Two IPODS One Mac

[R.Webb]

My daughter tells me that when charging, or adding songs the process will delete all the ipod music and reload it with the new tune. She is deathly afraid that if load songs into the nano I just won in a raffle that my songs will automatically load onto her regular IPOD. Which of course would reduce that capacity both devices and, perish the thought, we may accidently listen each others tunes.

Is this true? Is there a way around the problem. My nano sits lonely in its box and empty :confused:

Thanks for your help.

R. Webb

[trevor]

You should have different user accounts on the computer, and thus different songs in your iTunes libraries. Is that not the case?

There are also ways around this if everybody MUST use the same user account, such as "Manual Updating". But I'm not quite sure of the situation yet, and why you wouldn't have different user accounts.

Trevor

[R.Webb]

Thanks Trevor,

I will give that a try. I am not really a mac savvy person or computer savvy for that matter. I have found that this kind of message board is very useful from everything from fixing your auto to fixing a sagging roof.

Its the Journey!

[Screengem0531]

The iPod and iTunes works a little differntly then most people think. When you plug an iPod into a computer, you not only add songs to it but you put a link between the iPod and the iTunes library. The iPod kind of "belongs" to the computer you used to put music on the iPod.

If you plug that iPod into a different computer, it will ask you if you want to change the "link" to its own iTunes library. If you do change the link, the iPod now "belongs" to the new computer. It will now erase every song on the iPod and put the new songs it. This is to keep people from going to all of their friends houses and steal the music.

Now to do what you want to do, I would plug the iPods into the computers they "belong" to and go to your iPod prefs and change them from Auto update to Manual update. That is the way around of plugging your iPod into a computer it doesn't belong to and not losing your music. You'll have to leave them on Manual update to keep from losing the original music. So now you have 2 Manual update iPods plugged into one computer.

It may be a good thing in your case the the iPods are on Manual update because then you drag and drop the songs you want on the iPod and you don't have to listen to the other person's songs.

It sounds to me like thats what you want to do correct?

[chinajon]

The Mac can behave as if it were more than one computer. :p
All users have access to 'Applications'
When you set up the Mac you can have user accounts with separate passwords, or no passwords.
Each account will have a section of the hard drive for it's own use that other users can not access. This is one of the ways the Mac reduces virus infections and hacking.
Each account has an area where files can be shared with the other users, or even the Internet if you are connected and want to do that.
Each account will have a space with its own Home area that includes:

Movies - Each user will have their own collection of movies and use iDVD or iMovie to access it.
Mail - Each user will have their own collection of email and use Mail to access it.
Pictures - Each user will have their own collection of photos and use iPhoto to access it.
Music - Each user will have their own collection of music and use iTunes to access it.
Public - Each use can put things in the Publlic folder for others to use.
Library - Each user can have their own prefs
Desktop - Each user can have their own desktop arrangement and decoration, including resolution. (If users have the same resolution, the Mac will rotate between teh users in a very cool animaiton....

Re iPods... If you have it set up for one family as a single user, then each user can make playlists and each user must select their own playlists to put on their ipod. So, select manual update, selected playlists only. Each user will have to deselect the other person's playlist and select their own each time they want to update.
:confused:
This is not the best way. It is best for each user to have their own account and then everything is automatic when you are logged in as that user. Then they can tell iTunes to automatically update their iPod. :)