Episode #118
I have 3 computers each with a different OS (XP laptop, Ubuntu desktop, MBP). I have an iPod nano and an iPhone that I would like to sync podcasts and music to. I’m a new mac convert so I’m not too familiar with iTunes. I run DemocracyTV to download all of my podcasts (30 some) on my Ubuntu desktop computer because it’s always on. I’ve been syncing my nano on the ubuntu machine using gtkpod without any problem. Recently I unlocked an iPhone and want an easy way to sync my content to it. Because my content is on an SMB share, I can’t seem to link so updates are automatically picked up. Ideally, I’d like to plug my iPhone into my macbook pro and have it automatically sync my podcasts from the remote folder. At the same time, be able to manually select some music to sync (from the same Ubuntu share). Is there an easier way to do this other than manually adding each file I want to have on my iPhone into iTunes? I don’t want to subscribe to the content on my macbook pro because I want to download it in the background. Also, I have a modded 1st gen xbox and use media center to stream my video/podcasts/music. It makes sense to have it on the Ubuntu machine because it’s always on (always ready to connect to). Any ideas… or some help on how to properly use iTunes?
Richard, Sarnia, ON
The iPhone is locked down pretty tightly and I’ve never seen anyone be able to copy music to it without iTunes, so the trick is going to be getting iTunes to automatically add the music from the Ubuntu machine. My suggestion is to use Applescript and folder actions on the Mac to watch a folder and automatically add files from that folder. You’ll find a script to do that at Doug’s Scripts: http://dougscripts.com/itunes/itinfo/folderaction01.php. Next you need to setup Ubuntu to automatically copy new files to that folder on the Mac. You can use Rsync to do that.
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Air Date: December 5, 2007
TranscriptCaller Questions
- Steven, Kettleby, ON
- Joseph, Marathon, ON
- Richard, Sarnia, ON
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