so.there.we.were

Ever since I started at my new job and have been on a Mac, I’ve loathed sitting at my PC at home. It just seems so … pedestrian, and frustrating. If I could buy an iMac for the house, I most definitely would. But the funds are not permitting that kind of extravagance at the moment, especially since the PC I do have is tricked-out to the balls. I’m a nerd.

(Sidenote: Does anyone want to buy a nice HP Desktop?)

The other problem is that my iPod is formatted for a Windows machine (from before the Mac age) and so all of my music lives on the PC at home for iPod purposes and on the WD MyBook sitting on my desk at work, to which my Mac iTunes library is pointed.

The second problem is that I spend infinitely more time on the computer at work than I do at home, so I find it easier to download my monthly eMusic selections onto the external hard drive and just let it work in the background while I, myself, work.

So, now I have two very slightly different music libraries. One at home, which gets some CDs ripped into it on occasion, and one at work, which gets the eMusic stuff. It got very, very, very frustrating having to manually sync these drives.

Enter Microsoft SyncToy.

I had found a bunch of third-party apps that charge $30 or so to bi-directionally sync these folders, but they always seemed a little….shady. At least Microsoft was a known entity, and the download was free.

Literally three clicks later and my two 80gb drives were completely in sync (not N’Sync). Easy peasy, Apple-easy, which is a high compliment for an MS app. The program is lightweight, fast and very effective. Well done.

Add to that a little program called FixTunes, and my music library is looking brilliant.

But I still want an iMac.