Advanced iPod question...

[Mugg Mann]

I've had an iPod for several years, and I've just ordered one for the 13 year old Muggette. I have two computers in the house, but I keep one just for business and keep all personal/social stuff (including my itunes program) on the other computer.

Given that scenario, I haven't been able to find an answer to the following question;

How do you maintain two completely separate itune libraries on the same computer?

I've properly raised the Muggette to be a huge Who fan, but after that there's a great deal of divergence in musical tastes (as there should be) and my ancient 3 gb ipod mini isn't up to the task of having her dump a ton on music on it that will feed her 8 gig nano as well.

I really want to avoid having to having each ipod be a slave to a different computer, but so far I haven't found anything that tells me how to get around this.

Anyone have experience being a multipod household with only one computer? How does it work?

 

[Cindy B]

We have four Ipods in our house. Luckily we have more than one computer--but this is how we do it.

We use Xp, where each person has thier own log in screen. The I tunes is set up through each person. With me and my DH, we have somewhat similiar tastes. I just copied his library and deleted what I didn't want. I also add more things to both libraries--but I keep mine and he deletes his.

My kids Nanos are a little more complex-since they have very different tastes. We have two different log in screen but thier lists are not copies of the same list. They are manually made.

 

[Micca]

I can't answer your Ipod question, but I wanted to commend you for raising Muggette to love The Who.

 

[Mugg Mann]

Thanks Cindy, and since I have XP Pro on the non-business computer, I can see how to make that work if there's no other way.

But.....(and I'm definitely not trying to be difficult here, so please bear with me), I've never utilized that feature, and Mrs. Mugg, the Muggette and I all use the same account on the home computer, so we all have years of files mashed together in the same place (And yes, I do run periodic backups to an external hard drive), and all of us know precisely how to find anything we need on the computer with no problems whatsoever.

I'd really dread the concept of having to segregate each persons files into separate user accounts after all this time. I can do it (I periodically wipe the hard drive every 18-24 months to increase efficiency and re-install certain files that I've mirrored elsewhere), but I really don't want to dedicate the hours that I'd need to do it properly prior to the arrival of the new ipod not to mention the fact that I don't have the time to do that in the next couple of weeks.

Sorry to sound like a pain, but I understand your solution completely, but I'm not sure it will be the most efficient one for my household. Can you think of another way?

One other question...how do you delete tracks off of your ipod and not have them delete off of your DH's when he docks up? From your post I don't think you are on seperate accounts on XP. I don't use a seperate charger for the battery, and instead just hook it up to the computer even though there's no new music when I just want to recharge the battery. I can't see how you avoid having one ipod affect the other when you do it this way.

My goal is to maintain two completely different itune libraries on the same computer (with the same account, I suppose); I know there's got to be a way!!

 

[Mugg Mann]

I can't answer your Ipod question, but I wanted to commend you for raising Muggette to love The Who.

Thanks!!! She finally got to see them live last month and was blown away by it. I just wish that she could have seen them live in their prime with Keith Moon like I did. Now THAT was a religious experience! I've been to hundreds and hundreds of concerts in my life and seen The Who at least 20 times over the years, and that still was the best concert I've ever seen.

(My oldest brother got to see them doing Tommy live in 1970 at a 1200 seat theatre. And the ultimate kicker is...he's not a big fan. To this day he still doesn't see what the appeal is...ARRRGGGHHH!)

 

[Cindy B]

From my DH:

Until Apple decides to do a log in screen for multiple users, there really isn't another way. DH has suggested this software change to Apple for almost two years!

We have ours synched to the same account (the adults). One person manually unchecks the songs they don't wont--thats usually me and deletes them from thier specific I tunes library.

The only thing wrong with this is you have to make sure that you are logged in correctly--or you will synch to the wrong Ipod. Can't you tell I've done this before?

In our PC, we have mashed together files as well. The Itunes PC is mostly my PC, but others use it on occasion. The only truly specific thing on the log in accounts is Itunes..the rest of the stuff is the same. (this is what got me in trouble and I resynched to the wrong list. To combat this happening again, we put two different background screens so I can tell now)

 

[Mugg Mann]

Yep, that's enough detail to convince me that you definitely know what you're doing, and regretfully that's just not good news for me. It sound like the business computer will be seeing an itunes install in the very near future.

Oh well.....sigh.

I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one with this issue. Please let me know if DH has any luck showing Apple the error of their ways!

And if anyone else has a workaround to my dilemma, this appreciative guy is all ears!!!

Cindy, thanks for sharing your experiences and thanking everone else in advance.....

 

[Carl]

You can group the songs by creating different playlists. Would that work for you?

 

[sweet angel]

My son and I both have iPod nanos and only one computer. Our iTunes has one main library, but we each have separate lists (dragged from main library) for our respective nanos. Not quite sure how I did it, but we rarely have issues with downloading the wrong stuff -- note, I said RARELY.

I think maybe when I set up the nanos initially it asked for a name? So mine is "Sue's iPod" and DS' is "Chris' iPod" -- and itunes seems to magically know which one is plugged in and which list to pull from.

 

[Cindy B]

You can group the songs by creating different playlists. Would that work for you?

We thought about organizing ours into playlists, but with over 5000 songs that was a bit of a challenge. We found the manual one check system worked for us.