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In this third and last part of the How to Series on Podcasts, we will be discussing the fun part of transferring all your podcasts over from the computer to your portable device, whether it be a Treo, a Palm PDA, a Win Mobile device, etc.

In part 1, we discussed about what podcasts are all about and where to find all these cool podcasts that people have been raving about. In part 2, we discussed how to download these podcasts to your computer and all the various podcatcher programs or podcast client softwares out there that can download a whole batch of your subscribed podcasts to your computer.

So, we are now in Part 3, where we will discuss transferring those podcast files from the computer to our portable devices so that we can enjoy it wherever we are. And I will be explaining and discussing an easy way (or more like “easier” way) of doing so. After all, it would be kind of time consuming to manually transfer them all by hand and I doubt any of us would enjoy wasting our time doing that.

For a lot of people who use the podcast client software that I have provided a list of in part two here, you may not need to figure out how to transfer them over since some of those clients will do it for you.

For those very few who don’t have the podcast client software that will do it, here’s what I do to make it somewhat easier. I’m NOT saying it’s the best or anything like that and I’m sure there’s a huge number of methods to do it. If you know of one, please leave a comment and share it with the rest of the Palm Discovery readers. We’re only helping each other so if you know of a great idea, please share! Thanks!

Before I continue, here are the programs that are required:

SyncBack (freeware)

Card Reader or Card Export II (not freeware) or other similar Card Reader programs. Check out my posting on card reader software here for more program suggestions.

Or, instead simply put your SD card into a physical USB card reader.

Obviously, if you have a Windows Mobile device, you will need to find a similar software that will work on your device.

Setting up automatic transfer of podcast files from computer to PDA/smartphone

First, get yourself the very free program called SyncBack from 2BrightSparks. Just select SyncBack Freeware (near the middle of the page). What this program does is compare and synchronize two different folders/directories and make them the same. A lot of people use it as a backup program. I use it to transfer my podcast files on my computer to the SD card of my Treo so it backs up the podcasts from the computer to my Treo’s SD card.

Install the SyncBack program. Once installed, run the SyncBack program. I will now help you set up the program.

Next, run and enable your card reader program (ie. Card Reader, or Card Export II) or card reader so that your Treo or PDA is connected to the computer as a temporary virtual drive. This is important because you will need to establish the card connection so that the SyncBack program will be able to set up correctly so that when you run the automation process, it will work.

You’ll need to create a new Profile for SyncBack. At the top left hand corner of the program where you see the Profiles and select New as you see in the image above.

You will next see the pop up window similar to the screenshot image above. Select “Backup” and click the “Ok” button

Next, you’ll need to create a name for the new profile. Obviously, create a name that is descriptive enough for you to know what it is and what it does. (eg. Podcast transfer, etc)

The next window you see is where you specify where the source folder and the destination folder are located. Remember that you are “backing up” the files from one folder (the source) to a new folder (the destination).

So, obviously, you specify the first folder (source) to be where your iTunes folder is located on your computer. Then, you specify the folder on your Treo or PDA card where you want it backed up or stored. That folder should be pointed at the temporary virtual drive on your PDA or Treo which should be enabled since I have mentioned having that connection established. If it isn’t make sure you have enabled it now. Once you’ve specified and pointed to the folder, you are pretty much set up.

Now, we’ll discuss how to run the automatic “backup” or transfer (or more like copy) the files onto your PDA/smartphone’s SD card.

The above screenshot shows the main program window. First, you need to select the Profile or project you wish to back up. For most of us, it will likely be the only one you can see since we’ve just created only one Profile. If you have more than one, you should find the one that is the correct one. That’s why it’s important to pick a good descriptive name for the Profile.

The selection will be highlighted in black as shown above and the icons are now in color and accessible.

Click on the Run icon and the SyncBack program will run and start backing up all the files found in the source (iTunes) folder on your computer to your specified Treo or PDA SD card folder. You should be able to see the progress via the description on the right, located under the Progress column.

