Filed under: Podcasting, Windows Mobile, Freeware
Syncing podcasts with a Pocket PC
Today Microsoft officially launches its Zune media player. But I've had an iPod competitor in my pocket for the last few years: My PDA. And it's got something that the Zune doesn't -- podcast support. Well, kind of. Just like the Zune, Pocket PCs don't come with software allowing you to automatically download podcasts, or to easily organize them. But with a little tweaking, and a couple of free programs, you can add those functions.
You can use Juice to download podcasts to my PC and a program called Mobsync to transfer them to my PDA. It might lack the wow factor of a podcatcher that runs on your PDA, like Pocket Podcasts. But unlike Pocket Podcasts, this sytem runs automatically in the background, and doesn't require you to connect your PDA to the internet to download new shows.
Juice (formerly known as iPodder), is probably one of the best cross-platform podcatchers. It runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. The free program is pretty easy to configure. You can select podcasts from a list or copy and past your selections. You customize how frequently the program checks for new episodes, and how long it will keep episodes. And you can place them in any folder on your computer.
Next, use Mobsync to automatically transfer the files to your PDA. Mobsync lets you sync as many folders as you would like on your PC with a folder on a Windows Mobile PC. So if you create a podcasts folder on your PC and place all of your downloaded shows in subdirectories, you can sync the whole group of them with a folder on your PocketPC, either in main memory or on a storage card. When you're done listening to a podcast, you can delete it from your PDA and next time you sync it will be deleted from your computer as well.
Mobsync version 1.09 is available for 9.45 Euros (about $12 US), or you can pick up a free copy of version 0.94 which seems to work just fine for most purposes.
If you're looking for more advanced features, ACiD Sync is a new program that will go a few steps further than Mobsync. For example, say you've got a small memory card, but want to sync hours and hours of content. There's a plugin for ACiD Sync that will resample your mp3s before copying them. Another plugin will downsample pictures to VGA or QVGA resolution. ACiD Sync Lite is available for $10, a full version with support for syncing multiple desktops will be released soon.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
J. D. Harper said 8:30PM on 11-14-2006
I like this. Is there a program like this for the Palm OS? It would be awesome to have an automagically updating podcast list on a Treo.
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Brad Linder said 8:40PM on 11-14-2006
I'm not aware of a method for doing this with Palm, but I'd be interested to know if any of our readers have ideas.
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Mask2011 said 10:09PM on 11-14-2006
Have you considered using HubDog (http://www.hubdog.com/). Their solution is pretty neat, as it doesnt need a PC for the updating process. It's a PPC (WM2003 and WM5) client to downloading podcasts, vidcasts, as well as RSS sync'ing directly to your PDA..
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Prashanth said 7:59AM on 11-15-2006
Talking about podcast subscribers: I figured I would add this: Juice is a great program, but I found another free alternative I had come to love more:
Happy fish (http://thirstycrow.net/happyfish/)
What it tops over Juice?
- interface and ability to individually finetune subscriptions
- ability to synchronize to multiple devices either manually or over a defined schedule (Love, this feature).
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