Syncing iTunes between two remote computers

For some of you this might not seem like a big deal... but for a very long time I have had my music library at work and one at home. Sometimes I'd rename id3 tags at work but not at home and vice versa. Sometimes I'd buy music online and add to my home iTunes library and then the process of taking that to work usually meant I'd copy the new music to my memory stick or a portable hard drive etc... then the iTunes xml and info files would be out of whack and I'd have to reimport all the files to get it going... FINALLY those days are over for me!

I now simply use FolderShare which was semi-recently purchased by Microsoft to use with Vista. It allows syncronazation of two remote pc's files. There's been other's: some free and open source..but none in my opinion come close to the power of Folder Share. I'm behind a rather heavy duty firewall at work and it still works.

Ok. Using folder share now means that when i add or make a change to one file, it automatically happens at the other coumputer too - as long as FolderShare is on. The kicker was finding a a fantastic app called iTlu short for iTunes Library Updater. Once installed, if you add files to your iTunes library, the xml and info files are updated...thus, you no longer have to import or drag and drop etc... Combine this program with Folder Share and I NEVER have to lug music back and forth and can rename and delete or add in confindence that when I get home or back to work the same files will be there. And when i open iTunes, I just see the new files as the most recent in the library without any effort. I LOVE this and wanted for a long time. Of course Briefcase is smiliar but not very network remoting friendly. All the other ones I tried had problems too. I've heard about FolderShare crashing, but after two weeks...it's fine. Today I did the same with my photo collection.

Perhaps MAC has had this feature for a while, i dunno...but for the PC, this has been long overdue.. I hate having two frequently used PCs with different music libraries.. with a lot of music it can get out of hand quickly and you forget what you uploaded when and where.. and forget about renaming becuase you'd have to copy new filenames over ect...

//Michael.