When done, make sure to first disconnect or stop the card reader on your computer. It’s always a good idea to stop it or you may encounter data corruption on the card if you simply physically remove the USB card reader from the USB port. Then exit out of your Card Reader program (if applicable) or remove the card reader and card.

Now, you’ve got all the podcasts on your SD card and can start enjoying it on your PDA device!

Hopefully the instructions and procedures I’ve provided here isn’t too hard to understand. Again, it does take a bit of time to set up but once it’s set up, you simply need to run a few things (plug in card reader, run SyncBack) before you head out the door. Of course, you first have to make sure you have all the podcasts downloaded first on the computer. In this case, this is where iTunes or the podcatcher programs are great because you just launch and run it and it will search for updated and new podcasts and download them all to your computer. It can be especially time consuming if you have set up a scheduled time to do this task, so you can schedule it shortly before you wake up in the morning or at other scheduled time.

Removing old or “already listened to” podcasts

Now, keep in mind that once you’ve listened to all the podcasts on your Treo or PDA device that you will need to delete them on the computer so that the next time you launch iTunes or whatever podcatcher program that you don’t still keep the old podcasts and transfer them back again. There are two main ways you can do this.

You can either delete them manually from your computer but that would mean you have to go into each folder and delete them individually and that takes time. Then you can run iTunes and go through the procedures to download the new podcasts via iTunes and transfer them over to your Treo or PDA with SyncBack.

Or, you can create a similar Profile that I’ve just described, except that you are now doing the reverse. Rather than backing up the files or podcasts you have on your computer, you are now backing up the files on your Treo or PDA to your computer.

In order to specify that SyncBack will delete the files found on the computer (destination) that aren’t in the Treo/PDA (source), you will need to specify and add a special setting.

First, in the main window where you can see a list of your Profiles, select the Profile you wish to modify. Right click on that Profile.

You should see the menu similar to the screenshot above. Select Modify as indicated.

You will see a similar pop up window to the screenshot above. Click on the Expert button as indicated.

Click on the Advanced tab as you can see in the screenshot above. Under What to do if a file is in the destination but not in the source, select Delete file from destination. Then click on the Ok button.

Now, that it’s set, if the files are not on your Treo or PDA, SyncBack will automatically delete them from your computer. So, that helps to skip another normally manual process of deleting all the podcasts from your computer.

Now, keep in mind that since you are manually deleting the files from your Treo or PDA and have SyncBack remove it, iTunes or your podcatcher won’t know about it and will likely still show that you have the file. Unfortunately, there is no way to get around it. You can unsubscribe from the podcast and re-subscribe but that’s time consuming and a bit of a hassle. Since we already know that we need only the latest podcast and all the older ones are deleted anyway, I personally don’t worry about it. I know what’s going on. If you know of a better way to have it reflected in iTunes, please drop me a line or leave a comment so that we can all benefit. Thanks.

Once the files are in your portable device, you can simply launch or run your favorite mp3 or media player program and it will detect and list the files and you can then play it. With a program like Kinoma Player 4 EX or others where, if you have specified that you wish to update or synchronize your media files manually, you may need to have it refresh and scan through the card for the files. Keep in mind that if the files still don’t show up after this, it may be that your media player doesn’t support the file format. Check to see whether this is the case. If not, you may need to do a bit of troubleshooting to verify whether the file has been corrupted or incomplete, etc. Most times, you should not encounter any problems.

So, the entire cycle goes like this:

1 - Run iTunes to download the podcasts on your computer. You may schedule it to run a few hours or minutes before you wake up, depending on the size and number of the podcasts.

2 - Run SyncBack to transfer or back up the files from your computer to your Treo or PDA. That may also take a certain amount of time. You can also have it scheduled to run after iTunes has finished.

3 - Enjoy your podcasts on your Treo and delete them when you have finished listening them.

4 - Run SyncBack so it will automatically remove the files from your computer that are no longer on your Treo or PDA.

Repeat.

Hopefully, I have provided you with a somewhat automated process that will help you enjoy your podcasts with minimal hassle.

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