Welcome!

Emplode and jEmplode's primary function is to manage your music collection (organize playlists, move things around, tweak database metadata originally derived from ID3 tags, and, of course, upload (and, in the case of jEmplode, download/backup) the music). They are also used to upgrade empeg software (both flash and disk resident parts). These utilities are necessary because empeg does not implement network/USB storage interface, and offers much richer set of options for organizing the music collection than that simplistic model.

HiJack is replacement Linux kernel (which resides in flash) for empeg (that is, roughly speaking, the part of Linux implementing scheduling, memory management, I/O drivers, that kind of stuff). It adds a wide range of interesting functions, from UI-related ones (like additional menus, button remapping, command macros), to some internal tweaks (so that, for example, the player no longer performs unnecessary and time-consuming periodical disk integrity checking), to volume 'auto-leveling' to ftp and http servers. Amazing piece of software.

I would suggest that you first read the original user manual (though it is a bit obsolete, especially if you install HiJack with, say 2.0 final version of SW, which is, of course, highly recommended), then Tony's FAQ linked at the top ot the page. That and playing with the player will get you going pretty quickly. After that, there is searching this board and just asking.

Have fun!