In general, I’m pretty happy with iTunes, and I’m surprised how much a misotech like me has enjoyed this innovation that the kids call an iPod. However, I have two things that bug me, and I’m wondering if anyone has ever found a way around them.
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In the podcasts section of iTunes, there’s a feature that stops downloading your podcasts if you ‘haven’t listened to any episodes lately.’ (That’s more or less a quotation of the error message.) Is there any way to turn that nagging Nanny feature off? Especially with news podcasts, if I didn’t listen to the Sept. 10th version of ‘The World at Six’ before the Sept. 11th version came out, that’s no reason to assume I don’t want to download the podcast any more.
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On my new iPod classic, it defaults to a large display of the time if I haven’t touched the click wheel for about 2 or 3 minutes. I want it to stay on the ‘Now Playing’ screen - I don’t care if the backlight goes out, I just want to be able to glance at the iPod and identify the current track without having to change the volume, click the lock on and off, etc. I have a watch, I have clocks; the iPod is the only thing that can tell me what it is playing at any given moment.
Any advice greatly appreciated…
I use an applescript for this, see here. It refreshes all expired podcasts.
menu>extras>clock>clockname>sleep timer>OFF
Got that - thanks!
I may have a different iPod classic - my menu isn’t the same.
For what it’s worth, mine is a Model MB562C, and its version is 2.0.1 Mac
My sequence goes menu>extras>clocks and then clocks will toggle on or off. It has been off. I have toggled Extras off, which may cost me my chess game, but it would be worth it.
ETA - Nope, that didn’t get it!
I’ll check the site where you got the iTunes Apple Script and see if there’s anything already there. Many thanks for your help!
Is it one of the old black and white ipods?
It might be in one of the other settings. I would go through each menu item in your ipod to see if anything seems relevant. It might be that on your ipod it’s tied into your backlight timer settings, in which case try increasing the time before your backlight turns off.
You can also try updating your ipod software in itunes (this is different than syncing).
As for the podcasts, that script is manual, so you have to run it everytime you open itunes. Which is fine for me, but if you want some kind of automatic version you can try this software which can also delete podcasts on a schedule, or you can set up a repeating item in ical (assuming you have a mac), or set up a workflow (on a mac). I can help with ical but not with workflows.