I use an encrypted diskimage (sparseimage) made with Apple's diskutility for my sensitive files. It's safe, it it doesn't take up any unnecessary disk-space unless you remove any files on it (it won't shrink again). In that case you could just make a new one and throw away the old one.

Downloaded Podlock with great expectations as I use Techtool and it's a useful and polished product.

Sadly, nothing could be further from the truth for Podlock.

For this program to work, you must first enable the iPod's disk mode through iTunes. Hardly elegant to have to run two programs just to get started. Of course, you then must then turn this mode off via iTunes when you're finnished using Podlock if you don't want to keep manually unmounting your iPod after a sync.

I have an iPod Photo 40G with software version 1.1. Podlock incorrectly identified my version as 1.0. Hardly reassuring.

Though Podlock enables you to create a "secret" partition, Podlock does not allow you to back this up to your Mac.

While you can perform a basic disk defrag, Podlock performs no optimisation on your disk at all.

Most of the functions advertised will only work with a firewire connection.

Only got USB? You're out of luck with this product.

This is not mentioned - as far as I can tell - anywhere in the documentation and only rears its ugly head when you try to access Podlock's features and you get a warning that you need a firewire connection.

As current iPods do not come standard with firewire cables, you must also factor the cost of a firewire cable.

This product is expensive for what it does - even more so when you factor in the cost of a firewire cable - and unless you really need a password protected partition on an iPod (are you that paranoid?), its simply not worth the admission price.

... seems like a cool idea, however, it will not launch on my machine. I even have a 'standard' user account setup, with no extras of any sort... and it still didn't even launch under that user. oh well.