Computing on Demand PC News & Reviews
I have been absolutely frustrated since I got my iPod! I have more than one computer in my house and many of them don’t stay very long. In my efforts to add songs from different locations, including my work PC, to my iPod I discovered that this wasn’t as easy as I had hoped. Being new to the “i” scene, some tricks that many just know are still alien to me; and thus, I share my experience with you hoping to help you avoid my troubles.
I had a custom library setup on a computer that I was using as an HTPC. This was the first machine I connected my iPod to, so naturally every time I connected my Touch to any other computer it would scream at me and tell me that if I continue it would erase everything on it and replace it with what is in the library of the new host! This is not an option for me as I am very rarely going to use the same PC for too long. Aside from that, I choose to not use iTunes as my music management utility. I would much rather just connect my iPod to a machine and ADD songs to it instead of syncing.
After telling iTunes that I didn’t want to sync, I clicked on my iPod (it shows up on the left) and noticed a check box at the bottom titled “Manually manage music and videos”. I tested my hopes that this would let me simply add songs instead of syncing and with great excitement I realized I was correct.
Now, when I connect my iPod to any one of my 13 machines I no longer have to worry about it as these settings are stored on the iPod itself! Unfortunately, this is not the default action and I am sure many out there that don’t take the time to explore their software have been blind to this option. Now if we can just get iTunes to monitor a folder for library updates!
Joe,
Just thought I’d let you know about another fun option. Most people that have home servers already keep all of their music on the server anyway, but if you map the shared music folder on your client PC’s you can then point the iTunes library to that folder and still retain the ability to add music to your iPod (this doesn’t work with the iTunes streaming functionality already built-in on the server.)Just thought you might like to know.
I did this already, but my library isn’t managed through iTunes; with a library of my size, iTunes crashes when I try to load all my music (400+ gigs). I simply use it to get songs on my iPod. When I had my Shuffle many years ago, I used a plugin for WinAmp instead of iTunes. I haven’t used WinAmp though since AOL took the project over. Until something else comes along, I am stuck with iTunes.
Hi Joe…Try MusicBee…it's awesome, and will manage iPods and whatnot. The developer is on the support forums every day, and feature requests actually make it into production fairly quickly. It's stable, and a little geeky. Which I like 😉