As some of you may know, unless you have iTunes installed you can’t use an iPod whilst it’s plugged in to a computer. As it charges through the USB connection, effectively this means you can’t listen to an iPod while it’s charging up. This is annoying!

I did think about installing iTunes, but to be honest I’m not really a fan of it: it seems like quite a bloated piece of software, to be honest! If I was on Linux [this is my work laptop – Windows, unfortunately], I’d have a few options available to me, but unfortunately most of them do not have a Windows version. Anyway, I finally decided to install WinAmp, which (back in the days when I used Windows) wsa my absolute favourite media player — I used it for years! (I’m still annoyed they don’t have a version out for Linux — XMMS, which I use, is a clone of classic Winamp but they don’t seem to have a version of the new one out. Ah well).

After using it briefly, I then decided to replace WinAmp’s standard iPod support with ml_ipod because it’s open source, and seems to have more features

Aaaanyway. It works pretty well, I can listen to tunes while my iPod is plugged in etc etc. The problem is… it has an option to synchronise the iPod with your local media library. Which is great… I tried it. Unfortunately, I didn’t realise the synchronisation took place FROM my local media library TO my iPod. In other words: When I hit sync, it had managed to delete about 300 songs before I realised and hit Abort!

So what’s the moral of this long, rambling, and rather boring story? Don’t hit ‘Sync’ on WinAmp if you haven’t imported the iPod’s library into your local Media Library!

Note: This was entirely my own fault, it threw up a confirmation box which I didn’t read properly… doh!


Comments

6 responses to “Doh!”

  1. They’re recoverable if you look into the ipod as a harddrive and allow yourself to see hidden folders… Though you’re gonna have to figure out which file is which might take a while… You may be better looking for an UnSync button in WinAmp…

  2. No, I think they’re permanently gone – it has freed up hard drive space! It’s not the end of the world though. I’ll just re-add the songs from my PC later this evening, it’s not like the songs on my iPod are my only copy… if they had been, I would have been *really* annoyed!

  3. Ah thats ok then – thought theyd gone from your PC!!! You sure their not on the iPod – youd prob have to dig into the system files but Ive recovered songs that way before (wasnt fun but got em!) Still nothing really to worry about in other news have you seen this? http://www.philly.com/philly/news/weird_news/20070709_ap_robberdisguisedastreehitsnhbank.html

  4. Not in system files I’m afraid 🙁 But it doesn’t matter, I can add them all again.

    That link is classic!

  5. Did you try rockbox, I have been using it for a while and will never go back to the iPod’s original firmware (although it is available at the push of a button). Free yourself from the binary database!

  6. Yes, I did try Rockbox, although I went back to the original iPod firmware. No particularly good reason for it… I thought the Rockbox software looked kind of amateurish and a little rough around the edges (yes, I did try some other themes). It also seemed to be more complex than the original iPod software (because of the additional features), and to be honest I don’t need that additional complexity.

    I might try it again one day but right now I’m happy with the original iPod software!

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