Even though the iPhone 3G is all sorts of sexiness in a handheld device, memory is limited to 8GB and 16GB. That's fine for people with only 8 or 16 gigabytes worth of music and videos...but what about the rest of us? You got four options:

• Buy a bigger iPod or mp3 player
• Hold out a few months for a larger iPhone
• Manually drag and drop songs you like, one by one, onto your iPhone
• Use iTunes' Smart Playlists feature

I've used that latter option -- Smart Playlists -- for years, when I figured out a way to cram 24 gigs of music to a 4GB iPod mini.

The basic idea is this: you set conditions on what you want to hear and the Smart Playlists will automagically build itself. For example, I may want:

R&B, at least 3 stars, that have not been played in the past week.

To do this in iTunes, just click on File, then New Smart Playlist, and then fill it out accordingly:

Cool, huh? Now whenever you add music to your iTunes, as long as it matches these conditions, it will automagically get added to this Smart Playlist.

Here's what I did for my 4GB iPod mini back in the day:

Up to 4GB's of the most recently added songs that are rated at least 2 stars, that haven't been skipped in the last month, and haven't been played in the last week.

If you notice, I have Last Skipped and Last Played in there. These are what make it powerful; as I listen to music on my mini (and skip the ones I don't like), the Smart Playlist will essentially learn what I like/dislike and rotate in songs from my 24 GB library.

Easy as pie.

For more Smart Playlist ideas, check out SmartPlaylists.com