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iWalkman - Synchronize Your SE Walkman Phone With iTunes! |
OfficeMaven
Joined: Jul 26, 2005
Posts: 182
PM |
Hi All,
I've just finished writing a Windows-based add-in for iTunes that will allow you to synchronize all of the music and videos you have stored in iTunes with your Walkman phone.
The program is designed to work with all of the new SE Walkman phones (W800, W600, W550, etc.) but it will still work with the K750, S700, etc. In fact, it should work with virtually any music player (phone or not) that can act as a Mass Storage Device (MSD).
iWalkman runs as a small icon in your system tray and you simply right-mouse-click on it to bring up the program's main popup menu:
What Can iWalkman Do?
In my opinion, iTunes is one of the best music organizers on the market today. Unfortunately, iTunes doesn’t directly support the synchronizing of your music with a Mass Storage Device (MSD). This means that there is no way of synchronizing your Sony Ericsson Walkman phone with the music you have stored in iTunes.
Fortunately, iWalkman comes to the rescue and resolves this problem for you.
With iWalkman, you can synchronize your Walkman phone with iTunes just as if it were a virtual iPod® or iTunes Mobile Phone (i.e. ROKR)!
Besides just being able to copy music from iTunes to your Walkman phone (or MSD), iWalkman has a whole bounty of other great features which allow you to:
· Synchronize both music AND videos.
· Specify the exact location on your MSD where your music and video files are to be stored.
· Specify how much of the disk space available on your MSD you want to use for music and video storage.
· Properly arrange and name your music and videos so as to take full advantage of the Walkman player’s Artists, Tracks, and Videos organization.
· Organize songs that are part of a compilation album by the album’s title instead of separating them all out by their individual artists.
· Organize your music by a multitude of categories such as playlist, genre, artist, album, artist & album, year, rating, composer, and grouping.
· Copy audio files to your MSD in a random order until all of the available free space on your MSD is filled up.
· Select exactly which iTunes playlists you want to synchronize.
· Prioritize the order in which your playlists are synchronized.
· Perform on-the-fly conversion of your audio files into your desired audio format (MPEG/MP3 or AAC/M4A).
· Perform on-the-fly conversion of your audio files to match your desired bit rate level.
· Perform on-the-fly conversion of your audio files to match your desired sample rate level.
Here's a screen shot of iWalkman's Preferences dialog box where you control exactly how the program works:
You can download a free 21-day trial version of the program from my web site here:
http://www.i-Walkman.com
I hope that you guys find it as useful as I have. 
-- Mike Craven (The Office Maven) |
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masseur
Joined: Jan 03, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Sydney, London
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that looks like an interesting new twist on what we saw here previously!
Crackers turn Sony Ericsson W800i into the second iTunes phone
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OfficeMaven
Joined: Jul 26, 2005
Posts: 182
PM |
Yes, that's the app that sparked my interest in iTunes in the first place. However, it wouldn't work for me (kept erroring out) and so I decided to build one for myself instead.
The iWalkman program is working great for me here and I'm really loving it. Once you start using it, you'll wonder how you ever got along without it. I never minded SE's Disc2Phone app, but once you see how much more power iTunes has you'll be shocked. I for one haven't opened my Disc2Phone app once since I started using iWalkman and iTunes and I don't miss it one bit.
I only hope that you guys find it just as useful.
Take care...
-- MIKE |
Grimslade
Joined: Jul 25, 2004
Posts: 464
From: London
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Mike, you left out the most important part--after the free trial, what does it cost? 
This message was posted from a K750
[ This Message was edited by: Grimslade on 2005-10-24 21:02 ] |
OfficeMaven
Joined: Jul 26, 2005
Posts: 182
PM |
Quote:
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On 2005-10-22 01:03:17, Grimslade wrote:
Mike, you left out the most important part--after the free trial, what does it cost?
This message was posted from a K750
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Oops... Sorry about that.
I'm selling it for $19.95 USD.
All of the details are on the web site.
-- MIKE |
carkitter
Joined: Apr 29, 2005
Posts: > 500
From: Auckland, NZ
PM |
Looks like a good app you've got there.
Could you post a list of non-walkman phones that it is compatible with, either here or on the website?
Will it work with K700 or V800?
Does it synchronise using bluetooth?
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GothTeddy
Joined: Mar 27, 2003
Posts: 86
From: Scotland
PM |
It'll be compatible with anything that uses a memory card. Since you can specify the directory structure, you can tailor it to the needs of any phone.
