If your SLR got a good workout this summer, it probably needs a little TLC to make sure it’s in tip-top shape for fall and the holidays. Here are some ways to make sure that it’s ready when you need it:

Clean the sensor. If you are seeing spots over and over in your images, there may be dust either on the camera’s sensor or a lens. If your camera has a sensor cleaning function, use it. Then, to see if the dust is gone, set the camera’s aperture to its smallest size, say f/22, and photograph a solid white surface, such as a blank piece of paper or plain wall.

If the spots are still there, the dust may be on your lens. To check, repeat the above photographic procedure with a different lens. If the spots remain, the dust is on your sensor. (If the spots disappear with a different lens, you’ll need to clean the lens that produced the spots. See the next tip, below).

Unless you’ve removed dust from a sensor before, it’s best to consult with an expert at a good camera store, who may be able to remove the dust quickly and easily using a handheld air blower. This is not canned, pressurized air, which should never be used to clean a sensor.

If you bring the camera to a store and the staff can’t remove the dust with a blower, or there is no camera specialty store near where you live, contact the camera’s manufacturer. You may need to ship the camera to them or an authorized repair facility for cleaning.

Clean your lenses and filters. If your camera has had a busy summer, there’s probably dust or other contaminants on your lenses and any filters you usually attach to them. Unscrew and separate all filters and lenses and clean each gently with a lens cloth, being careful not to scratch the surface.

Refresh your memory cards. Unless you’ve been diligent, chances are there are photos on your memory cards that you haven’t yet transferred to your computer. Now’s the time to do so, both for safekeeping and to free up space on the cards for new photos. Check every card and make sure that all photos (and any videos you may have shot) have been copied to your hard drive. Once that’s done, use the camera (or your computer, if you’re using a card reader) to delete all the files on the card. Now is also a great time to make a backup copy of all these images from your computer’s hard drive, to, say, a DVD or external hard drive. —Jeff Fox

In addition to unveiling a new lineup of iPods, Apple today announced upgrades to its iTunes music-management software and store, along with making available a new version of the iPhone software for its smart phones and iPod Touch. All are available immediately.

iTunes version 9 adds the following key features to all iPods with displays:

iTunes LP. This includes expanded visual features to downloaded albums, such as live performance videos, lyrics, artwork, liner notes, interviews, photos, and album credits. But it's only available for a handful of albums from such artists as Norah Jones, the Grateful Dead, and Dave Matthews.

iTunes Extra. Similar to iTunes LP, this features documentaries, deleted scenes, interviews and interactive galleries you can download from iTunes. But, it too, is only available for a small number of titles, which include "Twilight," "Batman Begins," "WALL-E," "Iron Man" and "The Da Vinci Code."

Home Sharing. As the name implies, this lets you transfer music, movies, and TV shows among up to five authorized computers, allowing up to five iTunes libraries to be shared on a home network. It claims to filter out the portion of the shared libraries each user already has, and allows content to be imported directly to their libraries and for new purchases made at any computer on the network to be automatically added to all users libraries.

Genius Mixes. A DJ application that plays endless mixes of songs from your library that Genius thinks "go together." Just click on one of the mixes, and start playing it—and it will go on and on and on, like a radio station.

iPhone OS 3.1, available for free, will allow iPhone and Touch users organize their apps on their computer desktop, using iTunes, and to automatically appear on your iPhone with the same layout. It also adds the ability to sync music by artist and genre and sync photos by Events and Faces. —Mike Gikas.

Apple today announced its first iPod equipped with a camera and modestly upgraded the rest of the iPod line.

The camera-equipped iPod isn’t the Touch, as we and others had predicted, but the mid-level iPod Nano. Available immediately for $149 (8GB) and $179 (16GB), the new Nanos will now sport a standard-definition video camera—and seemingly only a video camera; Apple’s press materials do not mention still-photo capability.

Apple chairman Steve Jobs, in his first appearance as an Apple spokesman since a prolonged sick leave, claims the Nano provides the same video quality as bulkier, so-called pocket camcorders, like the Samsung Flip. (Such camcorders yield middling video quality that’s fine for online or other casual use, according to our tests, available to subscribers.) The Nanos also have a microphone and speaker built in.

The new Nanos boast the same diminutive size and oblong shape as their predecessors, though the display has been enlarged slightly, to 2.2 inches. Claimed playback time is five hours for video, 24 hours for music.

The Nanos are also the first iPods with built-in FM radios—the absence of which has long been a drawback for some consumers to Apple’s music player—with some innovative features. FM broadcasts can be paused, much like MP3 selections, and songs heard on the radio can be tagged for the later purchase on iTunes.

The Nanos also have a built-in pedometer that supposedly tracks calories you burned and comes in silver, black, purple, blue, green, orange, yellow, red, and pink.

Here are the modest changes to the other iPods:

Touch. Apple's flagship iPod, the iPhone without the phone, gets a subtle facelift, beginning with faster graphics (courtesy of support of a standard called OpenGL) and a doubling of maximum storage capacity to 64GB—for the same $399 price as the old 32GB model. There's also an 8GB Touch for $199, and 32GB model for $299.

Classic. Apple’s only hard drive player didn’t disappear, as we and others predicted, but was refreshed in a higher capacity, of 160GB. It costs $249, the same as the old 120GB model.

Shuffle. The tiniest MP3 player in our MP3-player Ratings, available to subscribers, the 4GB Shuffle remains unchanged and is available for the same price of $79. But it now has a lower-capacity (2GB) twin for $59. —Mike Gikas and Paul Reynolds.