From Mark Harris,
Your Guide to Digital Music.
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The fastest way to start building your music library is to import your CD collection to iTunes. It's a great way to centrally manage your music collection and keep your original CDs in a safe place. Once your CD collection has been converted into digital music files, you can synchronize them with your iPod or compatible player.

If you haven't already installed iTunes on your Mac or PC, then the best place to get the latest version is to download it from Apple's web site.

First, launch your iTunes program and update to the latest version if prompted. Once the iTunes software is running, you can change the file format and encoding settings using the preferences; for the sake of simplicity, we will stick with the default encoding setting (AAC / 128Kbps) for this tutorial.

Before we begin the tutorial, I would recommend reading the Dos and don'ts of CD copying and ripping if you're unsure about what you can and can't do.