I have a motorola E815 phone with a transflash card & want to play
music and podcasts, but the phone software can't play the iTunes
format.

You can't due to copy protection, I would suggest downloading from a
different source, where it should come as an mp3

You can do this, though it is a bit cumbersome and not an automated
process.  Simply get a program that records sounds played through your
computer.  You can even use Windows Sound Recorder.  The set it up to
record, and play the song.  Then avet eh recorded wound file in mp3
format.  (if you use windows sound recorder, it will only save in
.wavformat, so you will have to use another program to convert the wav
file to mp3.)  I've used a program called cooledit 2000 for this. 
However, the company that made this was later bought by Adobe, and
Adobe has their own renamed version of this product that does the same
thing.

Here is a software package that will do what you want it to, it's called Replay.

http://www.applian.com/replay-converter/index.php

It converts from the iPod music formats to most common formats,
includes a 30 day free trial and costs $24.95.

If they are just songs in the itunes format ( and not copy protected
songs from the music store ) you can convert them in itunes.

First go to the itunes preferences, click on the "advanced" tab, and
then select "importing". Where it says "Import Using:" change the
selection to "MP3 Encoder".

Close the preferences window and select the song you want to convert,
in the advanced menu there is an item "Convert selected item to MP3".

You will have two files when it has finished, the MP3 file, and the
file in the original format.

You can do this by burning the songs to a Writable CD, preferably
rewritable so that you can use it again and again,  and then by
importing the songs back into itunes.

This works for both protected and non-protected material.

-tekn04

Another software package that will do this is Tunebite:

http://tunebite.com

They have a free demo, and it only costs $19.90 to purchase the full version.

The link directly to the free download is:

http://tunebite.com/website/v2/download.php?&lang=en

-md

HERE'S YOUR ANSWER!!!! NO need to buy anything

Download mp3mymp3 recorder from mp3mymp3.com, it's FREE SOFTWARE

Follow these steps

1. open mp3mymp3 software, click on the source button, now choose "wav" there
2. Hit the record button
3. Quickly play the song using iTunes (Or any other source of AUDIO internet,etc)
4. After the end of the song, stop recording and save it!

You can use HotRecorder for Media,HotRecorder for Media is an advanced
media recorder and converter tool that allows you to effectively
record, manage and convert your itunes and yahoo! music sound files
into .wav or .mp3 formats.
you can get it in www.hotrecorder.com

I've used the following to convert an entire .mp4 library to .mp3. 
This assumes you are on a Windows based computer:

1.  Download WinAMP (Free)
http://download.nullsoft.com/winamp/client/winamp524_full_emusic-7plus.exe

2.  Download WinAMP Plugin (Free)
goto http://www.winamp.com click plugins/output and download look for
the download labeled "MP3 Output Plugin by Chun-Yu Shei".  Click on
the download and select to OPEN.  This will install the plugin.

3.  Start Winamp and right mouse click on the player.  Select
Options/Preferences.  Scroll down to Plug-ins and click Output.  Make
a note of the default output in case you want to use Winamp as your
player.  In the list of Outputs select "Chun-Yu's MP3 Writer plug-in".

4.  While Chun-Yu's MP3 Wirter plug-in is highlited select the
configure button.  It will prompt you for an output folder.  Select
where you want the .mp3 files to be created.  On this screen you can
also make adjustments as to the bitrate, etc. which control the
quality and file size of the .MP3 files.  If you downloaded .m4a files
that are 128 bit then it doesn't do any good to put the quality any
higher.  Play one in iTunes and it will display the bitrate.  I'd
convert to the same birate to retain whatever quality you can.

5.  Open up Windows Explorer and select the .mp4 files you want to
convert.  Right click on one of them and select "Enqueue in Winamp". 
Click the play button on winamp and it will convert your selection.

This worked well for me.  G'luck.

I had the same problem.

Open Itunes Go to 

Edit > Preferences > Advanced > Select the "importing" tab > Change
"Import Using" to MP3 Incoder

Cointinued from above?

Then right click on any song in itunes and select "convert section to MP3"

All you have to do is burn your music to a blank cd using i-tunes and
then open software such as windows media player and rip the files off
the cd.