How To Sync Your iPod to Any Computer with YamiPod

YamiPod is a freeware application to efficiently manage your iPod under Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. It can be run directly from your iPod and needs no installation.

Here’s How:

1. First, you need to make sure that your iPod has disk use is enabled. To do this, open iTunes, go to Edit -> Preferences, then the iPod tab, and then the Music tab. Near the bottom of the option screen, you’ll want to make sure the box labeled “Enable disk use” is checked.
2. Next, download YamiPod (Yet Another iPod Manager). YamiPod will download in a ZIP file, so open that ZIP file and drag and drop YamiPod.exe onto your iPod drive in My Computer (you’ll be running YamiPod from off your iPod so that you don’t have to download the program every time you want to sync to a different computer).
3. Making sure you have closed out of iTunes, open your iPod drive (My Computer -> iPod) and find YamiPod. Double-click YamiPod.exe to run the program.
4. If everything’s working correctly, YamiPod should show you all of the music currently loaded on your iPod. At this point, if you want to add songs to your iPod, you can simply drag and drop music from your desktop into YamiPod, which will place them in your iPod. But if you’re interested in making these easier on yourself, you’ll probably want to set up folder synchronization so that you don’t have to deal with adding new files yourself every time you connect.
5. To do this, go to Tools -> Synchronize in YamiPod. The first thing you need to do is add a location (like Home, Work, etc.), which you can do by clicking on the plus (+) sign. You’ll add a new location for each computer you sync to.
6. Now it’s time to add folders. Find and add the folder(s) where you keep your music by clicking on the plus (+) sign below the folder box. Once you’ve added the appropriate directories, you should be ready to sync. For more information on the finer points of the remaining options/checkboxes included in the Synchronize dialog, check out YamiPod’s Synchronize page.
7. Now all you have to do is click Synchronize and you’re ready to go. YamiPod should analyze your folders and update your iPod with all of the music it doesn’t already have, and you’re no longer locked into syncing your iPod to just one computer. There have been some reports of slight instability with YamiPod, so please let me know if it doesn’t work correctly for you, check out the YamiPod forum.

What You Need:

• An iPod – pretty much any generation iPod will do.
• YamiPod free software