maybe only complex to me

i searched google and i searched tww but i think what i am trying to do is too complicated to solve on my own searching abilities... here is the scoop

i have a mac. i have 3 ipods. i manage them all on itunes without any problems.

my boyfriend has 2 ipods. his computer (a pc) is going to shit. we want to link his ipods to my laptop and thus, my itunes.

here is the question.

-is there a way to create a seperate library in itunes 8? i did some googling and it seemed possible, maybe but much more likely with itunes 7. i need to run the most current version of itunes so i need to do it with 8.

-how will this impact how we manage the ipods? will we have to manually update every time?

my technical abilites are pretty standard, this is going beyond those abilities but with some advice i feel that i could do this. i know there has to be a way to do this, but i'd like to start out doing it the best way instead of fucking around with something i dont understand and driving myself crazy.

any help is appreciated greatly!!

2/24/2009 3:24:01 PM

maybe the easiest thing you could do would be to move the existing library (everything in the iTunes folder) to a new location. Then when you start up iTunes again, it will recreate an empty library, and you can fill it with whatever you want.

that's how you can create another library, but doesn't really address how to actively use multiple libraries if you want.

Also - you could just create a new User account for him, and he would have his own iTunes inside of it. If you enable Fast User Switching, you can very quickly go back and forth between users

2/24/2009 3:28:29 PM

^ that might be the best route actually...

good call.

2/24/2009 3:46:47 PM

if you're using a mac, hook up some symlinks and just make a script that accepts params for calling itunes

like itunes.sh 1 for you and itunes.sh 2 for him

the guts of the script:

#!/bin/sh (or whatever apple's shell is)
if "$1"="1"; 
then ln --directory /home/user/myitunes /home/user/itunes; 
else ln --directory /home/hisuser/myitunes /home/user/itunes; 
fi
/bin/itunes (or where ever it is)

2/24/2009 4:12:56 PM

Quote :

"Also - you could just create a new User account for him, and he would have his own iTunes inside of it. If you enable Fast User Switching, you can very quickly go back and forth between users"

Two thumbs up, this is exactly why there are user accounts

2/24/2009 4:18:40 PM

agreed. you are over complicating the problem. Just make a new user account

2/24/2009 4:40:25 PM

wolfy, why on earth do you have 3 active ipods?

2/24/2009 6:16:03 PM

that's great... i was going to ask that question soon too.

but here is another one:

i just bought a new laptop. i will copy over all my music from the old laptop into the new one. will itunes/ipod play the music, or will it say "this was ripped frm cds onto another computer, and you can't just give it to another person/computer, so i won't play it and you have to re-rip all your cds"?

i hope not

2/24/2009 6:59:21 PM

^ummm what? you can copy your music any where you like as many times as you like. When you come to play the music it will ask you to authorize the machine to your account in order to play. You can have up to 5 machines authorized to play your music at any given time.

not sure what message you're referring to.

also if you are not going to be using your old laptop or computer then don't forget to deauthorize it.

[Edited on February 24, 2009 at 7:09 PM. Reason : .]

2/24/2009 7:09:08 PM

i just made that message up.

i meant, if itunes wouldn't play it on the new computer because it was ripped from cds onto the old computer. i thought, you know, itunes/ipod would have built-in protection to prevent people from ripping a cd and sharing their music with all their friends.

2/24/2009 7:30:58 PM

^if you burn it to a CD then it has no protection BUT you can only burn the same playlist so many times before you have to mix up the songs. If you do as I stated above and just copy the data from one computer to another via other means OTHER then a CD/DVD then you just have to authorize the machine to play it under your iTunes account.

(This only applies to iTunes purchased content BTW)

2/24/2009 7:53:43 PM

i didnt know about the different user profiles but i knew apple was smart enough to build something like that in. i mean what if you have a family sharing a computer.. mom dad and two kids... certainly you'd want different accounts and different music on your ipods. im going to try to set up the second account tonight

as for the 3 ipods... i have a classic from back in the day day, an ipod touch and a shuffle. i pretty much only update the touch and sometimes the shuffle. the classic doesn't really get updated but is good for other things.

2/24/2009 8:04:00 PM

i have had this same problem and the seperate user accounts works perfectly.

2/25/2009 11:25:07 AM

This seperate accounts thing would work on a PC too, right? Or would I have to partition the harddisk to make it work?

2/25/2009 1:24:25 PM

yes, it would be fine on a PC. To make the process more painless (and if you have enough RAM), I would suggest using "Switch User" instead of "Log out" to go between users

2/25/2009 1:38:26 PM

thanks!

2/25/2009 2:07:40 PM

another iTunes question:

i downloaded iTunes onto my new laptop. when i started it for the first time, it asked me if i wanted to let it search my computer for all mp3/aac files and add them to iTunes.

for some reason, i clicked no. how can i get that dialog window again? should i uninstall iTunes and install it again?

there must be a way to get that dialog box again... or at least there should be a way if there isn't.

thanks.

2/28/2009 11:54:05 AM

File > Library > Consolidate Library to copy all the files on your computer to your library


File > Add To Library to select specific folders or files

[Edited on February 28, 2009 at 12:16 PM. Reason : .]

2/28/2009 12:15:37 PM