Very nice piece of software, Mike  If I ever find myself without my Mac, (and thus, stuck with a wondows box ) I'll be sure to give this a go. |
OfficeMaven
Joined: Jul 26, 2005
Posts: 182
PM |
GothTeddy,
Thanks for the great comments as I really do appreciate them. Also, thanks for stepping in and fielding that question for me.
carkitter,
Thanks for your comments too.
Alas, I'm afraid that I don't have a specific list of phones that iWalkman will work with as the list could go on forever.
Just as GothTeddy so elegantly explained, iWalkman will work with any mass storage device that organizes its music (and videos) in a folder. Thus, if your other phones, media players, etc. have the ability to be plugged into your computer and show up as a removable drive (or if they have a removable memory card that can be plugged into a card reader/writer) they'll work just fine with iWalkman. Therefore, lots of devices (like the new Sony PSP, etc.) will work with iWalkman.
Lastly, I'm afraid that iWalkman does not sync over Bluetooth.
Thanks again guys and have fun using the program...
-- MIKE |
Sharkey
Joined: Sep 29, 2002
Posts: 70
From: Dublin , Ireland
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I tried this product and it wiped ALL my video files and themes .....
CAREFULL
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cyenid
Joined: Jul 19, 2004
Posts: 6
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yepp this one wiped my mem card clean and it doesn't synchronize anything from iTunes.
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OfficeMaven
Joined: Jul 26, 2005
Posts: 182
PM |
SAY WHAT!!!
That's no happening to me here...
Could you please tell me what phone (or other MSD device) you were using with iWalkman when this happened to you? Also, did you point the program to the proper location on your phone's MSD where your music/audio files live?
I certainly don't want this happening to anyone and so far no one has reported the problem to me other than you two (and you didn't even bother to formally report it to me on my web site but instead you just bag on it here and I'm not sure why??? How are bugs to get fixed unles I know about them???).
I'm not able to reproduce the problem here on any of my in-house test machines and iWalkman is synchronizing with iTunes just fine for me here. Hmmm....
If this is indeed a problem I'd really like to get it fixed so please do provide me with all of the information/details that you can.
BTW, I'm being told that there is a HUGE bug in the latest R1N firmware of the K750 and W800 phones where your music is mysteriously erased after copying it to the memory stick via the phone's USB fast port connection. Thus, perhaps you guys have run into this R1N bug and it's not iWalkman that erased your files at all. From what I'm being told, the ONLY way around the problem is to either use Disc2Phone to copy your files to the phone directly, or pick up as cheep (i.e. under $15) USB Memory Stick reader/writer (like the one made by ScanDisk) and use that to add music to your phone instead of a direct fast port connection.
Thus, could you also tell me if your K750 or W800 is using R1N0035 or not? If so, then that's probably what the problem is. |
OfficeMaven
Joined: Jul 26, 2005
Posts: 182
PM |
Oh and BTW... Just to make sure that this isn't a problem with you guys understanding how a "synchronization" works with iWalkman:
If you happened to turn ON the "Synchronize Video Files" option in iWalkman's Preferences dialog box (it's OFF by default), then that forces iWalkman to synchronize the videos on your phone (in the viedo folder you told it to use or in the default video folder for the phone if you didn't specify one) with the videos in your selected iTunes playlists.
Thus, if you had videos on your phone that weren't in your selected iTunes playlists (and you turned this setting ON - again, it's OFF by default), then they would indeed get deleted by iWalkman since it is "synchronizing" the video folder on your phone with the videos you've selected in your iTunes playlists. That's EXACTLY what a synchronization is supposed to do. You just need to make sure that you understand that the synchronization in iWalkman (as with any program of this type) is from iTunes to the phone's MSD ONLY and not the other way around.
As for how your themes whould have been deleted, I have no idea unless you were storing them in your phone's video folder???
I hope this helps explain things some... |
OfficeMaven
Joined: Jul 26, 2005
Posts: 182
PM |
Here's an Esato post that talks about the R1N firmware bug where your files are deleted (or just disappear) after using the fast port to copy them over to your Memory Stick:
http://www.esato.com/board/viewtopic.php?topic=106411
Definitely sounds like that what the problem is to me. I hope that SE fixes this bug soon as I hate the fact that iWalkman is getting blamed for their problem. |
Coxy
Joined: May 09, 2005
Posts: > 500
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Any chance of ever making this free?
Feedback (+58, -0) Platinum Trader! |
Sharkey
Joined: Sep 29, 2002
Posts: 70
From: Dublin , Ireland
PM |
I had videos in my "Video's " Folder and Camera videos folder . All have been deleated . I did not cxhange any settings on the program .
Also most of my photos have been corrupted after sync ..
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Posted: 2005-10-21 23:55
