If you own an iPod, you use iTunes to manage your music collection. This handy program lets you load music, podcasts and videos on your player. But iTunes 7 can do more than you realize.

Here are five great tricks to get more out of iTunes 7:

Mass de-authorization

You can only play iTunes purchased music on five computers. Each must be authorized with a user name and password. But your computer may crash. Or you may lose your laptop.

You can still move music to another computer. But you can't authorize it to play. However, you can de-authorize all of your purchases once a year. Then, you can re-authorize your music to play on up to five computers.

Click Store>>View My Account. Enter your user name and password. If you have reached your limit, you'll see a Deauthorize All button. Click it.

Reverse sync

With iTunes, you can transfer music from your iPod to another computer. But there's a catch. The computer must be authorized to play your music. And it only works with iTunes purchases.

To sync music from an iPod to a computer, first authorize the computer. Click Store>>Authorize Computer. Enter your user name and password. Then, connect your iPod and click File>>Transfer Purchases from iPod.

Unfortunately, this doesn't work with music you copied from CDs. Still, it is a great way to move purchased music between computers.

You can also sync iTunes to more than one iPod. iPods do not count toward your authorization limit. If you have multiple Windows XP user accounts, store your music in the Shared Music folder. It can be accessed by all users.

Share music

iTunes lets you share music over your network. This is handy if your music is on a desktop but you want to listen on your laptop.

Click Edit>>Preferences. Open the Sharing tab. On the computer with the music, select "Share my library on my local network." Select Share entire library. Or select "Share selected playlists;" select the playlists to share. Enter a Shared name and click OK.

On the second computer, click Edit>>Preferences. On the Sharing tab, select "Look for shared libraries." Click OK. The shared library appears in the source list. You can't copy music from a shared library.

Parental Controls

The iPod is G rated. Some iTunes content is not. But you can set up parental controls. You must have an administrator account with a password. Otherwise, your children could defeat the controls.

Click Edit>>Preferences and open the Parental Control tab. Select the options you want to disable. You can disable podcasts, radio, the iTunes store and shared music.

If you leave access to the iTunes store, you can restrict explicit content. Or restrict movies and TV shows by rating. Click the lock and enter your computer account password to prevent changes. Click OK.

Smart playlists

Smart playlists are created automatically from criteria you specify. You can create a playlist of your favorite artist. Or you can create a playlist of recently added music.

Click File>>New Smart Playlist. Use the dropdown boxes to specify options. Use the "+" to add additional criteria.

You can limit a playlist by number of songs, time or size in megabytes or gigabytes. Select "Match only checked items" to limit it to selected songs in your library. Select "Live updating" to continue to have the playlist updated. Click OK.

iTunes 7 was released several weeks ago. Early adopters complained of problems. But Apple issued a fix, and complaints seem to have dried up.