A third question comes to mind. Could anyone talk me through what's involved in copying audio cassettes into a format that could be read by an iPOD?
Have a look at this page:
http://www.mp3.com/tech/tutorials_00000002.php It explains how to get a LP converted to MP3, but the same story applies to cassettes as well. The main piece of software you'll need is
Goldwave, which records the audio on your PC so that it can be converted further.