vcf files and will load all of them into memory when viewing contacts.
Contacts synchronized with iTunes are stored in the iSync.vcf file.
You can paste your text content into an Address Book entry and sync it to the iPod via iTunes. There may be limits in the Address Book application regarding the amount of text it will allow.
Using any text editor you can create your own vcf files and place them into the Contacts folder as well. Using the org and note attributes in the vCard entry in a vcf file you can create a contact that can display up to 243185 characters of text. A sample vcf file with a single vCard entry would look like this:
begin:vcard
version:3.0
org:Sample Note
note:You can use Contact notes to get around the 4k limitation of iPod notes. Doing so requires some changes in the syntax of the text however because the vCard format is fairly restrictive.\nFor one thing any line breaks must be converted to a backslash followed by lower case n.\nFor another many symbolic characters must be escaped by preceding them with a backslash.
end:vcard
The "org" attribute names the contact, and the "note" attribute contains the text, up to 243,185 characters of text. While a vCard entry can only have a single note attribute, you can have any number of vCard entries in a single vcf file.
One requirement of this approach is that the text must be edited to a format compatible with the vCard standard. That means that all linebreaks in the text must be converted to a backslash "\" followed by "n", and any symbolic characters should be preceded with backslash.
The negatives of this approach are that linebreaks must be altered and the notes are mixed in with your contacts. But to the positive they are still viewable while music is playing, and they are left alone by the iTunes synchronization process.
This method does not interfere with listening to a song. This method is independent of synchronizing with iTunes.
Using the Calendar "description"
Summary: Uses a manually created Calendar file or Calendar entries in iCal to store text of up to 20,600 characters in length per calendar event. If creating files manually requires special formatting for linebreaks. Compatible with music playback. NOT compatible with iTunes sync if using a manually created file.
The iPod supports the vCal standard for displaying calendar information. Version 1.0 of this standard uses vcs files; and version 2.0 of this standard uses ics files. Most calendar programs can export either vcs or ics files and there is plenty of information available online for how to convert data from a calendar application into one of these formats.
The iPod firmware will display the contents of vcs and ics fles that are located in the iPod Calendars folder.
Calendar events defined in the vCal standard have a description attribute. The iPod firmware displays the description attribute when displaying the calendar event. It is possible to create a calendar specifically for the purpose of storing text in description attributes. You could create a calendar in a calendar program such as iCal and sync it with the iPod via iTunes, or you could create your own calendar file manually. Unfortunately if you sync calendars using iTunes then iTunes will delete all files in the Calendars folder that it does not directly control, so maintaining any kind of external calendar file is not compatible with syncing calendars using iTunes.
The iPod can read both vcs and ics calendar files, but for creating your own you should use vcs because vcs doesn't have a line length limit while ics does and requires special line-wrapping. The iPod will display only the first 20600 characters of the event description.
A simple vcs file with a single fake event would look like this:
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:1.0
X-WR-CALNAME:Notes Calendar
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART:20070201T220000Z
DTEND:20070201T230000Z
SUMMARY:Sample note
DESCRIPTION;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:=0D=0ALine breaks need to be converted to an equal sign followed by 0D followed by another equals sign followed by 0A. There is no line length limit, so the text can be as long as you need. There may be a reasonable limit imposed by the iPod calendar interface due to scrolling.
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
Each Calendar in the file is demarcated by the BEGIN:VCALENDAR and END:VCALENDAR statements. The VERSION statement when set to 1.0 indicates a vcs file (2.0 should be used in an ics file). The X-WR-CALNAME statement can be used to indicate a name for the calendar. If no calendar name is specified the iPod uses "Other".
Each Calendar event is demarcated by the BEGIN:VEVENT and END:VEVENT statements. Each event requires start and end times (DTSTART and DTEND, respectively), a SUMMARY which is the event title, and the DESCRIPTION which is the text you wish to read. Linebreaks in the description text must be converted to "=0D=0A".
The negatives of this approach are that linebreaks must be altered and the notes are attached to specific dates in the calendar so to find them you would need to navigate to those dates. Of course you could put all notes on the same date, or use different dates or even different calendars (within the same vcs file or not) to organize them.
This method does not interfere with listening to a song. This method is NOT compatible with syncing Calendars with iTunes if you are using a manually created file.
Using Music Lyrics
Summary: Uses the Lyrics section of fake songs to store text of up to 10,000 characters in length per song. Does not require special formatting of text. Incompatible with music playback. Requires the text to be stored in iTunes.
iTunes allows the lyrics of a song to be attached to the ID3 tags of the song and viewed on the iPod while the song is playing. Technically lyrics can be up to 256 MB in length, but the iPod will only display the first 10000 characters.
Using lyrics allows notes to be sorted into playlists just as songs are which could be helpful for organizing them. To attach lyrics though there must be a song as well. It is possible to create a very small MP3 that can be used just to attach lyrics to. The process for doing so is described in forum message 2331260, but the short story is:
- In the iTunes main library window, select a track you want to chop up, and select "Get info". The track cannot be a protected AAC track such as those purchased from the Apple Music Store.
- Go to the "Options" tab. Set "Start Time" and "Stop Time", corresponding to the start and finish of the chunk of song you want to chop out. Click "OK".
- Right-click on the track again in the main library window and select "Convert selection to XXX". (The XXX will be whatever file format you happen to have set in your iTunes Importing preferences at the time.)
- After a little while, iTunes will spit out a second, smaller copy of the track, containing just the music between the Start and Stop times you set in the original track. Rename the new track as you please. You can then use iTunes to paste the lyrics to this song clip.
The negatives of this approach are that it requires synchronization with iTunes, requires storage of the text on your computer as well as your iPod, requires the creation of fake songs in your Library, and cannot be used while a song is playing (unless the song you are listening to is the song that has the text you want to read in its lyrics).
Advantages are that this method does not require any editing of the text regarding linebreaks, and this method allows playlists to be used to organize the notes.
While all of these methods work, none of them are completely ideal. If Contacts could be stored in hierarchical folders then that method would be pretty good.
Are there any other alternatives that people have found to work well to work around this iPod limitation of 1000 max notes of 4000 max characters?
Regards,
Brendan

Answer 1

The iPod shuffle is a music player. The iPods with screens have always been more than that. If the iPod didn't have a calendar, contacts, and notes I wouldn't have considered buying one. Music playing is nice, but I certainly didn't want to carry around multiple devices needlessly. The iPod and a simple cell phone are enough. When the iPhone comes out maybe I'll be down to one device.
As for the Palm, having been a Newton user at the time I was never impressed with anything about Palm except its size. The same people who bought cheap PC's instead of Macs bought cheap Palms instead of Newtons. Quantity rather than quality won out.
Apple learned from that and made the iPod a good size to begin with, otherwise it might have suffered a similar fate.
The only PDA capability the iPod lacks is the ability to edit its content independently of the computer. That would be handy, but it turns out hasn't been a critical need for me. More often than not I need to look something up not change something while away from my office. There is a good side to this though, if I lost the iPod I would not have to worry a bit about losing any Contacts, Calendar events, or Music. Notes though, well that is a different matter, those I backup.
I guess one person's music player is another person's PDA.
Regards