Syncing the Droid with iTunes
(nerd post)

I'm a happy Droid owner who has spent a very long time on the iTunes issue. Namely I wanted to sync my phone with iTunes and get:

• Music I've picked out to be on the phone.
• All podcasts as soon as they are available.
• No podcast that I've unchecked.
  

Here's how I did it so you can do it too:
(The iTunes instructions work for both Mac and Windows, but when it comes to syncing I only go into detail on Windows. I do have a possible software link for you Mac people. If anyone has used it let me know how it goes.)
First: Create the music folder on your Droid.

1. Hook up the Droid to your computer with the usb cable.
2. On the Droid you should see an USB notification. Click it and tell it to mount the USB drive.
3. On your computer go to My Computer and then open the new drive which has appeared - it should be the Droid's SD card.
4. Create a new folder called Music.

Second: Get iTunes ready

1. Create a music playlist for your Droid. You can call it whatever you like, mine is called Phone Music.
2. This playlist is just for the music, so don't put the podcasts in here. We'll take care of that next.

Second.5: Create a Smart Playlist to combine your Phone Music playlist and your podcasts.
This playlist will aggregate all the songs in Phone Music as well as any podcast which has a check mark next to it.

1. In iTunes go to the File menu and choose New Smart Playlist...
2. Choose the following criteria for your list:
3. 
4. iTunes is now ready to sync to your Droid.

Third: Download and install iTunes Agent

1. http://ita.sourceforge.net/download.html (you want the Windows Installer)
2. Install iTunes agent

If you have a mac you might try Sailing Sync: http://www.salling.com/MediaSync/Mac/
I haven't tried it myself but it looks like it would do the same thing as iTunes Agent.

Fourth: Configure iTunes Agent

1. Connect your Droid to your computer and mount the SD card. (See Part 1, or if it is still connected you can skip this step.)
2. Run iTunes Agent. It appears as a small iPod icon next to your clock.
3. Right-click on iTunes Agent and choose Preferences.
4. 
5. Create a new profile and call it whatever you like. Mine is called Droid.
6. Tell it to sync with the Music folder on the Droid, the iTunes Smart Playlist, and then save changes.
7. 

Fifth Sync your Droid
(Now that everything is set up you'll follow theses steps each time you want to sync your music and podcasts)

1. Launch iTunes Agent (This launches iTunes too)
2. Hook up the Droid to the computer and mount the SD card
3. Once your computer has found the Droid right click on the iTunes Agent icon (next to the clock, lower right) and choose Synchronize Devices.
4. iTunes Agent will sync your music and podcasts with your Droid. When it's done the progress window will disappear. (The initial sync may take a while.)
5. Tell windows to remove the Droid, then unplug it from the computer.

Tuesday: Fine

Wednesday: Two words: anal glands. Damn you cat!

I've had a rough few days. Let's make a time line:

Wednesday 11/11: Upon leaving the house to run some elands I discovered that my scooter had been stolen. Sure I wasn't using it, but they could have at least stolen it before I put $600 into getting the transmission fixed.

Thursday 11/12: Having to work after a holiday is always a little disappointing.

Friday the 13th!: On my way home from work I get into the left hand turn lane on Brannan street in San Francisco to turn onto 7th. There is a large white truck in front of me waiting for traffic to stop so he can turn left. As he starts to make his turn and drives off to the left I can now see the motorcycle sliding toward my car followed closely by the motorcycle rider. One or both hit my car and then ended up on my left side. Amazingly the motorcycle rider had no broken bones, but my bumper, wheel well, and quarter panel didn't fare so well. It's sitting in a body shop waiting for the insurance people to decide what to do about it. Four days ago I had two vehicles, today I have zero.

Saturday: I get a rental car paid for by the body shop. Yay! But it's HUGE and horrible to drive and if I didn't have a ton of stuff to do I'd take it back. Boo.

Sunday: I get all my errands finished for the weekend and look into returning the rental car. I can't, they're closed.

Today: The insurance company informs me that unless the motorcycle rider actually ran a red light (I'm not sure if he did or not) then the accident wasn't his fault, and wasn't my fault, and we all have to pay for our own cars. In the many years that I've had a $1000 deductible I'm sure I've saved that much in insurance premiums, but it still sucks to hear that I may have to put that toward fixing the car that got squished by somebody else.

Still Today: I come home and do some stuff on the computer and listen to Clayton wandering around the house meowling about how he still realllly wants to go outside. He can't. He's an indoor cat, except when he escapes for who knows how long and spends subsequent weeks complaining about his captivity. All this is to say that Clayton was being annoying enough so that I didn't notice that Midge hadn't come to say hello. Eventually I did notice and went looking for her. I found her crouched by the cat box. She was weaving her head around and putting a paw up like she wanted to jump in, but maybe couldn't quite figure out how to do it. I started to worry she had had a stroke when she put her nose under the lip of the cat box and a GIANT spider jumped out and disappeared around the edge of the box. And I'm not talking kind of big, I'm talking huge. It thumped when it hit the carpet. So I very carefully look under the rest of the lip of the cat box, then stack it on a waste basket, then look underneath. Nothing. I lift up the cat box carpet and look under that. Nothing. The largest spider in all of California can not just vanish. As I put the carpet back down I notice that it's clinging to the wall maybe two feet form the ground. If you drew a circle around its legs the diameter would probably be 2.5 or 3 inches. So I did what anyone would do:
1) Ran to get my camera and took some pictures
2) Ran and got the vacuum and sucked its ass into oblivion.

Despite my careful inspection of the vacuum canister I couldn't find his body, but there was a LOT of cat hair so I suppose it was unlikely I was going to find piece of mind in a lifeless spider body. I also carefully inspected the vacuum hose with a flash light even though I could picture the Hollywood consequences of peering down a spider trap, flash light in hand, eye just an inch from the hole.

And now I've been jumpy. I was inspecting a computer screen full of spider pictures when Midge came up behind me and put her paw on my leg. I very nearly jumped out of my chair, but my desk is heavy and I just ran my thighs into my drawer. It scared the crap out of Midge too, serves her right. And it doesn't help that she keeps slowly patrolling the house, looking under the bed, under the shelves, and in all in nooks and crannies trying to figure out where she saw the other giant spider. I'm convinced it's living in my slipper.

Does anyone want to see the giant spider pictures? I appologize in advance if you do, they lack scale.

Update: Photo

I added the quarter in for scale.