I, too, am a huge fan of podcasts and other audio entertainment. I was in the same boat as you, used iTunes for podcast management with an iPod. Then after 2-3 solid years of heavy usage, my 2nd gen iPod nano kicked the bucket. So very sad that was, but I’ve moved on. I like my Clip+ and my NEW podcast setup much more now. I’d like to share with you my podcast management setup. I use Juice to download podcasts and Synctoy to synchronize podcasts with the Clip+.
The great thing about Synctoy is how intelligent it is, how it syncronizes both ways. It’ll add a new podcast to my Clip+ and then when I delete the podcast directly from the device later Synctoy is smart enough to then delete the podcast on my computer when I plug it in. It doesn’t re-syncronize a podcast that I’ve already listened to.
In Juice’s advanced options, you can set it to run a command after it successfully downloads a podcast. In my case, I have it set to run the lightweight command prompt session of SyncToy:
“C:\Program Files\SyncToy 2.1\SyncToyCmd.exe” -R
That way if you have your Clip+ plugged it, it’ll automated be synced with new podcasts as soon as they’re downloaded.
Another good idea is to put the above command in a notepad text document and save it as synctoy.bat and it put on your desktop. That way you can call Synctoy to synchronize whenever without starting the main Synctoy program to do it or waiting for Juice to download another show.
Be sure to set your Clip+'s USB Mode to “MSC.” All this won’t work in the other “DEFAULT” USB mode.
